Neverland

by Piers Dudgeon

Overview

The untold story behind Peter Pan: The shocking account of J. M. Barrie's abuse and exploitation of the du Maurier family.

In his revelatory Neverland, Piers Dudgeon tells the tragic story of J. M. Barrie and the Du Maurier family. Driven by a need to fill the vacuum left by sexual impotence, Barrie sought out George du Maurier, Daphne du Maurier’s grandfather (author of the famed Trilby), who specialized in hypnosis. Barrie’s fascination and obsession with the Du Maurier family is a shocking study of greed and psychological abuse, as we observe Barrie as he applies these lessons in mind control to captivate George’s daughter Sylvia, his son Gerald, as well as their children—who became the inspiration for the Darling family in Barrie’s immortal Peter Pan.

Barrie later altered Sylvia’s will after her death so that he could become the boys’ legal guardian, while pushing several members of the family to nervous breakdown and suicide. Barrie’s compulsion to dominate was so apparent to those around him that D. H. Lawrence once wrote: J. M Barrie has a fatal touch for those he loves. They die.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781605987620
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	07/15/2011
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Piers Dudgeon worked closely with Daphne du Maurier on her book Enchanted Cornwall. He began his research on his book  Neverland after learning that Daphne had placed a moratorium on her diaries until fifty years after her death. Piers has worked with authors as diverse as John Fowles, Peter Ackroyd, Shirley Conran and Ted Hughes. He lives in London.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vii

Family Tree xi

Author's Note xiii

Part I 1945-1960 The Lost Boys and Daphne

Chapter 1 Peter's suicide: a case to answer 3

Chapter 2 What is the secret? 27

Part II 1789-1862 Kicky and Barrie: learning to fly

Chapter 1 Du Maurier dreamers 39

Chapter 2 Peak experience 44

Chapter 3 The boy who hated mothers 58

Chapter 4 Nervous breakdown 78

Part III 1885-1894 Kicky, Barrie and Svengali: the secret

Chapter 1 Impotent and ambitious 91

Chapter 2 Gateway to Neverland 98

Chapter 3 Purloining the key 116

Chapter 4 The corruption of Neverland 123

Part IV 1894-1910 Sylvia, the Lost Boys and Uncle Jim: the Peter Pan Inheritance

Chapter 1 Slipping into madness 139

Chapter 2 Predator and victim 146

Chapter 3 Philanderings in the park 152

Chapter 4 The boy in the box 156

Chapter 5 Flying Uncle Jim to Neverland 167

Chapter 6 Peter Pan, a demon boy 176

Chapter 7 Sylvia's Will 186

Part V 1910-1921 Michael, Daphne and Uncle Jim: 'An Awfully Big Adventure'

Chapter 1 Looking for Michael 201

Chapter 2 Daphne's initiation 213

Chapter 3 Michael's suicide 232

Part VI 1921-1989 Uncle Jim and Daphne: the Rebecca Inheritance

Chapter 1 Rebecca, a demon boy 249

Chapter 2 Breakdown and suicide 278

Chapter 3 No escape 288

Appendix: On Women in Love 293

Bibliography 298

Notes 301

Acknowledgements and Sources 312

Index 316

Editorial Reviews

Adopting both the general notion and the melodramatic tone of D.H. Lawrence's famous comment-"J.M. Barrie has a fatal touch for those he loves. They die"-Dudgeon (Our East End: Memories of Life in Disappearing Britain, 2008, etc.) presents the author of Peter Pan as a crippled soul who deliberately manipulated the lives and psyches of numerous associates and children. Why? Not for sex-the author dismisses this notion out of hand-but in compensation for a childhood so "bereft of wonder" that he was left incapable of any genuine ability to love. How? Through hypnosis and autosuggestion, techniques inspired by Svengali, the villain in George Du Maurier's novel Trilby. Who? Dudgeon trots in a large company over whom Barrie "extend[ed] his malign power," including but not limited to the five "Lost Boys" of that same Du Maurier's daughter Sylvia, his son Gerald Du Maurier, Gerald's daughter Daphne and, for variety, the doomed explorer Robert Scott. All did indeed die young, commit suicide and/or suffer lifelong emotional problems. Furthermore, the author ups the body count by suggesting that Barrie played a hushed-up role in the accidental death of his older brother in childhood. The evidence for this, as for Dudgeon's entire thesis, is at best circumstantial. Aside from sure proof, presented in a pair of photos, that Barrie altered Sylvia's will to give him guardianship over the boys, it's all based on suppositions, uneasy comments or dark hints by contemporaries, bald guesses and supposedly telling parallels between fleshly characters and those in either Barrie's works or various of the Du Mauriers' "autobiographical psycho-novels."Nowhere near a cut-and-dried case, but plausible enoughto leave readers-particularly those who found Peter Pan disquieting (which it is)-wondering.

Kirkus Reviews

Meticulous and highly provocative... Dudgeon knows what he's doing and builds his case with precision and coolness... It's a gripping read that exposes the dark side to two seemingly innocent activities, writing and loving children... Dudgeon has exposed, in quite a magnificent way, the power and potential for abuse in both.

The Scotsman

A fascinating account of the psychological web in which Barrie trapped the tragic du Maurier family.

David Lodge

Starred Review. Over the course of what becomes a page-turner, Dudgeon charts the lives of three generations of writers to show how the sins, dark gifts, and obsessions of the famed Punch illustrator and best-selling novelist du Maurier were visited on the author of Peter Pan.

Booklist

Dudgeon...has negotiated the dark back-tracks and by-ways of Barrie's chilling Neverland.... He tells a terrible story without sentimentality, without sensationalism and without undue psychologising... Intelligently and feelingly done.

Brian Morton - Sunday Herald [London]

A history of psychological domination and submission, unnatural family relations, predatory abuse and suicide.

Michael Dirda - Washington Post

A rattling grisly read... 'May God blast anyone who writes a biography of me,' Barrie warned and his curse was surely aimed at Dudgeon, who goes further than any other biographer... I defy you not to be captivated.

Frances Wilson - Sunday Times [London]

Dudgeon’s portrait of Barrie—as a man who filled the vacuum of his own sexual impotence by a compulsive desire to possess the family who inspired his most famous creation, Peter Pan—will be of interest to anyone who has followed the twists of the du Maurier family history.

Justine Picardie

A riveting joy. I was literally captivated by this story. Poor scintillating du Mauriers. Poor boys....I felt as if I was living it.

Nina Auerbach

Neverland has hot- and cold-running secrets, as well as tentacles that extend out to touch Henry James, D. H. Lawrence, and Arthur Conan Doyle.

Janet Maslin - The New York Times