Sir James Barrie | 1860-1937 At the forefront of the Edwardian cult of childhood was Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie's play about a boy who would not grow up. Between 1904 and 1915, Peter Pan played on the London stage to sold-out crowds every Christmas. Peter Pan also ushered in a greater commercialization of children's literature. Peter Pan in Kensington Garden, published in 1906 and illustrated by Arthur Rackham, was the Christmas gift of choice for children swept up in the Neverland of the fairy story. After Peter Pan, the book industry began to produce not only more elaborate editions of children's books, like Rackham's, but also better and cheaper editions. The Edwardians' idealized children also became an ideal market. Barrie, who was made a baronet in 1913, knew the London literary market well. Born in the provincial Scottish town of Kirriemuir, Barrie went to London to embark on a journalism career. For the St. James Gazette he wrote a series of columns about his native town, which in the Gazette he called "Thrums." In 1888, Barrie published Auld Licht Idylls, a collection of these columns, and this volume, along with its sequels, A Window in Thrums and The Little Minister, solidified his literary reputation. Other plays and books followed, most notably the 1902 novel The Little White Bird, in which the story of Peter Pan appears for the first time. The Little White Bird is notable also for its theme -- a version of which would appear two years later in Peter Pan -- of a boyish man who refuses to "grow up" but who also seeks affection and allegiance from an idealized boy. Barrie's boy-love disturbs the modern reader in ways that the vast majority of Edwardians would not have even had the language to articulate. Instead, a huge Edwardian audience loved Peter Pan for its celebration of the triumphs of joyful youth. Barrie never again enjoyed a success on the scale of Peter Pan, but he did enjoy the perpetual success of his creation, which granted him an eternal connection of sorts to the youth he so idealized.