Uncharted

The Neverland map we're familiar with was not drawn by J. M. Barrie, but rather Walt Disney studios and many artists thereafter. There's no map in the original book, and given Barrie's description of Neverland, it's no wonder.

"...the Neverland is always more or less an island, with astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and a hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose. It would be an easy map if that were all, but there is also first day at school, religion, fathers, the round pond, needle-work, murders, hangings, verbs that take the dative, chocolate pudding day, getting into braces, say ninety-nine, three-pence for pulling out your tooth yourself, and so on, and either these are part of the island or they are another map showing through, and it is all rather confusing, especially as nothing will stand still.

Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal. John's, for instance, had a lagoon with flamingoes flying over it at which John was shooting, while Michael, who was very small, had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it. ...on the whole the Neverlands have a family resemblance, and if they stood still in a row you could say of them that they have each other's nose, and so forth......Of all delectable islands the Neverland is the snuggest and most compact, not large and sprawly, you know, with tedious distances between one adventure and another, but nicely crammed."

The only locations Barrie mentions specifically in Peter Pan are the Neverwood, Mermaid Lagoon, and Marooner's Rock. So some of the locations we think of now as part of Neverland--Skull Rock, Cannibal Cove, Crocodile Creek--are Disney creations. This sent me off to do a bit of fact-checking when I first began The Stowaway so I wouldn't inadvertently crib from Disney. Now it's a handy reference point for me as to whether artists and writers are using Barrie or Disney as their starting point.

According to KStirling, contributor to the jmbarrie.co.uk message board (now mostly inactive, which is unfortunate for my research), a scenario Barrie wrote for a proposed silent film of his book was reprinted in a book called Fifty Years of Peter Pan by Roger Lancelyn Green. (I've found copies of the book online, but haven't committed yet to spending what it would cost to have one.) In his screenplay, Barrie wrote:

"We see the island all glorious and peaceful in a warm sun. We see the whole of it as in a map, not a modern map but the old-fashioned kind with quaintly exaggerated details. I have a map of the Never, Never Land, in this style which should be reproduced." The Beinecke Library at Yale has Barrie's actual film typescript, but I haven't been able to find out if it contains the map.

Wikipedia tells me users of Colgate-Palmolive's "Peter Pan Beauty Bar with Chlorophyll" received a copy of this promo map for the Disney film by sending in three wrappers with fifteen cents. I want one.

So, as it stands, the only maps of Neverland are from the Walt Disney film or are based on it. In The Stowaway, the Captain has a map of the island on his wall, useful as he makes excursions to and from and around it--but I make no claims as to the map's veracity, or how often its features may change.

Ultimately, I suppose the best description of Neverland's location is from Herman Melville's Moby-Dick: "It is not down on any map: true places never are."

And yet more Tink

My new favorite Tinker Bell story comes from an episode of "This American Life" I heard on NPR over the weekend. While a lot about the disaster performance of Peter Pan it described entertained me--from the Captain accidentally flinging his hook into the audience, to the flying apparatus dumping the children on the stage and dragging them through a field of papier-maché mushrooms, to the fire department response to one of the Indians spraining both ankles descending a rope ladder--my favorite part was an actual choice by the stage director. She chose to represent Tinker Bell with a light bulb on an extension cord, which would descend from above to be addressed by the cast. I still laugh every time I picture it.

And now here's Mindy Johnson's new book, "Tinker Bell: An Evolution," which explores in depth how Disney's version of the character came to be. Apparently everyone really is interested in the pixie. Surely Tink would be gratified at the attention.

A question I've had, which has been answered by the book: Tinker Bell was originally named Tippytoe and had speaking lines, but J.M. Barrie decided chimes would provide a better voice for her. One of the bells that traveling tinkers used to call customers to their wagons was used for this purpose in an early stage production, which led to her name and presumably to her trade in Barrie's book Peter and Wendy. I find it hard to imagine her now as anything other than a pots and pans fairy.

Peter flies by mail

He's everywhere, our Peter, including on postage stamps. They're a nice way to find art on a small scale by some fine illustrators.

These 1991 stamps from the island of Jersey feature paintings by Edmund Blampied, originally created for a lavish 1939 art book edition of Peter and Wendy.

The British Royal Mail issued this series by artist Colin Shearing in 2002, in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Great Ormond Street Hospital, to whom J.M. Barrie willed the proceeds of his book.

These beautiful 2010 stamps, issued to commemorate the 150th anniversary of J.M. Barrie's birth, are by David Wyatt, who illustrated the cover of the UK edition Geraldine McCaughrean's "Peter Pan in Scarlet."

(The above two sets were also issued in alternate packages featuring other characters, as you see above. But I think by now you know what to expect when you visit this blog.)

New Zealand health stamps have been issued since 1929. A portion of each sale goes to seven social service agencies formerly known as Te Puna Whaiora Children's Health Camps, which in April 2013 changed their name to Stand Children's Services. This stamp, from 1945, depicts the statue of Peter Pan in London's Kensington Garden.

Unsurprisingly, most of these stamps were issued in the U.K. This gorgeous set, however, is from the Republic of Palau in Micronesia, issued in 2012 for the 75th anniversary of Barrie's death. (There are many excuses to put out Peter Pan stamps, I'm finding).

And there are many stamps from around the world that celebrate pirates and other nautical topics. I've avoiding collecting most of the Disney Peter Pan stamps for reasons we have already discussed, but these are all right. And the rest are very nice, besides.

On the trail of Tinker Bell

Tinker Bell's transformation from a spot of light dancing about a stage to the winged pin-up girl we see everywhere today is directly a result of the 1953 Disney animated film.

Tinker Bell had appeared on film before, in a 1924 version of Peter Pan.

However, when Disney artists began work on their own version, they had their own preferences for the character. Two of the principal animators at the studio wrote that story artist 'Joe Rinaldi wanted Tinker Bell to look more like the popular bathing beauties of the time," according to Murray Pomerance in Tinker Bell: The Fairy of Electricity" in Second Star to the Right: Peter Pan in the Popular Imagination. The human model for Tink was Margaret Kerry, an actress known as "The Best Legs in Hollywood" (not Marilyn Monroe, as has often been rumored). Kerry also provided the voice of the red-haired mermaid in the film. 

The pixie's fiery personality was also developed in animation--not so far from Barrie's original descriptions, in fact.

Roy Best, 1937. Tinker Bell as drawn by a pin-up artist is less of a pin-up girl than Disney's version.

As to why Barrie included a fairy in Peter Pan to begin with, reasons are numerous. Barrie's work was influenced by the folk tales of his native Scotland, and "Kensington Garden" by Thomas Tickell, written in 1722, is frequently cited as the inspiration for the setting of Barrie's entire fairy world of Kensington Park.

In 1901, Barrie and the Llewellyn David boys were enchanted by Seymour Hicks's theatrical hit Bluebell in Fairyland, which they went to see together during Christmas time.

And specifically, in Barrie's dedication "To the Five," he writes, "As our lanterns twinkled among the leaves [Michael] saw a twinkle stand still for a moment and he waved his foot gaily to it, thus creating Tink."

Special thanks to www.rarestkindofbest.com and the (sadly) largely inactive www.jmbarrie.co.uk for information used in this post.

The wrong Jolly Roger

Whatever I may say about the accuracy of character portrayals on "Once Upon a Time," I applaud the show regularly for getting Captain Hook's ship right.

You may also recognize the Lady Washington as the Interceptor from Pirates of the Caribbean.

The producers are using the Lady Washington as their Jolly Roger (some of the filming has been done on the actual ship, the rest on a full-sized replica). And the Lady is a brig, as is the Jolly Roger, according to J.M. Barrie. You will note she has two masts. I know right away when artists haven't done their research, or have chosen to dispatch with Barrie's vision, the moment I see three masts. 

A brig has two masts, square-rigged.

I call Disney as the original instigator of this travesty.

Yes, maybe I'd like to have one of these models, but that does not mean I think this is accurate.

James Coleman, "Moonrise Over Pirate Bay," current fine art for Disney by one of its animated film landscape artists. Beautiful! But not a brig.

I suppose Disney's version has become the popular default.

Nadir Quinto, 1982

But it's hardly just Disney.

Model for the ship in the 2003 film of Peter Pan. Looks to me like a clipper, maybe, not a brig

I don't know why it's hard to get this one right. It's easy enough to do the research, and a brig is a lovely ship--it's not as though it weren't just as pretty as a clipper or a frigate, even if less imposing.

A brig! Robert Ingpen, 2004

Of course, it's not as if I'm not also confronted regularly with the placement of the Captain's hook on the incorrect hand. I just realized even one of my favorite Peter Pan artists' renditions has that issue.

Gwynedd M. Hudson,  1931. It is almost impossible to find biographical information about her online, and I was sorry to discover this may be because she died at the age of 26.  Hudson studied at the Brighton School of Art, and is also remembered for her illustrations for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

At least I know artists have used the play as their inspiration at least as much as the book as regards the hook, which is an element that has changed from one production (and actor) to the next. I don't think they have as good an excuse for ship inaccuracies.

Many kinds of pixie dust

Tinker Bell, the pots and pans fairy, has been envisioned by artists in more varied ways than Peter Pan himself. 

J.M. Barrie describes her as "exquisitely gowned in a skeleton leaf, cut low and square, through which her figure could be seen to best advantage. She was slightly inclined to embonpoint." The French term meaning that she was probably plump and definitely busty, and the description in total implying she is proud of her charms. Artists have interpreted her more or less accordingly, with this less-than-ethereal, utterly 1980s version by Regis Loisel an apt interpretation.

Regis Loisel, 1992

Perhaps his description seemed too adult for earlier illustrators.

Marjorie Torrey, 1957

Disney's Tinker Bell is suitably sparkly and bratty, and I like how her wings are animated. I've never been able to quite get my head around the ballerina bun and shoe pompons, but this version is actually not far from Barrie's description.

Disney, 1953

The omnipresence of Disney's Tink has not prevented artists from seeing her in guises from this lovely, if slender, portrayal

Trina Schart Hyman, 1980

to glamorous, ethereal versions

Anne Graham Johnstone, 1988

to modern depiction like this one from Zenescope. Not a traditional portrayal, to be sure, but not as far from Barrie as one might at first think.

Even before she became the de facto ambassador for Disneyland, Tinker Bell had traveled far from her beginnings as a spot of light projected about a stage.

Unbearable Art, Pt. 3

I know this is unfair, because marionettes can't help having features like this. But when I look at this alarming item, I being to understand why there are so many dark Peter Pan interpretations. It's especially funny that this was a Disney version.

I mean, look at Hook here. He's positively genial in comparison.

It doesn't help much seeing them side by side.

If you're interested in early-1900s antiques and toys, these links all go to worthwhile places. I had to spend some extra time with the last, Pastimes Quilt Design, for the furniture alone.

Lovely Wendy's here to stay

My favorite character in Peter Pan may be obvious (what?), but Wendy Darling was always my next favorite. So I have felt protective about her portrayal for years, even before I learned of the character's origin. Wendy Moira Angela Darling was based on Margaret Henley, daughter of William Ernest Henley, author of the poem “Invictus” and the man Robert Louis Stephenson used as the inspiration for Long John Silver. (Again, so much involving Peter Pan folds back on itself.) Margaret was too young to pronounce her r's and called Barrie her “fwendy-wendy.” She died of cerebral meningitis in 1894, at the age of five.

Thus it's with relief I find respectful depictions of Wendy throughout the years, varied as they are. I think most of us are used to the depiction of Wendy in the 1953 animated Disney film, 

but before then, she was mostly depicted as darker-haired, from Alice Woodward's 1904 illustrations

to Flora White's in 1914

to Roy Best (the artist whose 1931 book illustrations are the first I've found of Captain Hook in a red coat). 

Those versions make the sudden appearance of Wendy as white-blonde a bit startling. (Also a little disturbing is how grown-up Anne Grahame Johnston's Wendy sometimes looks.) 

Nadir Quinto went a similar route, with a rather alarming Wendy in frosted eyeshadow. At least Peter is accurate to the book. And I suppose that could be an acorn button on the chain around her neck.

When it came to deciding how I wanted Wendy to look in The Stowaway, I had to give the matter real thought. Because I do describe all my characters physically, at least briefly, I had to think how she was most real to me. Finally I realized that in some sense she will always be the Wendy from the first copy of the original story I read, with Nora S. Unwin's 1950 illustrations. Her slight, elfin Peter will always live in my mind somewhere as well. (This, incidentally, is the mystery book I found in my mailbox two weeks ago. I believe it's a first edition. I remain baffled by its arrival.)

Without Wendy there would be no story. Because she's a girl, she was my entry point into the story, and while I didn't so much identify with her and her aspirations, I thought of her as someone I would like as a friend. I have the impression Barrie regarded her highly as well, given her rounded characterization. Wendy chooses her role as mother of the lost boys, accepts the trade-offs that come with it, and is the one at the end who not only gets her brothers home but finds a home for the boys. She accepts that Peter cannot give her what she wants from him, and she moves on with grace. While the Edwardian era did not offer a girl much alternative, I find it refreshing that Wendy actually looked forward to the role of being a traditional mother.This desire can be a difficult character trait to pull off even now, but Barrie did it without being either condescending or idealizing her.

I just learned that artist Jan Ormerod died on May 8. Her version of Wendy from 1988 is more carefree and whimsical than most, and it seems appropriate to close with her. Wendy deserves a few moments of abandon.

(Title quote from the 1954 Broadway musical version of Peter Pan, by the way.)

Mysteries solving themselves

Back in March, I found these at a local Value Village. $1.99 each. I tried without success to find out who the artist was, and friends who searched on my behalf came up with nothing either. (The limitations of internet search have become frustratingly apparent to me as I've progressed on my project.)

But last week, I acquired a book (Peter Pan on Stage and Screen, 1904-2010, by Bruce K. Hanson) in hopes of determining which songs entered the stage production when, for possible reference in chapter titles, and inadvertently got the answer to my mystery as well.

The book is filled with illustrations,  many of them in color. Including this one:

These are undoubtedly, to my mind, from the same family. Both this poster, from the book, and mine are for Charles Frohman productions, and as far as I can tell, they're by the same artist, Charles Buchel, for Strobridge Litho Co.I'm guessing these were all from the same 1906-07 production. I call success! This is why I am continually searching for pieces to fit together, because they don't always come from expected places.

The chances of my stumbling across those posters in a Value Village? I can't say. They're in far too good condition to be anything other than reproductions, but they certainly aren't any of the more commonly seen artistic promotions of the play. I'm quite pleased with my find, especially now that I have this new information.

Charles Frohman himself is an interesting footnote. A renowned Broadway producer, he discovered a number of American theater stars and had one of his greatest successes with his 1905 Peter Pan. One of the friends I mentioned earlier pointed me towards the story of Frohman's death: He was aboard the RMS Lusitania in 1915, within sight of the coast of Ireland, when the ship was hit by a German torpedo. With an injured leg, he couldn't manage the jump into a lifeboat, so instead he stood on deck talking to friends and smoking a cigar. Reportedly he paraphrased a line from Peter Pan as they waited for the ship to go down: "Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure that life gives us."

Art spotting

I have found an artist who drew Captain Hook in a red coat pre-Disney.

American illustrator Roy Best was contracted by Whitman Publishing Company in 1931 to illustrate The Peter Pan Picture Book, based on the play. This is the first portrayal of Hook in red that I have found, and I suspect it was the original inspiration for Disney's art design. Although the animated film was not released until 1953, Walt Disney began work on it in 1935, only to have production derailed by World War II.

Note also Peter in green tunic and tights, with feathered cap. Hmm.

Roy Best also illustrated "Saturday Evening Post" covers. And painted pin-up girls. Well, I have long maintained that Peter Pan is not exclusively a children's book.

Keeping faith

Retellings are part of the tradition of fairy tales and one of my favorite literary forms. Most of these, of course, are tales that originated so long ago we have no idea of their beginnings, although we may know their more familiar interpreters, and that provides a certain amount of latitude when deciding how to represent the story.

"Peter Pan"is a challenge for me in this regard, as we do have the original text of the original story in both J.M. Barrie's 1904 play, and in his 1911 book, but there are ways in which they disagree. The play itself went through numerous revisions during its first years. And then there are the multitudinous interpretations of both, some of which are better known than the originals, including the inescapable (trust me on this) Disney film which has become an overlay over nearly every Peter Pan retelling since its release in 1953. So many iconic representations that don't agree with the original, and here am I, trying to be true to the original without disregarding other interpretations or inadvertently stealing from them.

Our boys as most of the world now pictures them, courtesy of Disney Studios. (|Yes, that is commentary as well as an accurate credit.)

But it was not always thus. Behold, Peter Pan in red. And Captain Hook in blue. This is by Alice Woodward, from a 1907 novelization of the play by Daniel O'Connell. (And off to ABE Books your blogger went, having just discovered today that this book exists. Yes, there are affordable copies, and I can't wait to get that full set of pictures.)

Here we have an illustration by Flora White  from 1914, after the initial publication of "Peter and Wendy" in 1911. Possibly the skeleton leaves that Barrie describes Peter as wearing, but again he's in red.

Barrie himself chose Mabel Lucie Attwell to illustrate the gift book version of "Peter Pan" in 1921. Still not the green tunic and tights most people picture Peter wearing**. I'm also struck by how young he looks, unlike most versions since.

The first version I can find of Captain Hook in red is 1931, Gwynedd Hudson's illustrations.

 Although I wonder if this was colored in after 1953, because I have two books with versions of his art (hush), and in one, all the pictures are brown on white, and in the other, the colored plates appear as so:

Disney made the red coat iconic, and it's not until the 2000s that I find any new art with Hook wearing any color besides red. Without the red coat, the central metaphor falls right out of Peter Pan in Scarlet*. I want to think this is enough reason to keep the red coat. But mostly, I like James in red, even if Disney has earned  enough of my ire for distorting the original story that I try to avoid reference to that version altogether (not just for copyright reasons, although they would be enough). I make a nod to the original portrayals of Hook's garment toward the end of "The Stowaway," but James will wear his red coats (yes, they are plural) throughout the story.

And hence my little ballet of being as faithful as I can to the original, plus respecting what's come to be tradition, while trying to keep track of dozens of interpretations over the last 102 years.

*The only authorized sequel to the original, by Geraldine McCaughrean, winner of a 2004 contest sponsored by Great Ormond Street Hospital, to which Barrie willed all proceeds from his book.

**Where would Peter get green tights, anyway? The question answered itself as soon as I'd thought of it--he'd steal them from nurseries, of course.

All my fears are one

I have a story.

It chose me.

I don't want to disappoint it.