Stop thimbling and I'll save you both!
Jan. 12th, 2012 08:23 pmSo I did the coolest thing ever today. Because apparently (HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS) my University has possession of the original (as in, very first ever, handwritten, still-untitled, with scritch-ed out bits and different names sometimes) manuscript of Peter Pan. November 1903. So today I went to the rare books collection and they got it out of the vault for me and I sat there and read the whole thing.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
theprimrosepath, when you suggested that Barrie wasn't yet capable of writing the ending to this story - you were right. The ending to this version is completely different in every way. That horrible ending that's been a sore spot in me all my life isn't even there. Instead, Peter and Wendy and all the lost boys fly back to London, where they then advertise for all the most beautiful mothers, and then Peter and Wendy test them to see which are the right mothers for which boys - and they're all countesses with ridiculous names, and the entire thing is farcical and ridiculous and completely gives the lie to any attempt to view London and the Neverland as polarized spaces. London is every bit as silly. And then, once all the boys are disposed of, Wendy and Peter try to say goodbye, get all choked up, and eventually get Mr. and Mrs. Darling's blessing to go live in Kensington Gardens as mother and child, and then they have a run-in with the nefarious school superintendent Hook, and everyone ends up dressed up as harlequins and columbines in a complete collapse into happy silliness and carnivalesque make-believe, and then all the stars in the set shine bright, and then go out, and the play is over.
The thing that I found most interesting, I think, was the way this initial version framed Peter and Wendy as much more similar in their attraction/repulsion to adulthood. Peter is tremendously enthusiastic about playing father, only pulling back when he gets scared. Actually, this Peter is scared rather a lot - this version casts no doubt on his story of having been closed out of his own nursery by his own mother. Peter never recoils from Wendy, or from her obvious feeling for him - instead he repeatedly asks her to help him understand. Which she doesn't yet have the courage or maturity to do - she also holds back from that step, that change. Both feel the draw of being grown up, the excitement available there, but both are ultimately afraid. Their home together in Kensington Gardens is a sort of ultimate representation of this; even in London, they're still playing more than anything else. The play doesn't ever force them into the sort of choice that later versions do, to have or give up once and for all. No one in this play ever leaves the Greenworld; in fact, their playfulness is contagious, infecting the citizens of London with commedia del arte tropes and spontaneous costumes and jokes and dancing.
Behind the cut, ( some of the best bits, as transcribed by yours truly, with parenthetical apostrophizations of delight )
theprimrosepath, when you suggested that Barrie wasn't yet capable of writing the ending to this story - you were right. The ending to this version is completely different in every way. That horrible ending that's been a sore spot in me all my life isn't even there. Instead, Peter and Wendy and all the lost boys fly back to London, where they then advertise for all the most beautiful mothers, and then Peter and Wendy test them to see which are the right mothers for which boys - and they're all countesses with ridiculous names, and the entire thing is farcical and ridiculous and completely gives the lie to any attempt to view London and the Neverland as polarized spaces. London is every bit as silly. And then, once all the boys are disposed of, Wendy and Peter try to say goodbye, get all choked up, and eventually get Mr. and Mrs. Darling's blessing to go live in Kensington Gardens as mother and child, and then they have a run-in with the nefarious school superintendent Hook, and everyone ends up dressed up as harlequins and columbines in a complete collapse into happy silliness and carnivalesque make-believe, and then all the stars in the set shine bright, and then go out, and the play is over.The thing that I found most interesting, I think, was the way this initial version framed Peter and Wendy as much more similar in their attraction/repulsion to adulthood. Peter is tremendously enthusiastic about playing father, only pulling back when he gets scared. Actually, this Peter is scared rather a lot - this version casts no doubt on his story of having been closed out of his own nursery by his own mother. Peter never recoils from Wendy, or from her obvious feeling for him - instead he repeatedly asks her to help him understand. Which she doesn't yet have the courage or maturity to do - she also holds back from that step, that change. Both feel the draw of being grown up, the excitement available there, but both are ultimately afraid. Their home together in Kensington Gardens is a sort of ultimate representation of this; even in London, they're still playing more than anything else. The play doesn't ever force them into the sort of choice that later versions do, to have or give up once and for all. No one in this play ever leaves the Greenworld; in fact, their playfulness is contagious, infecting the citizens of London with commedia del arte tropes and spontaneous costumes and jokes and dancing.
Behind the cut, ( some of the best bits, as transcribed by yours truly, with parenthetical apostrophizations of delight )