The Earliest Plays of J. M. Barrie. Bandelero the Bandit, Bohemia and Caught Napping 14+

📓 There are four reasons for producing this modern edition of Barrie's earliest plays - 'Bandelero the Bandit', Bohemia and 'Caught Napping'. The first is canonical. Neither of the first two has ever been published while only two copies of 'Caught Napping' can be traced and these date from the year of its composition in 1883. The second is biographical. After being heralded as a genius in his own day simplistic Freudian links between Barrie and his most famous creation, Peter Pan threatened to turn him into a one-play oddity or, more generally, a naive writer fleeing sentimentally from serious themes and ideas. Although these views have now been critically rejected and Barrie restored to his former central place in the history of British drama, his childhood and youth remain an especially important area of biographical enquiry. While psychological analyses of these early days before Barrie became a London playwright abound there is little by way of literary comment and no printed texts to consult. These are the gaps which this volume seeks to fill. 'Bandelero', the one-act play he wrote in 1877, while still a pupil at Dumfries Academy, is especially important. The three acts of Bohemia follow and were composed in Edinburgh four years later when Barrie was studying at Edinburgh University. 'Caught Napping' belongs to yet another stage of development and introduces a third geographical setting. He is now a full time journalist on The No...