Margaret Ogilvy (Annotated) E-Book

J.m Barrie

• Herausgeber: ePembaBooks
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

• This edition includes the following editor's introduction: The traumatic life of J. M. Barrie, source of universal creativity

First published in 1897, “Margaret Ogilvy” ( AKA Margaret Ogilvy: Life Is a Long Lesson in Humility) is a biographical book by Scottish author J. M. Barrie, about his mother and family life in Scotland.

“Margaret Ogilvy” was written in tribute to Barrie's mother and includes family reminiscences. In the book, Barrie recounts his mother telling tales of her childhood, and credits her with inspiring his interest in literature. Reflections on the effects of his brother's tragic early death appear throughout the book.

According to The Bookman, “Margaret Ogilvy” was the 7th bestselling book of 1897 in the United States.

Leseprobe

J. M. Barrie

Margaret Ogilvy

Table of contents

The traumatic life of J. M. Barrie, source of universal creativity

MARGARET OGILVY

Chapter I - How My Mother Got Her Soft Face

Chapter II - What She Had Been

Chapter III - What I Should Be

Chapter IV - An Editor

Chapter V - A Day of Her Life

Chapter VI - Her Maid of All Work

Chapter VII - R. L. S.

Chapter VIII - A Panic in the House

Chapter IX - My Heroine

Chapter X - Art Thou Afraid His Power Shall Fail?

The traumatic life of J. M. Barrie, source of universal creativity

A trauma that marked the life of the creator of Peter Pan.

Although he was born into a British Victorian high society family, his childhood was not a joyful one. The creator of Peter Pan, James Matthew Barrie, when he was 6 years old, his brother David, 13, died when he fell with his skates into a frozen lake. He was his mother's favourite (there were 10 siblings in all) and she never recovered from this tragic loss. When the woman was in her room and James or any of the other children came in, she always thought it was David. When she realized this was not true, she treated them very badly. Also, the father had no contact whatsoever with his children.

A child who became an adult too soon James always wanted to please his mother and take the place left by his brother. She educated him and instilled in him a love of books and study. She always treated him as if he were older than his age (thinking perhaps that she was talking to David). In this way, she did not take into account James' actual age, so the influence of her upbringing would have consequences both psychologically and emotionally. James became a child with adult thinking and behaviour. He was very unhealthy, afraid to grow up, did not relate to other children, was obsessed with the idea that marriage was a disgrace and was very melancholic. Sad and lonely child The only joys he had in his childhood were related to the adventure books of Robert L. Stevenson and to spending very brief moments with his siblings, neighbours and friends younger than him. Another of the problems he had to face was that his height did not increase in relation to his growing years, reaching five feet tall in his adulthood. Youth, London and his marriage The life of Peter Pan's creator will change dramatically when he travels to the English capital and settles there, where he will open his mind and will be able to develop and write better. Among his friends at the University were Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert L. Stevenson, who in turn worked on the faculty newspaper. He also forged a friendship with Charles Frohman, producer of his works and victim of the Lusitania ship that was sunk in World War I, an event that marked James considerably. As for his personal life, he married British actress Mary Ansell in 1894, but they divorced a few years later. There are several theories regarding the end of their marriage, one of the strongest is that she married him because of his social position and the fame he could offer her. Another hypothesis says that the marriage was never consummated because he was not looking for a sexual partner but for a mother. At the time of the separation Mary was dating another man. The belief of the creator of Peter Pan that love was a misfortune could have caused the end of their marriage. After the divorce, James sought solace in friendship with brothers he met on a walk in Kensington. These children were named George, Jack, Nico, Peter and Michael. When their parents died he adopted them and from there he was inspired to write the most important novel of his career, "The Adventures of Peter Pan", which was published at the beginning of the 20th century. But there is also tragedy in this story, as George died in the war, Michael committed suicide by drowning himself in a lake with his lover (he was homosexual) and Peter threw himself under a subway car some years later. The literary career of the creator of Peter Pan Several of his works were set during his years in Kirriemuir, Scotland, and it was common for some of the stories' dialogues to be written in Scottish. He later wrote plays such as "Quality Street" (1901), "What Every Woman Knows" (1908) and "The Admirable Crichton" (1932). The last of this style was called "The Boy David" and was performed in 1936. He also specialized in novels, which were very successful in his time. Some of them are "Auld Licht Idylls" (1888), "A Window in Thrums" (1889), "The Little Minister" (1891), “ Margaret Ogilvy” (1897) and "Sentimental Tommy, The Story of His Boyhood " (1896) with "Tommy and Grizel" (1902), related to what later would be the character of Peter Pan. This was undoubtedly his best known work, which was performed for the first time in December 1904 but had the name of "Wendy", inspired by a girl who had died at the age of five in 1894, which he knew. However, Peter Pan as a character had appeared earlier, in a book of stories called "The Little White Bird." In this work, completed in 1904, he deals with his favourite themes: the feminine instinct of motherhood and the preservation of childhood innocence. The eternal adolescent was the protagonist of the story, who left the family home to avoid becoming an adult. In Kensington Gardens, London, you can see the statue of this character. The same place where Barrie met the Llewalyn Davies brothers, on whom he based the story.

Later, like the rest of Europeans, the First World War marked Barrie's life, and also his work. In 1918 he published "Echoes of the War", a delightful collection of stories about the life of several families in London during the war. James Matthew Barrie died in June 1937 of pneumonia and was buried in his Scottish hometown, Kirriemuir, next to his parents and two of his nine siblings. The creator of Peter Pan left his entire estate (except for the proceeds of Peter Pan which went to Great Ormond Street Hospital) to his secretary Cynthia Asquith.

Life and literature James Matthew Barrie was not the only author with a complicated life and famous work. Edgar Allan Poe, Emile Cioran, Charles Bukowski, even Oscar Wilde himself, persecuted for his homosexuality, have been tormented writers at one or more points in their lives. Some even from the time they were born until they died. In a way, James reflects how to take advantage of a difficult life to capture it in stories that would go down in history, such as "Peter Pan." Despite being shaken by misfortune, Barrie knew how to channel his creativity through literature and leave his mark over time. Would his work have been the same without having lived through everything he did? Would we be able to enjoy "Peter Pan" today without a life full of sad events? What James Matthew Barrie's story reflects, is that misfortune can be channelled and not only in the form of anger, but in the form of art. An art that can remain immortalized by great stories.

The Editor, P.C. 2022

MARGARET OGILVY

J. M. Barrie

Chapter I - How My Mother Got Her Soft Face

On the day I was born we bought six hair–bottomed chairs, and in our little house it was an event, the first great victory in a woman's long campaign; how they had been laboured for, the pound–note and the thirty threepenny–bits they cost, what anxiety there was about the purchase, the show they made in possession of the west room, my father's unnatural coolness when he brought them in (but his face was white)—I so often heard the tale afterwards, and shared as boy and man in so many similar triumphs, that the coming of the chairs seems to be something I remember, as if I had jumped out of bed on that first day, and run ben to see how they looked. I am sure my mother's feet were ettling to be ben long before they could be trusted, and that the moment after she was left alone with me she was discovered barefooted in the west room, doctoring a scar (which she had been the first to detect) on one of the chairs, or sitting on them regally, or withdrawing and re–opening the door suddenly to take the six by surprise. And then, I think, a shawl was flung over her (it is strange to me to think it was not I who ran after her with the shawl), and she was escorted sternly back to bed and reminded that she had promised not to budge, to which her reply was probably that she had been gone but an instant, and the implication that therefore she had not been gone at all. Thus was one little bit of her revealed to me at once: I wonder if I took note of it. Neighbours came in to see the boy and the chairs. I wonder if she deceived me when she affected to think that there were others like us, or whether I saw through her from the first, she was so easily seen through. When she seemed to agree with them that it would be impossible to give me a college education, was I so easily taken in, or did I know already what ambitions burned behind that dear face? when they spoke of the chairs as the goal quickly reached, was I such a newcomer that her timid lips must say 'They are but a beginning' before I heard the words? And when we were left together, did I laugh at the great things that were in her mind, or had she to whisper them to me first, and then did I put my arm round her and tell her that I would help? Thus it was for such a long time: it is strange to me to feel that it was not so from the beginning.

It is all guess–work for six years, and she whom I see in them is the woman who came suddenly into view when they were at an end. Her timid lips I have said, but they were not timid then, and when I knew her the timid lips had come. The soft face—they say the face was not so soft then. The shawl that was flung over her—we had not begun to hunt her with a shawl, nor to make our bodies a screen between her and the draughts, nor to creep into her room a score of times in the night to stand looking at her as she slept. We did not see her becoming little then, nor sharply turn our heads when she said wonderingly how small her arms had grown. In her happiest moments—and never was a happier woman—her mouth did not of a sudden begin to twitch, and tears to lie on the mute blue eyes in which I have read all I know and would ever care to write. For when you looked into my mother's eyes you knew, as if He had told you, why God sent her into the world—it was to open the minds of all who looked to beautiful thoughts. And that is the beginning and end of literature. Those eyes that I cannot see until I was six years old have guided me through life, and I pray God they may remain my only earthly judge to the last. They were never more my guide than when I helped to put her to earth, not whimpering because my mother had been taken away after seventy–six glorious years of life, but exulting in her even at the grave.

* * * * *

She had a son who was far away at school. I remember very little about him, only that he was a merry–faced boy who ran like a squirrel up a tree and shook the cherries into my lap. When he was thirteen and I was half his age the terrible news came, and I have been told the face of my mother was awful in its calmness as she set off to get between Death and her boy. We trooped with her down the brae to the wooden station, and I think I was envying her the journey in the mysterious wagons; I know we played around her, proud of our right to be there, but I do not recall it, I only speak from hearsay. Her ticket was taken, she had bidden us good–bye with that fighting face which I cannot see, and then my father came out of the telegraph–office and said huskily, 'He's gone!' Then we turned very quietly and went home again up the little brae. But I speak from hearsay no longer; I knew my mother for ever now.