The darker side of HP

[heiditandy]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C6627
From: heiditandy
Subject: Re: The darker side of HP
Reply To: [Yahoo! #6625] Re: The darker side of HP
Date: 8/11/00 11:02 am  (ET)

I'm reading a book which analyzes 300 years of baby- and child-care
books and trends, and in the 1890 - 1920 section, there's a little bit on
Peter Pan which put me in the mind of my fellow "grown ups" on this list:
"The audience on the first night [of the stage version of Peter Pan] was
almost entirely adult - and clapped furiously to save fairy Tinker Bell's
life at the line: 'Do you believe in fairies?' The cult of J.M. Barrie
was only explicable in terms of the general nostalgia for childhood and
infancy which prevailed just before war broke out."

I am now curious to learn more about how Peter Pan - officially, a story
for children, and one of the few "new" fairy tales of the post-Hans
Christian Andersen era (the others (I recently read an article discussing
this) are the Oz stories, Alice in Wonderland and now Harry Potter)
- was recieved by adults. Did grownups buy it for themselves or their
children? Did they chase the nanny out of the nursery to read it to their
little boys & girls, or did they bring it down to their own libraries
and stay up late, burning the midnight oil, to read it themselves? And
did they argue in literary salons about the casting of the stage version,
fussing about whether an actor from the US could play Peter Pan ; ) ?