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Llewelyn Davies boys


The Davies boys (the family only used the double surname Llewelyn Davies in formal contexts) were the sons of Arthur (1863–1907) and Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (1866–1910), the daughter of the French-born cartoonist and writer George du Maurier and sister of actor Gerald du Maurier. The boys were the first cousins of Gerald's daughter, the author Daphne du Maurier. They were the inspiration for J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, in which several of the characters were named after them.

Barrie became their guardian following the deaths of their parents, and they were publicly associated with Barrie and Peter Pan for the rest of their lives. The three oldest served in the British military in World War I. Two of the brothers died in their early twenties (one in combat, the other drowning), and a third committed suicide when he was 63. Their early lives have been the subject of two cinematic dramatizations.

They were:

The boys were born and grew up in the Paddington and Notting Hill areas of London. Their parents were a barrister and the daughter of a successful cartoonist and writer, and they enjoyed a comfortable middle class upbringing in a household with servants. They were befriended in 1897 by playwright/novelist J. M. Barrie, who first met George and Jack in Kensington Gardens during outings with their nurse (nanny) Mary Hodgson and infant Peter. He initially entertained them with his playful antics such as dancing with his dog Porthos, wiggling his ears, and performing feats with his eyebrows, and further endeared himself to them with his stories. He became a regular part of their lives, whom they came to call 'Uncle Jim'.

In addition to the time the boys spent with Barrie in Kensington Gardens and at the Davies home, the family accompanied him to his retreat Black Lake Cottage, where George, Jack, and Peter were the subjects of The Boy Castaways, a photobook made by Barrie about their play adventures living on an island and fighting pirates. The boys and their activities with Barrie provided him with much of the inspiration for the character of Peter Pan, introduced in The Little White Bird in 1901, and the characters of the Lost Boys and Wendy Darling's brothers, introduced in Barrie's 1904 play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up and further immortalized in its 1911 adaptation as the novel Peter and Wendy.


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