J. M. Barrie and The Lost Boys by Andrew Birkin Presentation copy inscribed, dated & signed by the author on the half-title page thus: "To Elizabeth Jenkins - With so much gratitude for providing me with two more lost boys - Andrew Birkin. 4. 6. 79."; Constable and Company Ltd 1979 1st ed, 324pp., text in acceptable condition with browning to pages & some erased pencil writing below the author's inscription, staining to the top margins/edges of pages 322/3 (no text affected) & very small creases to the top corners of some of the pages, the top right hand corner of the Contents page hasn't been properly cut (the excess folded over to the following page) & this has slightly creased the corners of the preceding five & proceeding four pages, slight staining & marking to the front & rear end papers and to page 148, slight creasing to the bottom edges of pages 137 thru' 148, some rubbing to the page extremities at the very top, slight browning/staining/rubbing to those at the side & bottom, spine slightly cocked & boards slightly warped, very slight bumping & rubbing to board corners & to the top, bottom & sides of boards - heavier to the top of the spine (including a small split down the spine edge on the front) & very much heavier to the base (including a couple of small splits), bumping & rubbing to the front top & bottom left hand/rear top & bottom right hand corners, elsewhere both boards & spine slightly marked, the dust jacket is browned, torn, worn & marked. An acceptable copy. Andrew Birkin, who wrote this book after he had produced the television mini series of the same name, has written a sensitive portrayal of the relationship between J. M. Barrie and the Llewellyn Davies boys. Many have speculated on the nature of this relationship but Birkin's clear review of the letters between the Davies family, Barrie himself, and numerous other people, put things into a clear perspective. Barrie, a lonely man who seemed unable to move on after the death of his older brother at the age of 14 needed to see childhood from an untarnished viewpoint and he found this in the four sons of Sylvia and Arthur Llewellyn Davies. After the deaths of their parents, Barrie adopted the boys and saw them all through their education. He lovingly followed their careers and, sometimes, deaths to which he reacted just as a caring parent would have done. Andrew Timothy Birkin (born 9 December 1945) is an English screenwriter and director. Having worked on an adaptation of Peter Pan for NBC in 1975, Birkin conceived and wrote The Lost Boys (1978), a three-part mini-series for the BBC about Peter Pan's creator J. M. Barrie, which won him writing awards from the Writers Guild of Great Britain and the Royal Television Society. The critic Sean Day-Lewis wrote in The Daily Telegraph, 'I doubt if biography has ever been better televised than in this sensitive and beautifully crafted masterpiece, and I am quite sure such excellence is beyond any other television service in the world.' The BBC's Director-General Sir Ian Trethowan called it 'a landmark in television drama'. Birkin also wrote a biographical account of Barrie's relationship with the Llewelyn Davies family, J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys, described by The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature as 'the most candid and perceptive biography to have been written of Barrie'. Birkin also hosts Barrie's official website on behalf of the Great Ormond Street Hospital, to whom he donated his Barrie/Llewelyn Davies/Peter Pan archive in 2004. His sister was Jane Birkin OBE (14 December 1946 – 16 July 2023), the British and French actress and singer, who attained international fame and notability for her decade-long musical and romantic partnership with Serge Gainsbourg. She also had a prolific career as an actress, mostly in French cinema. Will ship by Royal Mail 1st Class Signed for, well packaged. (£5.39/neben/mil)