Peter Pan first appeared as a seven-day-old infant in J. M. Barrie's 1902 novel The Little White Bird. This early version of the character existed in a liminal space between humanity and nature within Kensington Gardens in London.
The character's origins were deeply personal for Barrie, who may have based Peter on his older brother David. David died in an ice-skating accident on the day before his fourteenth birthday, leaving his mother and family to view him as forever a boy.
The stage play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up premiered on the 27th of December 1904 at the Duke of York's Theatre in London. Barrie later adapted and expanded the storyline into a novel published in 1911 as Peter and Wendy.
Peter's shadow detaches from him and is accidentally locked away by Wendy's mother, serving as a metaphor for the connection between the physical body and the spiritual self. The shadow symbolizes Peter's inability to fully engage with the world and his refusal to accept the passage of time.
Barrie commissioned a statue of Peter Pan by the sculptor George Frampton, which was erected overnight in Kensington Gardens on the 30th of April 1912 as a surprise to the children of London. Six other statues have been cast from the original mould and displayed around the world.
Barrie's decision to gift the copyright to the Peter Pan works to Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital occurred in 1929. The hospital maintains the right to collect royalties from adaptations in the United Kingdom, thanks to a special amendment to the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.