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Kensington Garden is a poem by Thomas Tickell, published in 1722, as a fictional origin story for the area which would eventually be known as Kensington Gardens.
Kensington Garden, according to the poem, was once a fairy realm ruled by King Oberon. Albion, a descendant of the humans' royal line of England, was kidnapped as a changeling by a fairy named Milkah. Milkah uses her magic arts to ensure that Albion grows up at fairy scale, standing only a foot tall. When Albion is nineteen, Oberon's daughter Kenna falls in love with him.
When King Oberon catches them during a meeting, he banishes Albion and orders Kenna to marry one of her fairy suitors, Azuriel. Albion begs for help from his distant ancestor, the god Neptune, who sends him an army with which to march on Oberon's kingdom and take Kenna back.
Albion and Azuriel fight in single combat. Since fairies are immaterial beings, Azuriel easily survives what should be fatal wounds and is able to stab Albion to death. Neptune, enraged, wipes out the fairy kingdom. Oberon and the other fairies scatter and flee to remote, rural places inland.
Kenna stays in the abandoned kingdom, where she magically turns Albion's body into the first snowdrop. Many years later, Kenna is pleased by the British royal family - Albion's distant relatives - living in the area. She inspires a human craftsman to recreate the fairy kingdom as a garden. Every night Kenna dances with her fairy train to honor Albion.
Tickell was inspired by Henry Wise's work on the garden area around Kensington Palace; the poem's title is singular, as the famous Kensington Gardens did not yet exist. The poem does not refer to this area as a whole, but specifically to a sunken Dutch garden added by Wise. [1] This was Tickell's longest poem; critics accused it of being "inflated and pedantic." [2]
Other authors would also describe the area as inhabited by fairies, most notably J. M. Barrie in The Little White Bird, the first work to feature Peter Pan. Writer Roger Lancelyn Green argues that the works are unrelated and that there is no indication Barrie had read Tickell's poem. [3]
The plot of Kensington Garden inspired the Gilbert and Sullivan play A Princess of Kensington .
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland and then moved to London, where he wrote several successful novels and plays. There he met the Llewelyn Davies boys, who inspired him to write about a baby boy who has magical adventures in Kensington Gardens, then to write Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, a 1904 West End "fairy play" about an ageless boy and an ordinary girl named Wendy who have adventures in the fantasy setting of Neverland.
Neverland is a fictional island featured in the works of J. M. Barrie and those based on them. It is an imaginary faraway place where Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, Captain Hook, the Lost Boys, and some other imaginary beings and creatures live.
Kensington Gardens, once the private gardens of Kensington Palace, are among the Royal Parks of London. The gardens are shared by the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and sit immediately to the west of Hyde Park, in western central London. The gardens cover an area of 107 hectares. The open spaces of Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Green Park, and St. James's Park together form an almost continuous "green lung" in the heart of London. Kensington Gardens are Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Tinker Bell is a fictional character from J. M. Barrie's 1904 play Peter Pan and its 1911 novelisation Peter and Wendy. She has appeared in a variety of film and television adaptations of the Peter Pan stories, in particular the 1953 animated Walt Disney picture Peter Pan. She also appears in the official 2006 sequel Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean commissioned by Great Ormond Street Hospital as well as the "Peter and the Starcatchers" book series by Ridley Pearson and Dave Barry.
Finding Neverland is a 2004 biographical fantasy film directed by Marc Forster and written by David Magee, based on the 1998 play The Man Who Was Peter Pan by Allan Knee. The film is about playwright J. M. Barrie and his relationship with a family who inspired him to create Peter Pan. The film earned seven nominations at the 77th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Actor for Johnny Depp, and won for Best Original Score. The film was the inspiration for the stage musical of the same name in 2012.
Roger Gilbert Lancelyn Green was a British biographer and children's writer. He was an Oxford academic who formed part of the Inklings literary discussion group along with C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. He had a positive influence on his friend, C.S. Lewis, by encouraging him to publish The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
A Princess of Kensington is an English comic opera in two acts by Edward German to a libretto by Basil Hood, produced by William Greet. The first performance was at the Savoy Theatre, London, on 22 January 1903 and ran for 115 performances.
Peter Pan is a fictional character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie. A free-spirited and mischievous young boy who can fly and never grows up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood having adventures on the mythical island of Neverland as the leader of the Lost Boys, interacting with fairies, pirates, mermaids, Native Americans, and occasionally ordinary children from the world outside Neverland.
The Davies boys were the inspiration for the stories of Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie, in which several of the characters were named after them. They were the sons of Sylvia (1866–1910) and Arthur Llewelyn Davies (1863–1907). Their mother was a daughter of French-born cartoonist and writer George du Maurier and sister of actor Gerald du Maurier, whose daughter was author Daphne du Maurier. Their father was a son of preacher John Llewelyn Davies, and brother of suffragist Margaret Llewelyn Davies.
Arthur Llewelyn Davies was an English barrister of Welsh origin, but is best known as the father of the boys who were the inspiration for the stories of Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie.
The Lost Boys is a 1978 docudrama mini-series produced by the BBC, written by Andrew Birkin, and directed by Rodney Bennett. It is about the relationship between Peter Pan creator J. M. Barrie and the Llewelyn Davies boys.
The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Playground is a memorial to Diana, Princess of Wales, in Kensington Gardens, in The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London.
Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens is a novel by J. M. Barrie, illustrated by Arthur Rackham, and published by Hodder & Stoughton in late November or early December 1906; it is one of four major literary works by Barrie featuring the widely known literary character he created, Peter Pan. Most of the text originally appeared as chapters 13–18 of Barrie's 1902 novel The Little White Bird.
The Little White Bird is a novel by the Scottish writer J. M. Barrie, ranging in tone from fantasy and whimsy to social comedy with dark, aggressive undertones. It was published in November 1902, by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK and Scribner's in the US. The book attained prominence and longevity thanks to several chapters written in a softer tone than the rest of the book, which introduced the character and mythology of Peter Pan. In 1906, those chapters were published separately as a children's book, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens.
The works of J. M. Barrie about Peter Pan feature many characters. The numerous adaptations and sequels to those stories feature many of the same characters, and introduce new ones. Most of these strive for continuity with Barrie's work, developing a fairly consistent cast of characters living in Neverland and the real-world settings of Barrie's stories.
Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, often known simply as Peter Pan, is a work by J. M. Barrie, in the form of a 1904 play and a 1911 novel titled Peter and Wendy, often extended in Peter Pan and Wendy. Both versions tell the story of Peter Pan, a mischievous little boy who can fly, and has many adventures on the island of Neverland that is inhabited by mermaids, fairies, "Indians" (American-Indians), and pirates. The Peter Pan stories also involve the characters Wendy Darling and her two brothers John and Michael, Peter's fairy Tinker Bell, the Lost Boys, and the pirate Captain Hook. The play and novel were inspired by Barrie's friendship with the Llewelyn Davies family. Barrie continued to revise the play for years after its debut until publication of the play script in 1928.
Pan, the Greek deity, is often portrayed in cinema, literature, music, and stage productions, as a symbolic or cultural reference.
The statue of Peter Pan is a 1912 bronze sculpture of J. M. Barrie's character Peter Pan. It was commissioned by Barrie and made by Sir George Frampton. The original statue is displayed in Kensington Gardens in London, to the west of The Long Water, close to Barrie's former home on Bayswater Road. Barrie's stories were inspired in part by the gardens: the statue is at the place where Peter Pan lands in Barrie's 1902 book The Little White Bird after flying out of his nursery. Six other casts made by Frampton have been erected in other places around the world.
Ela Queenie May was a child actress of the Edwardian era. She is probably best remembered as Liza, the Darling family servant, in the original production of Peter Pan and later played Wendy Darling in the touring companies of Peter Pan (1906–08). Before that, she played roles at several West End theatres from 1900, including the title role in Ib and Little Christina in 1901 and again in 1904.
