Who Wrote Peter Pan? J. M. Barrie? Or M’Connachie? His “Writing Half”

James Matthew Barrie (1860-1937) gave the Rectorial Address at St. Andrew’s University on May 3, 1922. His title and theme was Courage (1). However, the speech is most remembered for Barrie’s mention of “M’Connachie,” whom he called his “writing half.”

According to “Barrie’s Other Self,” an article in the New York Times of May 21, 1922, Barrie “revealed that McConnachie, whom he called his other self, really wrote the plays and not the Sir James Barrie known to all.”

Let me help you decide whether to take Barrie seriously or to dismiss M’Connachie as a joke (the latter being conventional wisdom).

Someone who knew him said, “Barrie, as I read him, is part mother, part hero-worshipping maiden, part grandfather, and part pixie with no man in him at all” (2, p. 301).

His secretary described him as “an extraordinary plural personality” (2, p. 307).

The biographer comments that “He was as unpredictable to himself as he was to others; he allowed moods to overwhelm and encase him until the strange M’Connachie who had him temporarily in thrall suffered James Barrie to be released again” (2, p. 368).

A story Barrie wrote called The Body in the Black Box had “the still fashionable Gothic theme of the doppelgänger. Here, Barrie is speaking about himself, about his own shadowy identity” (3, p. 60).

“Divided soul that he was…” (3, p. 114).

“The many selves that constituted J. M. Barrie…” (3, p. 195).

“…his complex personality—his many personalities…his warring selves…” (3, p. 247).

In the above context, I quote from Barrie’s speech, Courage (1):

He said that his work as a writer “may be described as playing hide and seek with angels. My puppets seem more real to me than myself, and I could get on much more swingingly if I made one of them deliver this address. It is M’Connachie who has brought me to this pass. M’Connachie, I should explain, as I have undertaken to open the innermost doors, is the name I give to the unruly half of myself: the writing half. We are complement and supplement. I am the half that is dour and practical and canny, he is the fanciful half…

“…I sometimes talk this over with M’Connachie, with whom, as you may guess, circumstances compel me to pass a good deal of my time…

“…M’Connachie is the one who writes the plays…

“…My so-called labors were just M’Connachie running away with me again…

“…Another piece of advice; almost my last. For reasons you may guess I must give this in a low voice. Beware of M’Connachie. When I look in a mirror now it is his face I see. I speak with his voice…He has clung to me, less from mischief than for companionship; I half like him and his penny whistle…he whispered to me just now that you elected him, not me, as your Rector…” (1).

It took courage for Barrie to talk about this publicly. I don’t think it should be dismissed as a joke.

1. J. M. Barrie. Courage: The Rectorial Address Delivered at St. Andrews University May 3, 1922. New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930, 49 pages.

2. Janet Dunbar. J. M. Barrie: The Man Behind the Image. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1970.

3. Lisa Chaney. Hide-and-Seek with Angels: A Life of J. M. Barrie. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2005.