Peter Pan

The original versions of the play and novel are in the public domain in most of the world—see the Wikipedia list of countries' copyright lengths—including all countries where the term of copyright is 83 years (or less) after the death of the creators.

In gratitude for Peter saving Tiger Lily, her tribe guards his home from the next imminent pirate attack. Meanwhile, Wendy begins to fall in love with Peter and asks him what kind of feelings he has for her. Peter says that he is like her faithful son. One day while telling stories to the Lost Boys and her brothers, John and Michael, Wendy recalls her parents and then decides to take them back and return to England. Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to Peter, Wendy and the boys are captured by Captain Hook, who also tries to poison Peter's medicine while the boy is asleep. When Peter awakes, he learns from the fairy Tinker Bell that Wendy has been kidnapped – in an effort to please Wendy, he goes to drink his medicine. Tink does not have time to warn him of the poison, and instead drinks it herself, causing her near death. Tink tells him she could be saved if children believed in fairies. In one of the play's most famous moments, Peter turns to the audience watching the play and begs those who believe in fairies to clap their hands.

Previously, GOSH's claim of U.S. copyright had been contested by various parties. J. E. Somma sued GOSH to permit the U.S. publication of her sequel After the Rain, A New Adventure for Peter Pan. GOSH and Somma settled out of court in March 2004, issuing a joint statement in which GOSH stated the work is a valuable contribution to the field of children's literature. Somma characterised her novel – which she had argued was a critique of the original work, rather than a mere derivative of it – as fair use of the hospital's U.S. intellectual property rights. The suit was settled under terms of absolute secrecy. It did not set any legal precedent, however. Disney was a long-time licensee to the animation rights, and cooperated with the hospital when its copyright claim was clear, but in 2004 Disney published Dave Barry's and Ridley Pearson's Peter and the Starcatchers in the U.S., the first of several sequels, without permission and without making royalty payments. In 2006, Top Shelf Productions published in the U.S. Lost Girls, a pornographic graphic novel featuring Wendy Darling, also without permission or royalties.

An Afterthought is only occasionally used in productions of the play, but was included in the musical production starring Mary Martin, and provided the premise for Disney's sequel to their animated adaptation of the story, Return to Never Land. This epilogue was filmed for the 2003 film but not included in the final version, though a rough cut of the sequence was included as an extra on the DVD of the film.

(1989), Cold Dog Soup (1990) and Death Wish II (1982).

The UK copyright originally expired at the end of 1987 (50 years after Barrie's death) but later revived in 1995 when legislation was changed following the directive to harmonise copyright laws within the EU, which extended the copyright term to 70 years after the author's death. However, in 1988, the former Prime Minister James Callaghan sponsored an amendment to a Parliamentary Bill granting the hospital a right to royalties in perpetuity for any performance, publication, broadcast of the play or adaptation of the play. The bill does not grant the hospital full intellectual property rights over the work such as creative control over the use of the material or the right to refuse permission to use it. It does not cover the Peter Pan section of The Little White Bird, which predates the play and is not therefore an "adaptation" of it. The exact phrasing is in section 301 of, and Schedule 6 to, the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988:

Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) claims that U.S. legislation effective in 1978 and again in 1998, which extended the copyright of the play script published in 1928, gives them copyright over "Peter Pan" in general until 2023, although GOSH acknowledges that the copyright of the novel version, published in 1911, has expired in the United States.

Four years after the premiere of the original production of Peter Pan, Barrie wrote an additional scene entitled When Wendy Grew Up. An Afterthought, later included in the final chapter of Peter and Wendy, and later still published as a separate work in 1957.

There is a slight romantic aspect to the story, which is sometimes played down or omitted completely. Wendy's flirtatious desire to kiss Peter, his desire for a mother figure, his conflicting feelings for Wendy, Tiger Lily, and Tinker Bell (each representing different female archetypes), and the symbolism of his fight with Captain Hook (traditionally played by the same actor as Wendy's father), all could possibly hint at a Freudian interpretation (see Oedipus complex). Most children's adaptations of the play, including the 1953 Disney film, omit any romantic themes between Wendy and Peter, but Barrie's 1904 original, his 1911 novelisation, the 1954 Mary Martin musical, and the 1924 and 2003 feature films all hint at the romantic elements.

The copyright status of the story of Peter Pan and its characters has been the subject of dispute, particularly as the original version began to enter the public domain in various jurisdictions. In 1929, Barrie gave the copyright to the works featuring Peter Pan to Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), Britain's leading children's hospital, and requested that the value of the gift should never be disclosed; this gift was confirmed in his will. GOSH has exercised these rights internationally to help support the work of the institution.

The novel was first published in 1911 by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK, and Charles Scribner's Sons in the US. The original book contains a frontispiece and 11 half-tone plates by the artist F. D. Bedford (whose illustrations are still under copyright in the EU). The novel was first abridged by May Byron in 1915, with Barrie's permission, and published under the title Peter Pan and Wendy, the first time this form was used. This version was later illustrated by Mabel Lucie Attwell in 1921. In 1929, Barrie gave the copyright of the Peter Pan works to Great Ormond Street Hospital, a children's hospital in London.

Cecilia Loftus played Peter in the 1905–1906 production. Pauline Chase took the role from the 1906–07 London season until 1914 while Zena Dare was Peter on tour during most of that period. Jean Forbes-Robertson became a well-known Pan in London in the 1920s and 1930s.

Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up or Peter and Wendy, often known simply as Peter Pan, is a work by J. M. Barrie, in the form of a 1904 play and a 1911 novel. Both versions tell the story of Peter Pan, a mischievous yet innocent little boy who can fly, and has many adventures on the island of Neverland that is inhabited by mermaids, fairies, Native Americans, and pirates. The Peter Pan stories also involve the characters Wendy Darling and her two brothers, 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.

Peter Pan was born on March 31, 1903 in China as Peter Chienwei Pan. He was an actor, known for When Harry Met Sally. . .

The character's name comes from two sources: Peter Llewelyn Davies, one of the boys, and Pan, the mischievous Greek god of the woodlands. Andrew Birkin has suggested that the inspiration for the character was Barrie's elder brother David, whose death in a skating accident at the age of fourteen deeply affected their mother. According to Birkin, the death was "a catastrophe beyond belief, and one from which she never fully recovered. If Margaret Ogilvy [Barrie's mother as the heroine of his 1896 novel of that title] drew a measure of comfort from the notion that David, in dying a boy, would remain a boy for ever, Barrie drew inspiration."