How did the life of the prototypes of the main characters of famous children's books (32 photos)
Quite often a source of inspiration for children's writers become real people. As the article continues, you will learn about How did the life of the prototypes of Peter Pan, Christopher Robin and others famous book characters. 
An inspiration for children's writers is often become real people. Vivid emotions and not always simple relationships pushed the authors to create famous images. The post talks about prototypes of the main characters of several famous books.
How the unrequited love of Hans Christian Andersen led him to the Snow Queen, and acquaintance with a little girl prompted Lewis Carroll to write the fairy tale about Alice. Who really became the prototype of Peter Pan and Mary Poppins and what family tragedy is behind creating a harmless children's book about Winnie the Pooh.
Peter Pan
Peter Pan first appeared in the pages of a Scottish book. writer James Barry's "White Bird" in 1902. walking in Kensington gardens with a carriage, an elderly bachelor tells stories and fairy tales that happened in London to a little boy. One of them was dedicated to Peter Pan. 
Initially, it was a story that all children are in the form of birds live in a magical garden, and when parents want a child, they send there is a note asking them to send the baby to them. When a child enters house, he is trying with all his might to escape from there until he has lost the ability to fly.
And Peter Pan succeeds - at the age of seven days he left parents to stay free. Later he tried to return having learned how sad his mother is, but, having flown back, through the window he sees how she hugs another child.
The hero fell in love with readers, and Barry first published chapters from books as a separate story "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens", and then wrote the play "Peter Pan" and the short story "Peter and Wendy". 
The main prototype of the ageless boy was the native elder the writer's brother is David. In total, ten were born in the family of James Barry children, two girls died before the birth of the writer. Perfect child was considered the second oldest boy - David, who was predicted a great future.
But, unfortunately, a tragedy happened to him. Shortly before his 14th birthday on January 29, a teenager skated and unsuccessfully fell on the ice: a skull injury turned out to be fatal, and David died. This the incident forever changed the life of the Barry family and, in particular, young James.
Much later, the writer recalled how once his eldest sister sent him to her mother's room to remind her that she had more one son. Little James gently knocked on the door.
"It's you?" I thought she was talking to the dead boy. And I said in a low voice: "No, it's not him, it's just me." Then I heard crying, she turned on the bed and even in the dark I I knew she was stretching out her arms towards me.
James Barry
Peter Pan creator
When young David died, James was only six years old, and Since then, he devoted almost all his time to his mother until the end of her days. He listened to her childhood stories, took her to her favorite places, discussed everything in the world to distract her from the tragedy and make sense to get up with beds. Once she called her dead son "an eternal boy", they say, he will never grow up. This thought stuck in the head of the future writer and it was from it that Peter Pan was later born.
Another source of inspiration in the creation of the famous hero they call the Davis family, whom the writer met in 1897. One day, while walking his dog in Kensington Gardens, he met three boys - George, Jake and very little Peter with their nanny. The writer stopped to entertain the children by playing with the dog and his stories. Since then, such meetings have become regular.
Barry later met the boys' parents: children soon there were already five - two more sons were born in the family, Michael and Nicholas. 
The Davis brothers with their father
By that time, the writer himself had been married for several years to actress Mary Ansell. But, being married, according to some biographers, he was asexual and absolutely did not want to have children of his own, because of which he had constant disagreements with his wife. However, with boys Davis family, the writer became friends and began to visit their house regularly.
Then Barry had the idea for the photo album "Boys, shipwrecked." George, Jake and Peter, disguised as costumes, played scenes of battles with pirates. It is this trinity served as prototypes not only for Peter Pan, but also for other characters in the book. 
James Barry and Michael Davis
In the story, Barry barely mentions what his character looks like, leaving his appearance at the mercy of the imagination of readers. Much later when London authorities want to erect a monument to Peter Pan in Kensington garden, the writer suggested using childhood photographs of the fourth Davis' son Michael. 
Michael Davis
But the sculptor did everything in his own way, thus disappointing the author.
Friendship with the Davis family was ambiguous - according to some sources, Barry was drawn to the boys' mother, Sylvia, according to others, to the children themselves. Father died in 1907 boys, and in 1910, his mother. In her will, she asked to look after for the children of relatives, including the nanny Mary and her sister Jenny, - about Barry didn't say a word in the document.
However, the writer forged a will, replacing Jenny in it with Jimmy, and Davis' five sons came under his care. There is a version that relatives were happy with such an outcome of events, without challenging the latter Sylvia's will not to take five children to support her.
When the boys grew up, not all of them are unique spoke about their relationship with the writer. Jack did his best you can get married quickly and leave Barry's house. Peter who gave the name the main character, also had mixed feelings for the writer.
During the author's lifetime, two of the five Davis sons left life. The eldest, George, died in the First World War, and the fourth - Michael, drowned with a close friend in the Thames. The brothers didn't consider it accident, suspecting that friends were homosexual and committed suicide. 
James Barry financially helped the wards only up to the moment coming of age. He bequeathed almost all of his fortune to his secretary, not leaving nothing to the Davis brothers, three of whom were alive at the time of death writer. According to son Peter, this news upset him greatly. father.
The public knew he was the inspiration for Peter Pan. My father felt that all his life he could not escape from this... My father didn't really like Barry. He was outraged that when he wasn't at his best, Barry didn't support him. When he was excluded from the will, the father was furious and terribly disappointed. This anger was with him for the rest of his life, and he began to drink heavily.
Reuven Davis
In 1960, Peter Davis committed suicide by throwing himself under train, but even then the press, impersonating it with a book character, headlines that the real Peter Pan had died.
Eight years before his death in 1929, writer James Barry donated the copyright for Peter Pan to Children's Hospital "Great Ormond Street". Initially, they were valid until the 50th anniversary of the moment of the writer's death. But in 1987 the British government proposed changing the conditions and indefinitely leaving the rights to the hospital to any use of the Peter Pan name (books, films, plays, etc.) further) in the UK.
The Snow Queen
When Hans Christian Andersen was little, his father had a hard time got sick. Standing at the frozen window, he saw how the frost painted on glass silhouette of a woman with open arms. "She came for me" he joked darkly. After some time, the boy's father died, and his mother Hansa said the Ice Maiden took him. So in the head of the future The writer appeared an inextricable link between cold and loss. 
From childhood, Andersen loved to write stories. One of his first and main listeners was a neighbor girl with blond hair, Lisbeth. She was his closest friend and made him company in games. They were so close that Andersen used to call her sister. Later, biographers will boldly say that it was this girl who became prototype of Gerda from The Snow Queen.
But before writing a fairy tale, Andersen had to grow up. A He grew up as a very nervous and shy person. By the age of forty, he did not start a family, and there were no real romances with anyone. But in In the early 1840s, he met the Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind, and in September 1843 an entry appeared in his diary about falling in love. 
Jenny Lind
And already in Octoberre Andresen disappointedly wrote: “She raised a toast to me if I were her brother." After another triumphant performances of the singer in Denmark, the owner of the party said that from now on everyone the Danes are brothers to Lind. To which the girl replied that she did not need so many, but she will choose one and pointed to Andersen. The writer realized that Lind thus tried to tell him that a romantic relationship there cannot be between them.
More than once, Andresen tried to confess his love to the singer, but with her side met only humor or indifference. Once returning after dinner with friends, a writer inspired by a romantic walk, wanted to get rid of the girl, but Lind interrupted him, joking that you need move their long legs faster - friends should have already long time to get home. 
Hans Christian Andersen
Andersen could not reach the singer's heart, and his love remained undivided. The writer never married and left after themselves heirs. He expressed his attitude towards Jenny Lind in creativity, making her the prototype of the Snow Queen with an ice heart. Maybe that's why, contrary to the traditions of the genre, the evil in her face remained in fairy tale unpunished. Good though won, but the Snow Queen did not repented of what she had done.
It is worth mentioning that the time when Andersen composed a fairy tale was a turning point - religion came close to opposing itself to science. So, thanks to Soviet censorship, readers did not know that in the work The "Snow Queen" writer placed great emphasis on this confrontation. 
Grandmother read prayers with Kai and Gerda, spoke with them about churches. And when the girl set off in search of her named brother, then She kept turning her mind to God. The story contains many references to faith and omens. Gerda became for Andersen the personification religion, and the Snow Queen - exact and cold science.
Jenny Lind turned out to be cold only with Andersen - she there were many admirers and novels. She left the stage early explaining the reasons, and in 1851 she married a German composer, pianist Otto Goldsmith. In marriage, they had three children. In part singers named streets in several American cities, and her portrait emblazoned on the Swedish 50 crowns.
Christopher Robin
It's no secret that the English writer Alan Milne copied Winnie the Pooh from his son Christopher Robin's favorite toy. In the famous there is no boy himself in the Soviet cartoon, but in the book and in the American version, he occupies a key place in history. 
When Alan Milne's wife, Dorothy, became pregnant, the couple were I'm sure it will be a girl. The couple even came up with a name for her - Rosemary. But on August 21, 1920, a son was born in the writer's family. Through a few days later Milne wrote to his friend:
“We rather wanted Rosemary. But I expect this gentleman to suit us too.”
Parents argued for a long time what to name the child, but never were able to come to an agreement, so each gave his son one name - Christopher Robin. The birth of a boy did not mean at all that they were not could raise him as a girl: the Milnes grew his hair and made hairstyles from childhood photos of the mother. They dressed him in girls' clothes including dresses. 
Alan Milne with son Christopher Robin
And when their son befriended the girl next door, Ann Darlington, they did not hide their feelings and saw in her the daughter who they never existed. Later they even insisted that their son marry Ann, but he disobeyed his parents.
For his first birthday, Christopher Robin received a soft a toy - a bear, which Edward named. A little later, together with his father, he visited the London Zoo, where he saw the Winnipeg bear. Her bear cub during the First World War bought a Canadian lieutenant and moved to the UK.
He named it after his native Canadian city. Winnipeg or Winnie for short. After the war, the lieutenant intended to take her back to Canada, but, returning from the front, he changed his mind and left forever at the London Zoo. Winnipeg was a favorite of the kids, so no wonder Christopher Robin renamed his toy Winnie. 
Parents understood little in raising children and provided it occupation for the nanny Olivia, who was with the boy until he went to a closed school. The father was never close to his son, the only one theirthe general occupation was algebra and crossword puzzles. Later in an interview with Christopher Milne said that the writer never even played with him.
It was my mother, she came and played with me in the nursery, and then told him what I thought and what I did. It was she who provided most of the material for my father's books.
Christopher Milne
It is no coincidence that Alan Milne later named Dorothy as a co-author of his children's books about a teddy bear that first appeared on the pages collection of poems "When we were very small", in 1924. But there the hero still lives under the name of Edward. Winnie the Pooh was published in 1926 year.
In the English version, the bear's name is Winnie-the-Pooh. analogies with royal titles with the article the. Milne wanted to title and content were a funny contrast. Pooh - that was the name of the swan, which also featured in the compilation When We Were Very Young. All other characters in the book are Christopher Robin's toys. 
At first, the boy really liked the glory. He happily posed surrounded by toys to advertise books. about a bear cub and enjoyed the fact that he was the same Christopher Robin.
Once he even took part in the voice acting of stories, where he spoke on behalf of his character. 
But at the age of 9 everything changed - his parents sent him to closed school, where the boy felt the other side of his popularity. Peers did not take Christopher seriously, they mimicked him audio recordings and quoted lines from his father's poems:
Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares! Christopher Robin is saying his prayers!"
"Quiet! Quiet! Speak in a whisper if you dare! Christopher Robin is praying."
Apparently, the children envied the famous boy, from that and mocked him, but for Christopher it was a tragedy. As a result, he enrolled in the boxing section, became an atheist and hated his books father.
Alan Milne could not help but notice the change in his son later admitted to reporters that popularity was too heavy a burden for a small child. Therefore, after the book "The House at the Pooh Edge" in In 1928, he made a promise to himself not to continue the story about the bear cub.
Meanwhile, the relationship between the Milne spouses is completely went wrong. Dorothy was angry at her husband for moving the family from respectable London to the countryside - she yearned for a social life, which has always been very important to her. In retaliation for her husband, Dorothy started a lover, to which the writer closed his eyes and also found a hobby on the side. 
Alan Milne with wife Dorothy
After school, Christopher Robin went to college, and then volunteered for World War II. He preferred to communicate with parents by correspondence, even when he had the opportunity to see live.
For a long time he could not find something to do - he always liked to write, but he understood that he could never compete with father, to whom, as he believed, he gave fame.
He climbed there on my childish shoulders, thereby robbed me of my good name and left me nothing but empty glory be his son.
Christopher Milne
Cousin Leslie helped him out of the impasse, on which he subsequently married. Parents were categorically against blood marriage, but Christopher Milne did not listen to them. 
Christopher Milne with wife Leslie
The young couple moved to Dartmouth, where they opened a bookstore. shop. In marriage, they had a daughter, Claire, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy.
Once in childhood, Christopher Milne, out of resentment, promised his father, that he would grow up and write him a book about his parents in revenge. During their lifetime did not have time to release an autobiography, but gave several interviews in which He spoke honestly about his childhood. He said how cold and distant were his dad and mom, and that he only missed the nanny.
Thus he managed to "revenge" his parents, disgracing them in front of the whole world. If the father managed to forgive his son and occasionally met with him, then the mother ordered to dig a hole in the yard and bury the statue in it son, never to see his face again. Last time Christopher Milne saw his mother at his father's funeral.
After that, she lived another 15 years, but refused talk to him until his death. When she was dying, Christopher asked to meet her to say goodbye, but her mother did not want to see my son for the last time. 
In 1974, Christopher Milne published the first part of his autobiography "Enchanted Places", the writing of which he called sessions on the analyst's couch. Five years later, the second part came out - “The Way Through trees". In an interview, Milne said that he was finally able to come to terms with his childhood and forgave his parents.
Some people know how to handle children, while others - No. It is a gift that you either have or you don't. My father has his did not have.
Christopher Milne
Mary Poppins
Mary Poppins children's book author Helen Lyndon Goff born in Australia, but she has always considered herself Irish on her father's side Travers Goff, or a Scottish maternal Margaret Morehead. The girl had two younger sisters, but it was she who, as Helen herself believed, was father's favorite. 
While the mother was strict and exactingness, Travers Goff most often responded to the antics of his daughter jokes. One day a girl told her parents that she was counting an umbrella the standard of femininity. She really liked the copy they had. maid - with a parrot on the handle. In response, the mother ridiculed Helen, and the father offered to take the bird off the umbrella and put it in a cage to teach speak.
Travers Goff fascinated his daughter with books, and, as she later said Helen, she learned to read at the age of three. Maybe thanks to this connections, or because she was the eldest, Helen was the hardest father's alcoholism.
Due to a bad habit, Travers quickly slipped from a good banking position to an ordinary clerk. And when the girl was seven years old, father died, as they said then - from an epileptic seizure. But Helen I was sure that the fault was addiction to alcohol. 
The house where the Goff family lived in Australia
For six years, Helen could not come to terms with the loss. She later passed on the features of her father to Mr. Banks from the book "Mary Poppins". This the ambivalence inherent in Travis Goff has become a key character character.
But then, as a child, Helen experienced the death of her father alone - the girl could not count on the support of her mother, who also tried to deal with the pain. When Helen was eleven, her mother hysterically ran out of the house and promised to drown herself in the stream.
The girl was not at a loss, called her younger sisters and, so that reassure them and myself, began to tell the stories that she composed on go. When her mother, soaked but alive, returned, Helen felt only emptiness from resentment. Although the girl dreamed of becoming an actress, she remembered those feelings, how a fictional fairy tale in a difficult moment could distract her and the sisters from anxiety and sad thoughts.
After the death of his father, the family was taken in by a relative of his mother - her aunt Ellie, who many years ago as a child took care of herself Margaret, after the loss of her father. And then she took an active part in raising Margaret's daughters, in particular Helen.
The girl always considered visiting her aunt a reward. Aunt's full name was Helen Morehead Cristina Saraset, or Sass for short. Later, the writer dedicated the story "Aunt Sass" to her.
After studying at a boarding house, Helen got a job as an actress in a troupe Allana Wilkie, for which she changed her name to a more popular one at that time - Pamela, and made her last name from her father's name - Travers. 
Pamela Travers
In parallel with her acting career, she wrote poems and articles for the newspaper and began working as a correspondent.
Gradually, her journalistic talent began to prevail over acting. In Helen's luggage, there were several stories about the nanny that she collected into one novel and in 1934 published a book called "Mary Poppins." The product was a huge success. She later wrote "Mary Poppins is back" and "Mary Poppins opens the door".
Back in the early 1940s, Walt Disney became interested in the book - his daughter dreamed that her father made a film based on his favorite fairy tale. But the author was adamant, she did not like Mickey Mouse and did not want Disney turned the story into a musical. It took him about 20 years to persuade Travers to allow a film adaptation. 
Julie Andrews, Walt Disney and Pamela Travers
Helen only gave up in 1961 due to financial need and went to talks in Hollywood. Disney offered her special terms: $100k (over $900k today), plus 5% of the film's income and the opportunity to be a consultant on the set.
It took several years to make the film, and only in In 1964, the AmericanMary Poppins version. The writer was extremely dissatisfied with this work. As it turned out, the nanny was not just a fictional character.
For the time being, one could only guess who was prototype of the famous nanny. Only in 1941 Travers as Christmas present for relatives and friends wrote a story "Aunt Sass", and decades later the public learned about it.
It was in this story that the writer herself lifted the veil secrets, tenderly describing the ferocious great aunt (Aunt Sass) with a golden heart.
Its remarkableness lay in its extraordinary and, in my opinion, look, the charming discrepancy between her external behavior and inner "I". […] Imagine a bulldog whose ferocious appearance covers a heart tender to sentimentality, and in front of you is Christina Saraset.
Pamela Travers
Mary Poppins creator
Once upon a time, Aunt Sass was in love with a cousin who occupied position in the British Parliament. She knew that she could not marry marry him, so she left her dreams of marriage. Later, the girl did not find no one who could outshine her first love. So she devoted herself raising nieces and nephews, whom she generously helped financially, but also strictly controlled.
Having an impressive capital behind her, she often traveled and always took with her a huge amount of important things for her things, among which were: a watch, a service, a candelabra, a vase, a teapot, spoons, photos, rug and much more.
Pamela Travers endowed her features not only with Mary Poppins, but also Mr. Banks' nurse, Miss Andrew, and the family's neighbor, Miss Lark. It was these two characters that were more suitable in terms of age and appearance. description of a relative of the writer. 
They reflected the dual nature of Aunt Sass - in the imperious, formidable Miss Andrew (in the Soviet film she is played by Oleg Tabakov) and soft, caring Miss Lark (Irina Skobtseva), who, like her prototype, kept two dogs.
Surprisingly, the writer did not even immediately understand where in all these images were born in her head. Death made her think beloved relative.
I said to myself, "Someday, despite her opinion, I will commit disrespectful vulgarity and put Aunt Sass in the book." And then up to me I realized that I had already done it unconsciously, unintentionally. We are writing more than we think we write. We don't think about roots which our fruits have grown. I suddenly realized that there is already a book in which harsh and tender, mysterious and proud, unknown and loving Aunt Sass passes with imperceptible steps. You will find it moments on pages about Mary Poppins.
Pamela Travers
Being famous, the writer was reluctant to share details of your life. When Pamela Travers was asked personal questions, she rarely answered them, saying that "a work is a biography" and added that the story of her life can be traced through books about Mary Poppins.
Alice
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by his pseudonym Lewis Carroll never hid who became the prototype of his main book character - Alice. 
But before meeting the girl, he made a long path. From childhood, the future writer was distinguished by boundless imagination - being the third of 11 children in the family, he always knew how to entertain the rest.
He told his brothers and sisters stories invented games and wrote magazines with them.[…] He really took pleasure in entertaining the children, and they repaid him with love in answer.
Edward Wakeling
biographer of Lewis Carroll
Writing remained with Dodgson forever, despite that he chose science as his profession. He continued at the aristocratic college of Christ Church, Oxford University, where he later began to lecture in mathematics. 
Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
The educational institution obliged Dodgson to take holy orders. From now on, he became a Victorian bachelor, as they said then - uncle for the children of his friends. He composed stories for them, games and took with you for walks. To understand the relationship between Charles Dodgson and Alice, it is important to know that such contacts were very welcome in the British families: parents did not interfere with communication and easily let their children go for a walk with my uncles.
In 1855, a new dean, Henry Liddell, arrived at Christ Church. with his wife and four children, among whom was three-year-old Alice. Dodgson quickly made friends with the new family and began to enter the house on the rights uncles. 
Alice with sisters
At that time he himself became interested in writing and began to publish poems in The Train magazine under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. Another hobby Dodgson had a photograph. For that time the camera was a rarity, therefore, he was often invited to the house to shoot children.
Now these pictures, due to poses and scantily clad images, lead to as evidence of his unhealthy passion for children, but then everything they were made with the permission and at the invitation of the parents. 
Alice Liddell
Filming at the Liddell house in 1862 brought them even closer together. Dodgson and family. He began to invite children for walks and picnics. Dodgson was particularly fond of 10-year-old Alice. One day he invited the girl and her two sisters to go boating so that later have a tea party on the beach. Alice later told how these meetings took place.
When we went to the river in the afternoon with Mr. Dodgson, he always brought with him a basket full of muffins and a kettle, which we brewed. On rare occasions, we went away for the whole day ... and took a huge lunch basket - cold chicken with salad and various other yummy.
Alice Liddell
To entertain the children, he composed a fairy tale about girl, calling that Alice, and came up with adventures in the dungeon for her. 
The real Alice liked the story so much that she persuaded the author to write it down so that she could reread it when wants. Dodgson promised and ... disappeared. It's hard to say what happened in fact, but friendship with the Liddell family broke down.
After the death of the writer, his heirs destroyed the pages from diaries from this period. Alice herself, even as an adult age did not comment on this moment. Once a journalist Florence Lennon, who was writing a book about Lewis Carroll, asked one of the daughters Lindell - Laurina. A little later, she wrote about an interview with her sister Alice.
“I am nervous about what I said. I said that he became too affectionate as you get older. And that mother talked to him about it, and it offended him, that's why he stopped visiting us come more."
It is difficult to say whether you can trust her words, because she told the journalist that she was then only 10, although in fact she already turned 14. It is not clear if she accidentally made a mistake in age or did it on purpose in order, for example, to hide her interest in the young Dodgson. There is a myth that communication was interrupted due to the fact that he asked his parents for the hand of Alice, but she was only 11, which even in the Victorian era was too early for marriage.
However, even when the relationship between the writer and the Lindells resumed, he never took the children for walks or picnics again. At Christmas, he gave Alice a manuscript as a gift: "The Adventures of Alice underground". And a year later he published the book "Alice's Adventures in the Country miracles”, which glorified him under the name of Lewis Carroll.
In addition to Alice, other members of her family can be recognized in the fairy tale. For example, the White Rabbit was written off from the father of the family, Henry Liddell. A busy man headed both college and church, so he always somewhere in a hurry and late, as well as in a hurry to meet the Queen White Rabbit. 
Another explanation for the image is that Linddell often left the place for Big Table in the college cafeteria through a small door that The school was called the "rabbit hole" by everyone. Alice's sisters - Lorina and Edith - also appeared in the fairy tale in the form of the characters Parrot and Eaglet.
As Alice grew older, her friendship with Dodgson waned. A when she left to study at Christ Church, she met her youngest son Queen Victoria - Leopold, with whom they had a mutual sympathy. 
Alice Linddell
But the prince was already looking for a blue-blooded bride, and the young people could not continue communication.
At 28, Alice married Dodgson's cricketer. Reginald Hargreaves, and a couple of years later the prince married. He is his daughter called Alice, and the second son of Hargreaves, who was born in the same year, received name Leopold. In total, Alice had three sons, two of whom died during the First World War.
After the death of her husband in 1926, the widow found herself in a deplorable state. financial situation and, in order to cover utility bills, was forced to sell the manuscript of Alice's Adventures Underground. 
An American buyer paid £15,400 for it - an amount that today is equivalent to 20 thousand dollars. Now the manuscript kept in the British Museum.
The last meeting of Alice and the writer who made her famous took place in 1891 at Oxford. At that time he was 59 years old, he never married. And in front of him was a 39-year-old happily married woman, mother of three sons. That day Charles Dodgson left in diary about his visitor, a sparing entry: "Mrs. Hargreaves, original Alice.
