Signed by the author, edition 213 or 500 copies. 

Printed in blue on the front free endpaper, Rackham’s map of Kensington Gardens forms the reader’s first encounter with the book. In contrast to his richly atmospheric colour plates, the map is restrained in tone, lending the narrative an air of topographical authority. It charts a hybrid landscape in which recognisable London landmarks – the Serpentine, the Broad Walk, the Round Pond, the Albert Memorial – coexist with Barrie’s imaginative additions: ‘Where Peter Pan landed’, ‘Fairies’ Winter Palace’, and ‘The Baby Walk’.

This coexistence between the urban and the fantastic situates the work within a wider context of Edwardian literature and culture. It reflects what has been described as ‘the Pan-worship engaged upon by the many Edwardian fantasists – including J. M. Barrie, E. M. Forster, Kenneth Grahame, Arthur Machen, Barry Pain, and Saki – who bemoaned the loss of childhood and the rise of suburbia’ (Clute, 1997). 

The map’s fusion of precise geography and mythic invention exemplifies this broader imaginative response to urban modernity.
This interplay mirrors the dual perspective of the text itself: part adult reminiscence, part child’s dream. The map is therefore not merely decorative but structural. By situating fairy mythology within a precisely named and publicly accessible urban park, Rackham and Barrie anchor fantasy within lived geography, suggesting that childhood enchantment persists – if only fleetingly – within the everyday landscape of modern London.

Ex Carta

Arthur Rackham’s map of Kensington Gardens charts a hybrid of real London landmarks and fairy-tale wonder. It grounds Barrie’s whimsy in the mundane, turning the quotidian city park into a liminal world of memory and magic.

In his introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of Peter Pan, Jack Zipes remarks that although Peter Pan is now an iconic figure in children’s literature, familiar to international audiences through stage and screen adaptations, the original texts are comparatively little read today. This was not always the case. J. M. Barrie’s Peter 

 (1906) was adapted from chapters of his 1902 novel The Little White Bird. Reissued as a stand-alone gift book, it was lavishly illustrated with fifty colour plates by Arthur Rackham, whose work here helped establish him as the foremost book illustrator of the Edwardian period.

Decorated with a gilt-stamped cloth cover and issued as a deluxe Christmas volume, the book became the most popular gift book of 1906 (Zipes, 2004). It was also warmly received by critics, praised for its delicate balance of whimsy and melancholy. The work maintained this reputation ‘at least up through the 1970s’, before more biographical and psychoanalytical readings cast aspects of both Barrie’s life and Peter Pan’s character in a more troubling light (Barrie, 1906). While the prose text has since receded from popular attention, adaptations of the 1904 stage play Peter Pan have flourished, and film versions such as 

 (1991) have secured the character a permanent place in the cultural imagination.

Printed in blue on the front free endpaper, Rackham’s map of Kensington Gardens forms the reader’s first encounter with the book. In contrast to his richly atmospheric colour plates, the map is restrained in tone, lending the narrative an air of topographical authority. It charts a hybrid landscape in which recognisable London landmarks – the Serpentine, the Broad Walk, the Round Pond, the Albert Memorial – coexist with Barrie’s imaginative additions: ‘Where Peter Pan landed’, ‘Fairies’ Winter Palace’, and ‘The Baby Walk’.

This copy is number 213 of 500 copies, and is signed by illustrator, Arthur Rackham

Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens