Peter learns that the Gardens are inhabited by fairies, who wait until Lock-Out Time (when the gates of the Gardens are barred and people cannot come in), and then emerge from hiding to hold fabulous balls. They take payment from Peter and build him a large nest, which he uses to leave the island. At first, Solomon refuses, but after Peter gives him one of the five pounds he has found on the island, Solomon agrees to talk to the thrushes. He approaches Solomon and asks the crow to help him persuade the thrushes to build him an oversized nest to use as a boat. Bored with life on the island, Peter devises a plan to get across the water to the Gardens proper. Solomon explains that Peter is neither bird nor infant: he is a “Betwixt-and-Between.” Now that he knows he is no longer a bird, Peter cannot fly, and he is stuck on the island. However, when he arrives at the island, a resident crow, Solomon Caw, invites Peter to look at himself: thus Peter discovers that he is no longer a bird. As a former bird, he knows perfectly well that he can fly, so he flies there. When he overhears a conversation about his adult life, he decides to return to the island in Kensington Garden where all London’s babies come from.
Most students of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens have concluded that it is simply an alternative version of the most famous Peter Pan story. Although it was published after the success of Barrie’s play, its text is almost identical to a section of Barrie’s earlier novel The Little White Bird, which was published before the play. The novel’s publication history is also complex.
However, the novel also suggests that Peter Pan will never age (making it impossible for him to become the boy-hero of the play), and the novel’s magic works differently to the play’s. In some respects, Kensington Gardens is a prequel to the play: Peter Pan is only one week old in the novel, which recounts how Peter acquired some of the characteristics he has in the play, including the ability to fly and his friendship with fairies. Barrie’s most famous character, Peter Pan, the relationship between Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens and Barrie’s play Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, is ambiguous. Barrie, published in 1906 with original illustrations by Arthur Rackham. Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens is a children’s novel by J.M.
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