J. M. Barrie's book My Lady Nicotine is about a man's first love. The love, as implied by the title, is not for a lady but rather for tobacco, and more specifically for a particular mix of tobacco. The story mostly centers on his youthful years, when he would get together with his buddies to smoke his Arcadia tobacco blend, which they regarded as the pinnacle of all tobacco. In many ways, the story is less about tobacco and more about Victorian England's ideologies and the ways in which a group of men might come together to talk and have fun. The Arcadia blend may be what binds the buddies together, but most of the narrative focuses on their activities or sights when they are together. Of fact, this book and the same author's Little White Bird have a lot in common stylistically. Both stories revolve around single bachelors who spend a lot of time lazing around with close friends who also indulge in the same vices while being looked after by subpar individuals who are just suitable for serving. The aspects of his nephew's visit are uncannily identical to the games he used to play with his stepchildren.
Scottish author Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, is most known for creating Peter Pan. He was also a playwright. He was raised and educated in Scotland before relocating to London, where he penned a number of well-received books and plays. There, he met the Llewelyn Davies brothers, who later served as the inspiration for his works Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, a 1904 West End "fairy play," about an ageless boy and an ordinary girl named Wendy who have adventures in the fantasy setting of Neverland. The story of a baby boy who has magical adventures in Kensington Gardens was first included in Barrie's 1902 adult novel The Little White Bird. Despite his ongoing success as a writer, Peter Pan eclipsed all of his earlier works and is credited with making the name Wendy well-known. After the deaths of the Davies boys' parents, Barrie adopted them clandestinely. George V created Barrie a baronet on June 14, 1913, and in the New Year's Honours of 1922, he was inducted into the Order of Merit.
