Adulthood
Davies volunteered along with his brother George to serve in World War I, and received a commission as an officer. He was a signal officer in France and spent time in the trenches; at one point he was hospitalized with impetigo. He ultimately won the Military Cross, but was emotionally scarred by his wartime experience. His brother George was killed at 21 in the trenches in 1915.
In 1917, while still in the military, Davies met and began to court Hungarian-born Vera Willoughby (a watercolour painter and illustrator, as well as a costume and poster designer), a married woman 27 years older, with a daughter older than he was. He stayed with her when on leave, which scandalized Barrie and caused a rift between the two. His former nurse and mother figure Mary Hodgson disapproved strongly as well. The relationship continued at least through the end of his military service in 1919. In 1926 he published an edition of George Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer featuring illustrations by her.
His brother Michael drowned at the age of 20 while at Oxford University in 1921 with Michael's best friend Rupert Buxton.
In 1926, Davies founded a publishing house, Peter Davies Ltd, which in 1951 released his cousin Daphne du Maurier's work about their grandfather, illustrator and writer George du Maurier, The Young George du Maurier, letters 1860–1867. He married Margaret Ruthven in 1931, and had three sons with her: Ruthven (b. 1933), George (b. 1935) and Peter (b. 1940).
He grew to dislike having his name associated with Peter Pan, which he called "that terrible masterpiece". Upon Barrie's death in 1937, most of his estate and fortune went to his secretary Cynthia Asquith, and the copyright to the Peter Pan works had previously been given in 1929 to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London. Although Davies (and his surviving brothers) received a legacy, some have speculated that this drove Davies to drink — he eventually became an alcoholic. Davies' son Ruthven later told an interviewer:
"My father had mixed feelings about the whole business of Peter Pan. He accepted that Barrie considered that he was the inspiration for Peter Pan and it was only reasonable that my father should inherit everything from Barrie. That was my father's expectation. It would have recompensed him for the notoriety he had experienced since being linked with Peter Pan — something he hated."
Read more about this topic: Peter Llewelyn Davies
Famous quotes containing the word adulthood:
“For a boy to reach adulthood feeling that he knows his father, his father must allow his emotions to be visible—hardly an easy task when most males grow up being either subtly or openly taught that this is not acceptable behavior. A father must teach his son that masculinity and feelings can go hand in hand.”
—Kyle D. Pruett (20th century)
“It is not however, adulthood itself, but parenthood that forms the glass shroud of memory. For there is an interesting quirk in the memory of women. At 30, women see their adolescence quite clearly. At 30 a woman’s adolescence remains a facet fitting into her current self.... At 40, however, memories of adolescence are blurred. Women of this age look much more to their earlier childhood for memories of themselves and of their mothers. This links up to her typical parenting phase.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)
“We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice—that is, until we have stopped saying “It got lost,” and say, “I lost it.””
—Sydney J. Harris (b. 1917)