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Canonical Peter Pan works

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Unlike some franchises, where there are a wealth of works vying to be considered canonical, it's a bit simpler with Peter Pan, because for so long there was only one person who could write Peter Pan stories, and he didn't write very many of them. So this isn't like the "Oz" books, which were an ongoing series with other writers besides L. Frank Baum, or "Star Wars which has a whole ecosystem of tie-in novels and games and comics, which may or may not be "canon".

On the other hand, there's the issue that J. M. Barrie wasn't particularly concerned with continuity. When Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up premiered, it flatly contradicted The Little White Bird, aging the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up from 7 days to 7 or more years old. And Barrie didn't leave the story alone; he added an epilogue, he revised things for the novel Peter and Wendy, and he continued to tinker with the play for nearly 25 years before the script was finally published.

Barrie gave the rights to the whole Peter Pan universe to Great Ormond Street Hospital the following year. Surprisingly, while they continued to license the play for performances and in the 1950s licensed it for new musicals and Disney's famous animated version, they were content to simply reap the rewards of that gift, and didn't produce or authorize any new stories. It was only when that income was endangered by the expiration of the copyrights that GOSH commissioned a sequel.

Canon

Although GOSH no longer has legal authority over Peter Pan, as the institution to whom Barrie gave the work, they have a moral claim to authorize what is (or isn't) canonical. They haven't published a list, but it's pretty self-evident:

Authorised

There were other works authorized by Barrie or GOSH, but these were using just adaptations of the original stage play's story. As faithful as these may try to be, they must make changes to fit the medium they're working in. It's clear that GOSH wasn't concerned about whether a sequel such as Hook or Return to Never Land was what "really" happened. These works should be considered authorised, but not canonical.

See also: Works of J. M. Barrie
See also: Peter Pan comics
See also: Peter Pan books

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