The Boy Castaways of Black Lake Island

The Boy Castaways of Black Lake Island is a photo-storybook created by J. M. Barrie in 1901, featuring the play adventures of, , and Llewelyn Davies, and Porthos in a supporting role, with a cameo by. The story, presumably made up as the boys played, no doubt with some involvement by Barrie, involved the boys being shipwrecked on an island, where they lived in the wild and encountered pirates and exotic wild animals.

Barrie prepared the book as if it were written by Peter, who was only four years old at the time; it includes a two-page introduction "by" the boy. The table of contents gives headlines supposedly taken from 16 chapters, but there is no actual prose backing them up. The index of illustrations, however, is accurate, with captions for the 35 photos (including a frontispiece) which make up the bulk of the book. The photos are not halftones, but full-tone photographic prints pasted onto the pages.

Only two copies of the book were made, and given to the Davies. misplaced his copy on a train shortly thereafter. The only surviving copy - evidently 's, which came back to Barrie after her death - is held at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.

If you ever hear the gossip about Barrie taking nude photographs of the Davies boys, this book is probably the source of that. Two of the photos show George, Jack, and Peter wading in Black Lake, and like any boys their age, bathing on private land, they were not wearing bathing suits. (Barrie was not a serious photography fan like Lewis Carroll, but he left behind a fair number of Davies-family snapshots, which include a few additional skinny-dipping shots.)