Editing J. M. Barrie (section)

==Marriage==
[[File:SIR JAMES BARRIE 1860-1937 NOVELIST AND DRAMATIST lived here.jpg|thumb|160px|right|[[Blue plaque]] on 100 [[Bayswater Road]], London where Barrie lived and wrote ''[[Peter and Wendy|Peter Pan]]'']]
Barrie became acquainted with actress [[Mary Ansell (actress)|Mary Ansell]] in 1891, when he asked his friend [[Jerome K. Jerome]] for a pretty actress to play a role in his play ''Walker, London''. The two became friends, and she helped his family to care for him when he fell very ill in 1893 and 1894.<ref name="Chaney"/> They married in Kirriemuir on 9 July 1894,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/learning/hall-of-fame/hall-of-fame-a-z/barrie-j-m |title=Hall of Fame A–Z: J M Barrie (1860–1937) |date=31 May 2013 |publisher=National Records of Scotland |access-date=14 April 2018}}</ref> shortly after Barrie recovered, and Mary retired from the stage.  The wedding was a small ceremony in his parents' home, in the Scottish tradition.{{Sfnp|Birkin|2003|pp=28–29}} The relationship was reportedly unconsummated, and the couple had no children.{{Sfnp|Birkin|2003|pp=179–180}}

In 1895, the Barries bought a house on Gloucester Road, in South Kensington.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/3349995/Round-the-houses-Peter-Pan.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/3349995/Round-the-houses-Peter-Pan.html |archive-date=11 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Round the houses: Peter Pan|last=Stogdon|first=Catalina|date=17 May 2006|work=The Telegraph|publisher=Telegraph Media Group Limited|access-date=14 May 2015}}{{cbignore}}</ref> Barrie would take long walks in nearby Kensington Gardens, and in 1900 the couple moved into a house directly overlooking the gardens at 100 [[Bayswater Road]]. Mary had a flair for interior design and set about transforming the ground floor, creating two large reception rooms with painted panelling and adding fashionable features, such as a conservatory.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/style/homes_and_gardens/Move/article1553378.ece |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150518084405/http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/style/homes_and_gardens/Move/article1553378.ece |url-status=dead |archive-date=18 May 2015 |url-access=subscription |title=Return to Neverland|last=Law|first=Cally|date=10 May 2015|work=The Sunday Times|publisher= Times Newspapers Limited|access-date=14 May 2015}}</ref> In the same year, Mary found Black Lake Cottage at [[Farnham]] in [[Surrey]], which became the couple's "bolt hole" where Barrie could entertain his cricketing friends and the Llewelyn Davies family.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.surreymonocle.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090307100750/http://www.surreymonocle.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33 |archive-date=7 March 2009 |title=JM Barrie |publisher=Surrey Monocle |date=10 January 2007 |access-date=22 July 2009}} Retrieved from Internet Archive 27 December 2013.</ref>

Beginning in mid-1908, Mary had an affair with [[Gilbert Cannan]] (who was twenty years younger than she<ref name=holroyd>Michael Holroyd, ''Lytton Strachey'', p. 287</ref> and an associate of Barrie in his anti-censorship activities), including a visit together to Black Lake Cottage, known only to the house staff. When Barrie learned of the affair in July 1909, he demanded that she end it, but she refused. To avoid the scandal of divorce, he offered a legal separation if she would agree not to see Cannan any more, but she still refused. Barrie sued for divorce on the grounds of infidelity; the divorce was granted in October 1909.{{Sfnp|Birkin|2003|pp=175–176, 181}}<ref>{{cite news |title=J.M. Barrie Seeks Divorce from Wife |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A0DE1D8123EE733A25754C0A9669D946897D6CF |quote=The name of James M. Barrie, the playwright, figures as a petitioner in the list of divorce cases set down for trial at the next session of the law courts here. |work=[[New York Times]] |date=7 October 1909 |access-date=17 April 2010 }}</ref> Knowing how painful the divorce was for him, some of Barrie's friends wrote to a number of newspaper editors asking them not to publish the story. In the event, only three newspapers did.{{Sfnp|Birkin|2003|p=181}}{{Sfnp|White|1994|p=34}} Barrie continued to support Mary financially even after she married Cannan, by giving her an annual allowance, which was handed over at a private dinner held on her and Barrie's wedding anniversary.<ref name=holroyd/>