Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet,  (; 9 May 1860 -  19 June 1937) was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland and then moved to London, where he wrote a number of successful novels and plays.

Barrie moved in literary circles and had many famous friends in addition to his professional collaborators. Novelist George Meredith was an early social patron. He had a long correspondence with fellow Scot Robert Louis Stevenson, who lived in Samoa at the time, but the two never met in person. George Bernard Shaw was his neighbour in London for several years, and once participated in a Western that Barrie scripted and filmed. H. G. Wells was a friend of many years, and tried to intervene when Barrie's marriage fell apart. Barrie met Thomas Hardy through Hugh Clifford while he was staying in London.  After the First World War, Barrie sometimes stayed at Stanway House near the village of Stanway in Gloucestershire. He paid for the pavilion at Stanway cricket ground. Barrie also founded an amateur cricket team for his friends. The people who played on the team at various times included such luminaries as H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, P. G. Wodehouse, Jerome K. Jerome, G. K. Chesterton, A. A. Milne, E. W. Hornung, A. E. W. Mason, Walter Raleigh, E. V. Lucas, Maurice Hewlett, Owen Seaman, Bernard Partridge, Augustine Birrell, Paul Du Chaillu, Henry Herbert La Thangue, George Cecil Ives, George Llewelyn Davies (see below) and the son of Alfred Tennyson. The team was called the Allahakbarries, under the mistaken belief that "Allah akbar" meant "Heaven help us" in Arabic (rather than "God is great").  Barrie befriended Africa explorer Joseph Thomson and Antarctica explorer Robert Falcon Scott. He was godfather to Scott's son Peter, and was one of the seven people to whom Scott wrote letters in the final hours of his life during his expedition to the South Pole, asking Barrie to take care of his wife Kathleen and son Peter. Barrie was so proud of the letter that he carried it around for the rest of his life.  In 1896, his agent Addison Bright persuaded him to meet with Broadway producer Charles Frohman, who became his financial backer and a close friend, as well. Frohman was responsible for producing the debut of Peter Pan in both England and the US, as well as other productions of Barrie's plays. He famously declined a lifeboat seat when the RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat in the North Atlantic. Actress Rita Jolivet stood with Frohman, George Vernon and Captain Alick Scott at the end of Lusitania's sinking, but she survived the sinking and recalled Frohman paraphrasing Peter Pan: 'Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure that life gives us.'  His secretary from 1917, Cynthia Asquith, was the daughter-in-law of H. H. Asquith, British Prime Minister from 1908 to 1916. In the 1930s, Barrie met and told stories to the young daughters of the Duke of York, the future Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret.

Who did he like most?
Novelist George Meredith was an early social patron. He had a long correspondence with fellow Scot Robert Louis Stevenson,