Peter Llewelyn Davies -- Later Life

[Sara72]

I would love to hear from the experts about Peter Llewelyn Davies and his later life. He was a named trustee to Barrie's estate, and it seems the majority of the letter destruction came to him instead of trustee Cynthia Asquith. Of course, he couldn't bring himself to do it all and thus the creation of The Morgue came about, as we know from the database. It seems he wanted to create three copies of The Morgue -- one for each of his living brothers. But I think he only made one?

Does anyone know what inspired him to ask questions of Mary Hodgson later on in life -- lists of questions on why she thought his mother died so far away from the boys?

Peter's death really disturbs me. Why did he kill himself in 1960? Why not before? Was it purely financial? All of the boys seem to me to have adjusted to a less expensive way of living after Barrie's death, was the financial burden really so much that Peter would kill himself?

[EHuhn]

I would love to hear from the experts about Peter Llewelyn Davies and his later life. He was a named trustee to Barrie's estate, and it seems the majority of the letter destruction came to him instead of trustee Cynthia Asquith. Of course, he couldn't bring himself to do it all and thus the creation of The Morgue came about, as we know from the database. It seems he wanted to create three copies of The Morgue -- one for each of his living brothers. But I think he only made one?

Does anyone know what inspired him to ask questions of Mary Hodgson later on in life -- lists of questions on why she thought his mother died so far away from the boys?

Peter's death really disturbs me. Why did he kill himself in 1960? Why not before? Was it purely financial? All of the boys seem to me to have adjusted to a less expensive way of living after Barrie's death, was the financial burden really so much that Peter would kill himself?

There are others who I think know more of the actual facts and details.

As for why Peter committed suicide and why he did it when he did, we'll frankly never know. I suspect it wasn't any one thing but an accumulation of old traumas and new stresses. He lost a lot of people early in his life, then had a pretty difficult experience during the war. In that moment, he had financial and health concerns for himself, his wife, and his children. I suspect it was finally too for him just then. There seems to be an image of suicide as something that younger people do--but older people have these mental health issues, too.

[Brutus]

I agree with EHuhn - an accumulation of all the traumas and worries (financial and health) coming to a head. His publishing company wasn't doing very well, he was an alcoholic and suffered from emphysema (like his brother Nico) and his wife and children all had Huntingdon's Disease. Not a good outlook for life.

As for the reason for asking Mary Hodgson questions later on in life, I think this is something people often do as they get older and start thinking of the past. They would normally ask their parents about it but in Peter's case,  he could only ask Mary.

The letters and archives that constituted the Morgue were from his family, so not part of  the Barrie estate and nothing to do with Cynthia Asquith (who on her part, as heir to Barrie's estate,  promptly sold all the correspondence with Barrie, mss, etc to Beinecke - and anything else that could raise money, of which she was always in dire need.