Novelist and playwright, born in Kirriemuir, Angus, E Scotland, UK. He studied at Edinburgh University, then wrote a series of autobiographical novels, and from 1890 wrote for the theatre, beginning with the successful Walker, London (1893), Quality Street (1902), The Admirable Crichton (1902), and What Every Woman Knows (1908), which established his reputation.

It is, however, as the creator of Peter Pan (1904) that he will be chiefly remembered. In 1929, he assigned the copyright of the play to the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. An unfailing romantic, he continued his excursions into fairyland in such later plays as Dear Brutus (1917) and Mary Rose (1920). He became a baronet (1913), was awarded the Order of Merit (1922), and was rector of Edinburgh University (1930-7).