In J. M. Barrie’s fiction, which work first introduced Peter Pan as a character?

J. M. Barrie first introduced Peter Pan as a character in The Little White Bird.

The Little White Bird was published in 1902 as a novel for adults. Its Peter Pan chapters describe Peter as a seven-day-old baby who escapes from his nursery and flies to Kensington Gardens. These chapters were later extracted and published separately as Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens in 1906.

Because the 1906 book is often encountered on its own, readers sometimes identify it as Peter Pan’s first appearance. Chronologically, however, the character appeared four years earlier inside The Little White Bird.

Barrie then developed Peter into the central figure of the 1904 stage play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up. The later 1911 novel Peter and Wendy established the story in the form most familiar to many readers.