'...Intelligently and feelingly done'

'THE PATHOLOGY OF THE ARTIST - the motivations, temperament, clashes between public and private behaviour -is the real subject of Dudgeon's meticulous and highly provocative study of three writers: the creators of Peter Pan, Trilby and Rebecca. He almost sounds as if he's trying to court trouble and outrage with his contentions here that JM Barrie was not only responsible for the death of his brother, David, as a child, but had a hand in the apparent suicide of his adolescent ward, Michael Llewellyn Davies, drove Michael's elder brother Peter (who many mistakenly believed was the original inspiration for Peter Pan) to suicide later in life, corrupted the young Daphne du Maurier and encouraged his close friend, the explorer Captain Scott, to head off for the Antarctic on what was, almost certainly, a suicide mission. It's quite a charge to lay at someone's door, but Dudgeon knows what he's doing and builds his case with precision and coolness... It was when both Daphne herself, and her cousin Peter Llewellyn Davies, finally understood what good old Uncle Jim had been doing to them all these years, that she had her nervous breakdown and he killed himself... It's a gripping read that exposes the dark side to two seemingly innocent activities, writing and loving children... Dudgeon has exposed, in quite a magnificent way, the power and potential for abuse in both.'

'"May God blast anyone who writes a biography of me," Barrie warned and his curse was surely aimed at Dudgeon, who goes further than any other biographer in his attempt to traverse that gloomy terrain known fondly to Barrie fans as "Barrieness"... Dudgeon argues that we understand him so little because of his "secret", the gripping nature of which propels the narrative of Captivated with the force of a turbo engine... I defy you not to be captivated.'

'Dudgeon's portrait of Barrie - as a man who filled the vacuum of his own sexual impotence by a compulsive desire to possess the family who inspired his most famous creation, Peter Pan...will be of interest to anyone, like me, who has followed the twists of the du Maurier family history. Indeed, Kits Browning, Daphne's son, declares Dudgeon's book to be 'absolutely fascinating, though somewhat alarming about the extent of Barrie's sinister influence on my family.'

'Piers Dudgeon, who worked with Daphne du Maurier in the 1980s, and who has worked with such other deeply autobiographical authors as John Fowles, Ted Hughes and Catherine Cookson, has negotiated the dark back-tracks abd by-ways of Barrie's chilling Neverland... He tells a terrible story without sentimentality, without sensationalism and without undue psychologising... What remains here would leave a bad taste in the mouth if it were not so intelligently and feelingly done.'

An extraordinary book about the imagination - and the astonishing force of its creative power ... for evil as well as good.

Captivated is a true story of genius and possession. The background is the turn of the century, when a late 19th century world of mesmerists, psychics, trancers and table-turners gave way to a new 20th century age of psychology. The central character is the creator of Peter Pan, the famous novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie, a man tormented by inner demons since childhood. Barrie developed a consuming interest in the du Maurier family, beginning with George du Maurier, author of Trilby, a bestselling novel featuring his creation Svengali. In Trilby, George showed how it is possible, by means of hypnosis, for one person to gain control over the mind of another. Barrie made his move on the du Maurier family immediately after George died, assuming George's mantel and using his ideas to dominate both his daughter Sylvia and his son Gerald. Soon Barrie was 'Uncle Jim' to Sylvia's five sons and Gerald's three daughters, playing romping games of adventure and make-believe, and inviting the children into the transcendental world of Neverland. Four of the boys (the 'lost boys' of Peter Pan) and one of the girls (the imaginative tomboy Daphne) were captivated.This fascinating book delves deep, makes links and yields up secrets.

It is a story of bliss corrupted by greed which masquerades as supernatural power. It tells how Barrie's victims - whom he would have not grow up - were lost to breakdown, suicide or an early death when they did. Daphne du Maurier, author of Rebecca, emerges as the lost boys' surprise companion and the enigmatic chronicler of their fate. Captivated is about writing and the world of the imagination: it is a singular example of art being used not only to imitate life, but darkly to transform it. PIERS DUDGEON knew Daphne du Maurier and worked with her in the 1980s. When he discovered that she had put a moratorium on publication of her adolescent diaries until fifty years after her death, he was prompted to begin his researches into her background. What was the mystery that had Daphne been so keen to suppress?

Letter to the author, July 2008, from David Lodge, novelist and Professor of English, Birmingham University:
'The real strength of the book though is its account of Barrie and his baleful influence on the Du Mauriers and many others. What a monster he was, and how plausible that he should be, given his early life. The suggestion that he was responsible for his brother's death, for instance, is very persuasive and would explain a lot. The Captain Scott episode is extraordinary! You establish a lot of fascinating links between the various personages and their works, and the book becomes more and more persuasive as it goes on. I don't really know Daphne's work apart from Rebecca but you make her appear a more interesting, and certainly less middlebrow writer than I had supposed.'

Letter to the author, August 2008, from Nina Auerbach, author of 'Daphne du Maurier: Haunted Heiress' and Professor of English at Pennsylvania University: 'CAPTIVATED is a riveting joy... Poor scintillating du Mauriers. Poor boys... It's a terrible story and you tell it brilliantly. I felt as if I was living it...I started out affirming that Daphne's ill-fitting marriage, her affairs with glamorous women, her fixation on the men in her family, seemed less Barrie's than solely her own...but in the larger sense you really are right, Barrie hypnotized just about everyone in America and England and too many of us are still marching to his obsession with youth, boys, and death.'

Piers Dudgeon is the author of many works of non-fiction. He worked for ten years as an editor in London before starting his own company producing books with authors as diverse as John Fowles, Catherine Cookson, Peter Ackroyd, Daphne du Maurier, Shirley Conran and Ted Hughes. Subsequently, he left London for Yorkshire where he wrote a number of biographies as well as illustrated books evocative of the spirit of place.