What do you think?
Rate this book
Thrums #3
Little Minister
Book Excerpt: long, Jim," and sank.A month afterwards Margaret sold her share in the smack, which was all Adam left her, and the furniture of the house was rouped. She took Gavin to Glasgow, where her only brother needed a housekeeper, and there mother and son remained until Gavin got his call to Thrums. During those seventeen years I lost knowledge of them as completely as Margaret had lost knowledge of me. On hearing of Adam's death I went back to Harvie to try to trace her, but she had feared this, and so told no one where she was going.According to Margaret, Gavin's genius showed itself while he was still a child. He was born with a brow whose nobility impressed her from the first. It was a minister's brow, and though Margaret herself was no scholar, being as slow to read as she was quick at turning bannocks on the girdle, she decided, when his age was still counted by months, that the ministry had need of him. In those days the first question asked of a child was not, "Tell me your name," but "What arRead More
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1891
55 people are currently reading
667 people want to read
About the author
J.M. Barrie
2,397 books2,235 followersJames Matthew Barrie was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland and then moved to London, where he wrote several successful novels and plays.
The son of a weaver, Barrie studied at the University of Edinburgh. He took up journalism for a newspaper in Nottingham and contributed to various London journals before moving there in 1885. His early Auld Licht Idylls (1889) and A Window in Thrums (1889) contain fictional sketches of Scottish life representative of the Kailyard school. The publication of The Little Minister (1891) established his reputation as a novelist. During the next decade, Barrie continued to write novels, but gradually, his interest turned towards the theatre.
In London, he met Llewelyn Davies, who inspired him about magical adventures of a baby boy in gardens of Kensington, included in The Little White Bird, then to a "fairy play" about this ageless adventures of an ordinary girl, named Wendy, in the setting of Neverland. People credited this best-known play with popularizing Wendy, the previously very unpopular name, and quickly overshadowed his previous, and he continued successfully.
Following the deaths of their parents, Barrie unofficially adopted the boys. He gave the rights to great Ormond street hospital, which continues to benefit.
The son of a weaver, Barrie studied at the University of Edinburgh. He took up journalism for a newspaper in Nottingham and contributed to various London journals before moving there in 1885. His early Auld Licht Idylls (1889) and A Window in Thrums (1889) contain fictional sketches of Scottish life representative of the Kailyard school. The publication of The Little Minister (1891) established his reputation as a novelist. During the next decade, Barrie continued to write novels, but gradually, his interest turned towards the theatre.
In London, he met Llewelyn Davies, who inspired him about magical adventures of a baby boy in gardens of Kensington, included in The Little White Bird, then to a "fairy play" about this ageless adventures of an ordinary girl, named Wendy, in the setting of Neverland. People credited this best-known play with popularizing Wendy, the previously very unpopular name, and quickly overshadowed his previous, and he continued successfully.
Following the deaths of their parents, Barrie unofficially adopted the boys. He gave the rights to great Ormond street hospital, which continues to benefit.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews
May 1, 2022
I love this little book. It's so simple but extremely charming. The ending is suspenseful and action-packed, and even though the beginning is slower, it's worth it. The characters are fun to get to know, and by the end, I felt like I was another villager from Thrums who knew everybody and everybody's business. Barrie's writing is engaging and fun. Peter Pan is one of my favorite books, and now so is this lovely book. The first-person narrator is flawed but admits his flaws and so seems perfect. The main character has a great personality. The story-within-the-story of the narrator and his love is surprising and sadly sweet.
I recommend this book to anybody who likes 19th-century fiction, to anyone who nostalgically enjoys a simple story that still makes you want to read more, and to fans of Barrie's work.
I recommend this book to anybody who likes 19th-century fiction, to anyone who nostalgically enjoys a simple story that still makes you want to read more, and to fans of Barrie's work.
March 27, 2020
4.5 stars
I can't believe more people haven't read this one. Such a treat.
Young minister living with elderly mother assigned to a new church. Meets a "gypsy" girl trying to save the the town from incoming soldiers. Clever gypsy outwits most of the town. Little Minister is uncertain of how to proceed. Humor. Romance. Action. First person narration that isn't explained til later in the book, but it adds understanding and depth to the plot.
Story is written in a doric dialect, but gets easier with each chapter.
There is an audiobook on Librivox.
I can't believe more people haven't read this one. Such a treat.
Young minister living with elderly mother assigned to a new church. Meets a "gypsy" girl trying to save the the town from incoming soldiers. Clever gypsy outwits most of the town. Little Minister is uncertain of how to proceed. Humor. Romance. Action. First person narration that isn't explained til later in the book, but it adds understanding and depth to the plot.
Story is written in a doric dialect, but gets easier with each chapter.
There is an audiobook on Librivox.
July 26, 2025
It's hard to imagine anyone else feeling about this book quite like I do, so this review will be more of a tribute than a review proper.
I found an ugly green copy of it at Goodwill twenty-six years ago give or take one, while I was in college and poor enough to agonise over whether to spend two dollars for a book. I bought it . . . why? The name Barrie? Why did that matter? And then I read it, and it taught me a great deal about love; it underwrote my experience as I learned to love the woman who would become my wife. The main character is twenty-one and a minister; I was nearly at the age and aspiring to the occupation. He was at once confident, scholarly, priggish, and insecure; I was . . . well, everything there but confident. And he was learning what love can do. It undid the man, and it made him a man. The right book at the right time. It helped to form me.
Remarkably, sixteen crucial pages near the end of the book in that edition are omitted; the sixteen preceding pages are printed twice, instead. I've never read a book in which that was true before or since. And I've never read those sixteen crucial missing pages until today, in another copy bought at an antique shop.
It's a joyful re-read over a quarter century later. It's a heady mixture of wit, sharp small-town characterisation, and sentiment. Sometimes the sentiment slips into cloying . . . apparently literary critics hate on the "Kailyard school" of which this is a member. But the inventive plot has many surprises. Several of them are Bible related. Twenty-five years later I still delightedly remember the congregation's consternation when the preacher preaches on Ezra. They didn't know how to find it, and they didn't want the shame of being caught looking at the table of contents. I had forgotten the little minister's big hero turn in the middle of the river. And the last sentence of the book slips and bites the hand that holds it, chills the happy ending.
James Barrie was weird. And, yes, the little minister is not just patriarchal but overbearingly so. But there are so many interesting people in this book, and so many interesting plot touches, and so many interesting SENTENCES. In its combination of wit, inventiveness, sentiment, and high-minded tough-minded idealism, it's a book I'm proud to have been formed by.
I found an ugly green copy of it at Goodwill twenty-six years ago give or take one, while I was in college and poor enough to agonise over whether to spend two dollars for a book. I bought it . . . why? The name Barrie? Why did that matter? And then I read it, and it taught me a great deal about love; it underwrote my experience as I learned to love the woman who would become my wife. The main character is twenty-one and a minister; I was nearly at the age and aspiring to the occupation. He was at once confident, scholarly, priggish, and insecure; I was . . . well, everything there but confident. And he was learning what love can do. It undid the man, and it made him a man. The right book at the right time. It helped to form me.
Remarkably, sixteen crucial pages near the end of the book in that edition are omitted; the sixteen preceding pages are printed twice, instead. I've never read a book in which that was true before or since. And I've never read those sixteen crucial missing pages until today, in another copy bought at an antique shop.
It's a joyful re-read over a quarter century later. It's a heady mixture of wit, sharp small-town characterisation, and sentiment. Sometimes the sentiment slips into cloying . . . apparently literary critics hate on the "Kailyard school" of which this is a member. But the inventive plot has many surprises. Several of them are Bible related. Twenty-five years later I still delightedly remember the congregation's consternation when the preacher preaches on Ezra. They didn't know how to find it, and they didn't want the shame of being caught looking at the table of contents. I had forgotten the little minister's big hero turn in the middle of the river. And the last sentence of the book slips and bites the hand that holds it, chills the happy ending.
James Barrie was weird. And, yes, the little minister is not just patriarchal but overbearingly so. But there are so many interesting people in this book, and so many interesting plot touches, and so many interesting SENTENCES. In its combination of wit, inventiveness, sentiment, and high-minded tough-minded idealism, it's a book I'm proud to have been formed by.
January 30, 2019
I love, love, love this book! I can hardly believe it’s by the same author as Peter Pan (which I’ve never been able to get through).
That moment when he is about to die and begins singing the 23rd Psalm...
That moment when he is about to die and begins singing the 23rd Psalm...
May 16, 2023
This is another book that I hadn't read even though it's been on the shelf for years. It took a week for me to plow through it, mainly because I found the vernacular so awkward. For example:
p 20: I dinna gang to the kirk to cry, 'Oh, Lord, gie, gie, gie.'
"Take tent o' yousel', my man," said Lang Tammas, ...
Nope, not a smooth read, but I ended up skimming over the longer passages instead of doing tedious 'translations.' While this style does contribute to the tone of the story, it didn't need to be so heavy. Sometimes I even needed the dictionary to understand the English words (e.g., hobbledehoy, glebe).
Sprinkled throughout are gems of wisdom, for example:
p 3: The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.
Then, too, there were descriptive phrases that I enjoyed:
p 7: Foreign oaths were the nails with which he held his talk together ...
And there are bits of humor:
p 14: ... Jamie Don [was] a pitiful bachelor all his life because he thought the woman proposed ...
The "Egyptian" ('gypsy'), Babbie, has a dash of Peter Pan and a bit of Tinkerbelle mixed into her character.
As would be expected from the title, religion plays a big part in this story. Was there any in Peter Pan?
I'm keeping the book, but I don't expect to read it again. (I shelved this as 'historical fiction' because it does capture a time and place, but it's really an old-fashioned romance, and I don't have a shelf for that genre.)
p 20: I dinna gang to the kirk to cry, 'Oh, Lord, gie, gie, gie.'
"Take tent o' yousel', my man," said Lang Tammas, ...
Nope, not a smooth read, but I ended up skimming over the longer passages instead of doing tedious 'translations.' While this style does contribute to the tone of the story, it didn't need to be so heavy. Sometimes I even needed the dictionary to understand the English words (e.g., hobbledehoy, glebe).
Sprinkled throughout are gems of wisdom, for example:
p 3: The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.
Then, too, there were descriptive phrases that I enjoyed:
p 7: Foreign oaths were the nails with which he held his talk together ...
And there are bits of humor:
p 14: ... Jamie Don [was] a pitiful bachelor all his life because he thought the woman proposed ...
The "Egyptian" ('gypsy'), Babbie, has a dash of Peter Pan and a bit of Tinkerbelle mixed into her character.
As would be expected from the title, religion plays a big part in this story. Was there any in Peter Pan?
I'm keeping the book, but I don't expect to read it again. (I shelved this as 'historical fiction' because it does capture a time and place, but it's really an old-fashioned romance, and I don't have a shelf for that genre.)
January 21, 2026
You think you know J M Barrie? Think again! The man was as gifted as Charlotte Bronte herself in creating literary macrocosms filled with characters of renown. Im in awe!
May 2, 2022
I started reading the play of the same title. But when I looked for it in goodreads, I only found the novel, which had been written first, and of which the play is an adaptation. And the novel had very good reviews. I then interrupted the play and switched to the novel.
It is a delightful read. One can see ahead and understand who the narrator and the Egyptian woman are before the novel explains it, but the discovery of it is very enjoyable, as are the Scottish town of Thrums and its townspeople. This novel is the third of a series of novels on Thurms, and I will be reading the other two soon.
It is a delightful read. One can see ahead and understand who the narrator and the Egyptian woman are before the novel explains it, but the discovery of it is very enjoyable, as are the Scottish town of Thrums and its townspeople. This novel is the third of a series of novels on Thurms, and I will be reading the other two soon.
November 1, 2018
Babbie wants a man who could be her master, to force her into yielding if she coax him.
Gavin is onboard.
Sure.
Gavin is onboard.
Sure.
April 14, 2020
A comedic drama with love stories, action, and heartache, this novel is a far cry from Barrie's well-known Peter Pan, and well worth the read.
March 27, 2025
This was my fourth reread and I have loved this book more with each reread. This is my ultimate cozy read with the charming characters, thick Scottish, and sweet little love story.
October 6, 2014
I read this because I saw the Katherine Hepburn movie.
It was a pleasant read, though a bit difficult getting through the Scottish dialect/language parts.
I actually don't remember how the movie resolved itself, but the book felt different, and definitely better. The characters felt less like caricatures. (Which is not to say that they were any less so, it just felt that way.)
We have the new, very young, minister in town, with his doting mother. And we have the wild "Egyptian", and it's always clear that they are destined to fall in love. The getting there isn't actually all that interesting, but what happens when they get there is. We wander along pleasantly, but the real interesting stuff isn't till the last 100 (of 400 pages). How the town reacts to learning of the affair is sort of what we expect---sort of---but how he wins them back is really well done, I think.
We also have a new character (the narrator) whom I don't remember from the movie. Turns out that the minister's mother has an interesting past, and our narrator knew her back then. That part seems a little overdone (that is, I got a little sick of him inserting himself into the story), but mostly works well.
Nothing terribly deep here, but an enjoyable read.
It was a pleasant read, though a bit difficult getting through the Scottish dialect/language parts.
I actually don't remember how the movie resolved itself, but the book felt different, and definitely better. The characters felt less like caricatures. (Which is not to say that they were any less so, it just felt that way.)
We have the new, very young, minister in town, with his doting mother. And we have the wild "Egyptian", and it's always clear that they are destined to fall in love. The getting there isn't actually all that interesting, but what happens when they get there is. We wander along pleasantly, but the real interesting stuff isn't till the last 100 (of 400 pages). How the town reacts to learning of the affair is sort of what we expect---sort of---but how he wins them back is really well done, I think.
We also have a new character (the narrator) whom I don't remember from the movie. Turns out that the minister's mother has an interesting past, and our narrator knew her back then. That part seems a little overdone (that is, I got a little sick of him inserting himself into the story), but mostly works well.
Nothing terribly deep here, but an enjoyable read.
March 7, 2026
This was an absolute delight. Romantic, sad, hilarious, and surprising. J. M. Barrie knows how to prick my heart. A new favorite.
"How often is it a phantom woman who draws a man from the way he meant to go? So was man created, to hunger for the ideal that is above himself, until one day there is magic in the air, and the eyes of a girl rest upon him. He does not know that it is he himself who crowned her, and if the girl is as pure as he, their love is the one form of idolatry that is not quite ignoble. It is the joining of two souls on their way to God. But if the woman be bad, the test of the man is when he wakes from his dream. The nobler his ideal, the further will he have been hurried down the wrong way, for those who only run after little things will not go far. His love may now sink into passion, perhaps only to stain its wings and rise again, perhaps to drown."
"How often is it a phantom woman who draws a man from the way he meant to go? So was man created, to hunger for the ideal that is above himself, until one day there is magic in the air, and the eyes of a girl rest upon him. He does not know that it is he himself who crowned her, and if the girl is as pure as he, their love is the one form of idolatry that is not quite ignoble. It is the joining of two souls on their way to God. But if the woman be bad, the test of the man is when he wakes from his dream. The nobler his ideal, the further will he have been hurried down the wrong way, for those who only run after little things will not go far. His love may now sink into passion, perhaps only to stain its wings and rise again, perhaps to drown."
January 16, 2026
Due to the long inner musings of the narrator and the hard to decipher dialect of most of the characters, I skipped whole sections while reading this book. And I never do that! l may try watching the movie version starring Katherine Hepburn though.
August 15, 2013
This book was my favorite book for a while (before I read Tale of Two Cities). I don't know why I liked it so much, because it was a normal, old-fashioned romance, and I have probably read several dozen of those. But much of it was funny, and the story moved quickly but was deep enough to be enjoyable and not feel mindless. Revolving around a young Scottish minister who is sensitive about his height, or lack thereof, and around a mysterious gypsy girl who keeps stirring up trouble for the little minister, this book is narrated by an old schoolteacher. One of the reasons that I loved this book is because I was wondering while I was reading it (the first time), what in the world the teacher had to do with the story.
If you like humor and old-fashioned romance novels, then this is an excellent story for you. (By old-fashioned romance I mean in the style of Gene Stratton-Porter and Randall Parrish.)
If you like humor and old-fashioned romance novels, then this is an excellent story for you. (By old-fashioned romance I mean in the style of Gene Stratton-Porter and Randall Parrish.)
April 29, 2010
I was craving a children's book with grown-up characters and this pretty much fit the bill. My least favorite parts were the three continuously soggy chapters after the flood and the narrator dominie's lack of sympathy for animals. It was uncomfortable to have characters randomly stepping over dead birds and chasing off dogs... especially the collie named Snap (collies will be forever flawless in my mind). The little 21 year old minister was an interesting character, though J.M. Barrie might have given him a little more depth. I'd love to see a movie made of this, in the spirit of Cranford!
Favorite Quote:
"We should be slower to think that the man at his worst is the real man, and certain that the better we are ourselves the less likely is he to be at his worst in our company. Every time he talks away his own character before us he is signifying contempt for ours."
Favorite Quote:
"We should be slower to think that the man at his worst is the real man, and certain that the better we are ourselves the less likely is he to be at his worst in our company. Every time he talks away his own character before us he is signifying contempt for ours."
May 13, 2016
I have been reading this book over and over for years. It's funny, exciting and reflects many insights into life that are still relevant today. It never fails to make me laugh aloud. It is a tale of two romances, mystery, the foibles and benefits of religion, and human nature. When the little minister meets a beautiful but independent gypsy girl, he says to her something like, "But, madam, I am a minister!" She replies, "That's alright, I forgive you."
November 20, 2015
If it weren't for the indecipherable rendering of Scotch accents, I would give it 5 stars. And yet, something would have been lost without those accents. It's a story as old as man, boy falls in love with the wrong girl, girl falls in love with the wrong boy - in this case, a minister and a gypsy. Barrie's treatment of their story is sweet and insightful, with an ending I did not expect.
January 15, 2026
This delightful 1891 novel by that most whimsical of novelists, JM Barrie, incorporates several details of his own life, including his education and religious upbringing in Scotland among weavers’ families, and his dwarfism, which accounts for the title and the exasperation of the little minister when there is the least reference to his height – or lack of it.
While it is at first sight a light hearted romantic romp between a strictly Presbyterian Minister of an Auld Licht community and Babbie, a riotously impudent gypsy girl, it also examines issues of love, including mixed marriages where class should marry into the same class, betrayed love, bigamy, forced marriage and so on. Our little minister is almost a New Licht liberal when he asserts that a man’s marriage is his own affair, in which “I would have brooked no interference from my congregation." In this, he is wrong, for his congregation would have brooked no interference from the minister in the matter of his marriage. They would have selected an appropriately thrifty, strictly orthodox, pious woman devoted to the business of the elders of the kirk, heedless of her husband's views on the subject, and certainly not a mischievous, dancing sprite with a love for practical jokes.
The other obstacle to his marriage is the Earl of Rintoul, Babbie’s guardian since she was a foundling and now wishes to marry her as a trophy, regardless of her wishes. Babbie's escape and Rintoul’s vindictiveness forms a large part of the narrative.
A subplot concerns the Dominie, the schoolteacher, a hard man, who takes an inexplicable dislike to the little minister and changes his place of worship so as to avoid contact with Gavin Dishart.
The background features the people and landscape of the village of Thrums. We get to know Margaret Dishart, Gavin’s mother (based on Barrie’s own mother), and the young women and widows who make a straight pass for their minister, barely twenty two years old, and the men, from the schoolmaster, the village drunk, the atheist, the lay precentor who asserts his aggressively moral superiority over the little minister. Set in pre Victorian times, one event that Barrie describes in some detail is the weavers' riot who had gone on strike against their low wages, despite the rising cost of living. The strike was put down harshly, although it eventually led to the Chartist movement, and the power of the working man.
The very landscape on one nightmare night, turns against Gavin Dishart, with a volcanic storm with floods and landslides that cost many an old cottager his life and property.
How the Little Minister asserts his authority, an authority he holds from a Higher Power than himself, is the backbone and the core of this compelling and charming romance.
While it is at first sight a light hearted romantic romp between a strictly Presbyterian Minister of an Auld Licht community and Babbie, a riotously impudent gypsy girl, it also examines issues of love, including mixed marriages where class should marry into the same class, betrayed love, bigamy, forced marriage and so on. Our little minister is almost a New Licht liberal when he asserts that a man’s marriage is his own affair, in which “I would have brooked no interference from my congregation." In this, he is wrong, for his congregation would have brooked no interference from the minister in the matter of his marriage. They would have selected an appropriately thrifty, strictly orthodox, pious woman devoted to the business of the elders of the kirk, heedless of her husband's views on the subject, and certainly not a mischievous, dancing sprite with a love for practical jokes.
The other obstacle to his marriage is the Earl of Rintoul, Babbie’s guardian since she was a foundling and now wishes to marry her as a trophy, regardless of her wishes. Babbie's escape and Rintoul’s vindictiveness forms a large part of the narrative.
A subplot concerns the Dominie, the schoolteacher, a hard man, who takes an inexplicable dislike to the little minister and changes his place of worship so as to avoid contact with Gavin Dishart.
The background features the people and landscape of the village of Thrums. We get to know Margaret Dishart, Gavin’s mother (based on Barrie’s own mother), and the young women and widows who make a straight pass for their minister, barely twenty two years old, and the men, from the schoolmaster, the village drunk, the atheist, the lay precentor who asserts his aggressively moral superiority over the little minister. Set in pre Victorian times, one event that Barrie describes in some detail is the weavers' riot who had gone on strike against their low wages, despite the rising cost of living. The strike was put down harshly, although it eventually led to the Chartist movement, and the power of the working man.
The very landscape on one nightmare night, turns against Gavin Dishart, with a volcanic storm with floods and landslides that cost many an old cottager his life and property.
How the Little Minister asserts his authority, an authority he holds from a Higher Power than himself, is the backbone and the core of this compelling and charming romance.
June 3, 2022
Charming little book that was a thrift store gem. It was cute and the following is not a criticism of J.M. Barrie as he wonderfully depicted a truth in society.
I hated Margaret. You heard me. In no way was she a pleasant or even halfway likable character. She had to be the center of attention even though she was barely in the book. It didn't help that the story was from the point of view of a man as obsessed with her as she was with herself. At first I pitied her for marrying such a man as Adam but that pity quickly turned to disgust when she ran back to him after he abandoned her. I don't care what you say about the times. She betrayed her son. (and she was so cruel and nasty to her second husband) She tore Gavin from a father who loved him and had taken care of him and who would always take care of him and placed him in the arms of a man who had proven that he would abandon his family whenever the fancy took him. She was utterly cruel to Gavin for depriving him of a loving and caring father. This alone was enough to make me despise this woman. But no, there's more.
She raises Gavin to be her replacement husband. Engaging in the most basic form of emotional incest. She had no man to emotionally support her and so her son did the job. She raised him to be weirdly reliant on her. She was placed above everyone else. Gavin was even admonished for not thinking of her when he married Babbie. In every moment she was to be the highlight. She sickened me. Those mothers who raise their sons not to be men, but to remain boys who will forever need them deserve our contempt. She didn't want a son who could make his own way in the world and do what was right. She wanted a son who would always need her and run back to her apron strings. She did her best to guilt him. She perfectly embodied the mothers who are so insecure in their own importance that they are jealous of young girls. How sick is that? A mother who is upset that her son might like a girl who is not her. One of the contributing factors to the weak men in society is weak and selfish mothers. Manipulative and grasping. Margaret had no redeeming qualities. She was a like a black rain cloud overshadowing every scene in the book. Hardly a conversation passed between anyone without her name being mentioned. Everyone would serve her but she would serve no one.
I hated Margaret. You heard me. In no way was she a pleasant or even halfway likable character. She had to be the center of attention even though she was barely in the book. It didn't help that the story was from the point of view of a man as obsessed with her as she was with herself. At first I pitied her for marrying such a man as Adam but that pity quickly turned to disgust when she ran back to him after he abandoned her. I don't care what you say about the times. She betrayed her son. (and she was so cruel and nasty to her second husband) She tore Gavin from a father who loved him and had taken care of him and who would always take care of him and placed him in the arms of a man who had proven that he would abandon his family whenever the fancy took him. She was utterly cruel to Gavin for depriving him of a loving and caring father. This alone was enough to make me despise this woman. But no, there's more.
She raises Gavin to be her replacement husband. Engaging in the most basic form of emotional incest. She had no man to emotionally support her and so her son did the job. She raised him to be weirdly reliant on her. She was placed above everyone else. Gavin was even admonished for not thinking of her when he married Babbie. In every moment she was to be the highlight. She sickened me. Those mothers who raise their sons not to be men, but to remain boys who will forever need them deserve our contempt. She didn't want a son who could make his own way in the world and do what was right. She wanted a son who would always need her and run back to her apron strings. She did her best to guilt him. She perfectly embodied the mothers who are so insecure in their own importance that they are jealous of young girls. How sick is that? A mother who is upset that her son might like a girl who is not her. One of the contributing factors to the weak men in society is weak and selfish mothers. Manipulative and grasping. Margaret had no redeeming qualities. She was a like a black rain cloud overshadowing every scene in the book. Hardly a conversation passed between anyone without her name being mentioned. Everyone would serve her but she would serve no one.
August 22, 2022
The Kate Hepburn film version is a classic, but the novel is quite dated now. It's hard not to read about the minister's devotion to his mother and his fear of a spirited young woman without thinking of Sigmund Freud. The idea that her son's falling in love with a Gypsy -- even a Gypsy who has been raised as a foster-daughter of a nobleman -- would devastate his mother is pretty hard to believe, although in class-obsessed Britain of the 19th century it might have been. Other aspects of the story are, again, a bit disturbing at a time when we speak more freely of such things: Babbie was adopted by the Laird as a young child, for the sole reason that she was beautiful and that he intended to marry her when she was old enough. There is a strong whiff of Lolita about this, although of course Barrie would never dream of mentioning such a thing, or even thinking consciously about it. But if you've read Lolita, you do understand Babbie's distaste for and dread of her approaching marriage.
I found the Scots dialect pretty heavy going at first, but managed to get used to it. The romance between the very prim and proper young minister and the wild child Babbie (who as others have noticed also is a lot like a female Peter Pan) is charming, if a bit over the top, as is the act of heroism that secures the congregation's love for the minister. But it's an enjoyable period piece.
I found the Scots dialect pretty heavy going at first, but managed to get used to it. The romance between the very prim and proper young minister and the wild child Babbie (who as others have noticed also is a lot like a female Peter Pan) is charming, if a bit over the top, as is the act of heroism that secures the congregation's love for the minister. But it's an enjoyable period piece.
March 14, 2026
We recently visited the Beinicke book library at Yale University. It's wonderful building, with light coming through Vermont alabaster into a walkway around an eight story shimmering glass cube of books, all stacked up and brilliantly lit up and protected by security. Since the Guttenberg bible was on display near the cube, I assumed everything inside the cube was a key to knowledge and such. But as I looked at one shelf I realized there were 40 or 50 copies of a book called the Little Minister, by J M Barrie who wrote Peter Pan. I asked the librarians about that and they said that the collection was comprised of gifts from m collectors, who might amass numerous copies of the same book. So the collection wasn't the key to all. human knowledge.
I scoured the sources to find an audio version of The Little Minister, and found a budget, abridged version on Audible, which worked just fine. Lots of melodrama--the Gypsy king performs a wedding on a mountain top in a raging thunderstorm, and the little minister proves to be a hero and marries his true love and then rescues the local lord. Quite the exciting tale, but a surprise to be in the Bernicke.
I scoured the sources to find an audio version of The Little Minister, and found a budget, abridged version on Audible, which worked just fine. Lots of melodrama--the Gypsy king performs a wedding on a mountain top in a raging thunderstorm, and the little minister proves to be a hero and marries his true love and then rescues the local lord. Quite the exciting tale, but a surprise to be in the Bernicke.
November 16, 2017
If you like Scotch ...
A delightful book from the author of Peter Pan about a young minister and the "Egyptian" who bewitches him. The townspeople, who speak in thick accents, are as much of a backdrop as the Scottish countryside.
A delightful book from the author of Peter Pan about a young minister and the "Egyptian" who bewitches him. The townspeople, who speak in thick accents, are as much of a backdrop as the Scottish countryside.
July 29, 2025
Found this book in my mother’s attic and decided to give it a go. The first chapter was a bit tough, but I’m so glad that I didn’t give up on it. Yes, it is melodramatic, dated and full of Scottish dialect, as well as written in the third person. But, after all that, I really enjoyed it.
June 19, 2017
Simply charming!
May 20, 2018
This is a love story set in the British Isles probably at least 150 years ago. I didn't understand all of it because the dialogue was written in dialect.
April 10, 2019
Great little book. The dialect was a little tedious to get through but the story was worth it. Starts out slow but speeds up in the end. Pretty little love story about a minister and gypsy.
October 23, 2020
This book was an amazing experience! I love Babbie and Gavin.
Read
November 18, 2020I wanted to like it, because JM Barrie! Maybe I’ll come back to it sometime. A bit too sentimental for me at the moment. Didn’t get far enough to rate it.
December 4, 2020
I read this after a break-up ad it was just what I needed. A short, not all rainbows type love story, JM Barrie's writing style is just lovely.
March 15, 2021
Wonderful! Yet another reason to love J. M. Barrie's writing. I thoroughly enjoyed plot, characters, story-telling, including the vivid and evocative use of the Scots' dialect.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews