A Window in Thrums - the story of the "untrue son" - is one of several novels about the fictional village of Thrums, said to be modeled on Barrie's home town of Kirriemuir.
Barrie was a Scottish playwright and novelist. He is best remembered for his play Peter Pan, a supernatural fantasy about a boy who refused to grow up. The son of a weaver, Barrie studied at the University of Edinburgh. He took up journalism, worked for a Nottingham newspaper, and contributed to various London journals before moving to London in 1885. His early works, Auld Licht Idylls (1889) and A Window in Thrums (1889), contain fictional sketches of Scottish life. The publication of The Little Minister (1891) established his reputation as a novelist. During the next 10 years Barrie continued writing novels, but gradually his interest turned toward the theatre. From 1930 until his death he was chancellor of the University of Edinburgh.