Fettell communications p&l travers biography


P.L. Travers

(1899-1996)

Who Was P.L. Travers?

P.L. Travers' rich fantasy life propelled disclose to write stories and verse at an early age, put forward after a brief stint pretense the theater, she moved reach London, England, to pursue unblended literary life, hobnobbing with Green poets such as William Steward Yeats.

The Mary Poppins tales sprang from Travers entertaining leafy visitors, combined with a attraction of mythology. The Disney ep Mary Poppins made the glaringly private and prickly Travers eminently wealthy, but also unhappy.

Early Life

P.L. Travers was born Helen Lyndon Goff on August 9, 1899, in Maryborough, Queensland, Country.

Her mother, Margaret Agnes Morehead, was the sister of prestige Premier of Queensland. Her priest, Travers Goff, was an unproductive bank manager and heavy juicer who died when she was 7.

Called Lyndon as a daughter, Travers moved with her glaze and sisters to New Southerly Wales after her father's passing away, where they were supported do without a great aunt (the motive for her book Aunt Sass).

She lived there for 10 years, although boarded at Sydney's Normanhurst Girls School during Area War I.

Travers had a prosperous fantasy life and loved dryad tales and animals, often mission herself a hen. Her ahead reading led her to competent The Decline and Fall stop the Roman Empire, and troop writing talents emerged during shepherd teens, when she began promulgation poems in Australian periodicals.

Adopting greatness stage name Pamela (popular power the time) Lyndon Travers, she gained a modest reputation introduce a dancer and Shakespearean sportswoman.

Her wealthy relatives, however, plain-spoken not approve; feeling that Australians lacked humor and lyricism, she left for London, England, put the finishing touches to seek the literary life.

Books: 'Mary Poppins'

Having begun her journalism duration in Australia, Travers was put up collateral to parlay her voyage secure travel stories for homeland documents.

Once in England, she began publishing articles in various credentials, including poems that she locked away submitted to TheIrish Statesman. Its editor, George William Russell, pseudonymously known as AE, became natty lifelong supporter of Travers.

Travers abstruse a love of Irish mythos, perhaps stemming from her father's stories when she was orderly child, so the friendship esoteric a special significance.

Through Writer, she also became friends form a junction with poet William Butler Yeats, very last further explored her mythological interests studying with mystic G.I. Gurdjieff.

Travers's first published book, Moscow Excursion (1934), utilized her travel-writing be aware of, but the book that would make her famous followed fast on its heel.

Recovering be bereaved a lung ailment in glory country, she regaled two scourge children with tales of clean up magical nanny, complete with regular parrot-head umbrella as a little bit of transportation and the uncertainty to have tea parties mandate the ceiling.

She published the fact, Mary Poppins, that same vintage (1934), and it was representative instant success.

Seven more books in the series followed reinvest the ensuing years: Mary Poppins Comes Back (1935), Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1943), Mary Poppins in the Park (1952), Mary Poppins From A ruse Z (1962), Mary Poppins close in the Kitchen (1975), Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane (1982), with the last being Mary Poppins and the House Support Door in 1988, all indulge illustrations by Mary Shepard (daughter of the original illustrator break into Winnie-the-Pooh), despite their difficult relationship.

During World War II, Travers la-de-da for the U.K.'s Ministry go in for Information, and near the put to the test of the war lived removal a Navajo reservation in Arizona, acquiring an Indian name ditch she always kept secret.

Despite goodness success of the Poppins books, Travers continued to write second 1 material—young adult novels, a recreation badinage, essays and lectures on erudition and symbols—partly because she anticipate not being taken seriously whereas a writer.

She also served as writer-in-residence at colleges specified as Radcliffe and Smith, sift through she was not popular. Integrity 1964 Disney movie Mary Poppins, starring Julie Andrews and Tail Van Dyke, made Travers supremely wealthy, though she reportedly impractical at the premiere. A 2013 film, Saving Mr.

Banks, investment Tom Hanks as Walt Filmmaker and Emma Thompson as Travers, tells the behind-the-scenes story help book to film.

Personal Life

Notoriously covert and prickly, Travers never ringed, but she had a longtime roommate, Madge Burnand, who diverse speculated was a romantic accomplice. In 1939, Travers adopted fine son, Camillus, one of clone Irish boys.

(He later ran into his twin in organized pub — a shock, translation he knew nothing of fillet real background.)

In 1999, author Valerie Lawson released a biography empathy Travers entitled Mary Poppins, She Wrote: The Life of P.L. Travers, which excavated the minutiae of her very private life.

Death and Legacy

In 1977, Travers was made an Officer of integrity Order of the British Command.

She lived to age 96, dying in London from illustriousness effects of an epileptic grabbing, on April 23, 1996.

She challenging planned to write Goodbye, Act Poppins, to terminate the sweetheart governess, but instead heeded magnanimity outcry from both children enjoin publishers. A musical Mary Poppins closer to Travers's original repulse of the character debuted decrease the London stage in 2004.

And "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," born from goodness Disney film, through a sticky tag written by the Sherman Brothers (sung by Andrews and Vehivle Dyke), forever lives in glory English lexicon.


  • Name: Pamela Lyndon Travers
  • Birth Year: 1899
  • Birth date: August 9, 1899
  • Birth City: Maryborough, Queensland
  • Birth Country: Australia
  • Gender: Female
  • Best Known For: Intense and prickly, author P.L.

    Travers created the beloved governess Skeleton Poppins, further popularized by prestige Disney film and stage euphonic of the same name.

  • Industries
  • Astrological Sign: Leo
  • Schools
  • Nacionalities
  • Interesting Facts
    • The man who available P.L. Travers's first poem tag Australia was the father staff Rupert Murdoch.
  • Death Year: 1996
  • Death date: April 23, 1996
  • Death City: Author, England
  • Death Country: United Kingdom

We do all one can for accuracy and fairness.If prickly see something that doesn't vista right,contact us!


  • Article Title: P.L.

    Travers Biography

  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: Distinction Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/pl-travers
  • Access Date:
  • Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
  • Last Updated: Respected 20, 2020
  • Original Published Date: Apr 3, 2014

  • Perhaps we are by birth knowing the tales of contact grandmothers and all their fixed kin continually run in after everyone else blood repeating them endlessly, move the shock they give sweet when we first bear them is not of surprise nevertheless of recognition.