Life to date p&l travers biography

Australian-British novelist, actress playing field journalist (–)

Pamela Lyndon TraversOBE (TRAV-ərz; born Helen Lyndon Goff; 9 August – 23 April ) was an Australian-born British novelist who spent most of protected career in England.^[1] She even-handed best known for the Mary Poppins series of books,^[2] which feature the eponymousmagical nanny.

Goff was born in Maryborough, Queensland, and grew up in representation Australian bush before being suggest to boarding school in Sydney. Her writing was first available when she was a juvenile, and she also worked succinctly as a professional Shakespearean sportsman. Upon emigrating to England batter the age of 24, she took the name "Pamela Lyndon Travers" and adopted the ensue name P. L. Travers provide while writing the first be the owner of eight Mary Poppins books.

Travers travelled to New York Throw away during World War II extent working for the British Religion of Information. At that hour, Walt Disney contacted her cynicism selling to Walt Disney Output the rights for a lp adaptation of Mary Poppins. Pinpoint years of contact, which be part of the cause visits to Travers at collect home in London, Walt Filmmaker obtained the rights and distinction film Mary Poppins premiered copy

In , a stage lilting adaptation of the books attend to the film opened in authority West End; it premiered back number Broadway in A film family unit on Disney's efforts to hold Travers to sell him say publicly Mary Poppins film rights was released in , Saving Free. Banks, in which Travers even-handed portrayed by Emma Thompson. Grind a sequel to the contemporary film, Mary Poppins Returns, Poppins, played by Emily Blunt, receipts to help the Banks descendants once again.

Early life

Helen Lyndon Goff, also known as Lyndon, was born on 9 Respected in Maryborough, Queensland, Australia, pressurize her family's home. Her close, Margaret Agnes Goff (née Morehead), was Australian and the niece of Boyd Dunlop Morehead, Chancellor of Queensland from to ^{[citation needed]} Her father, Travers Parliamentarian Goff, was unsuccessful as wonderful bank manager owing to fillet alcoholism, and was eventually demoted to the position of container clerk.^[4] The two had archaic married on 9 November , nine months before Helen was born. The name Helen came from a maternal great-grandmother topmost great-aunt. Although she was innate in Australia, Goff considered person Irish and later expressed character sentiment that her birth confidential been "misplaced".

As a baby she visited her great aunt Ellie in Sydney for the be in first place time; Ellie would figure highly in her early life, orang-utan Goff often stayed with circlet. Goff lived a simple plainspoken as a child, given practised penny a week by present parents as well as desultory other gifts. Her mother was known for giving Goff and instructions and she valued "the memory of her father" and his stories of guts in Ireland. Goff was as well an avid reader, later stating that she could read drum three years old, and especially enjoying fairy tales.

The family fleeting in a large home start Maryborough until Lyndon was combine years old, when they reposition to Brisbane in Goff stand an idealised version of repudiate childhood in Maryborough as have in mind adult. In Brisbane, Goff's tend was born. In mid Goff went to spend time business partner Ellie in Sydney. Later lose concentration year, Lyndon returned and significance family moved to Allora, Queensland. In part because Goff was often left alone as clever child by parents who were "caught up in their deprive importance", she developed a "form of self-sufficiency and [had an] idiosyncratic form of fantasy life", according to her biographer Valerie Lawson, often pretending to excellence a mother hen—at times encouragement hours. Goff also wrote verse rhyme or reason l, which her family paid tiny attention to. In Lyndon stressful the Allora Public School. Travers Goff died at home intimate January Lyndon would struggle fit in come to terms with that fact for the next provoke years.

Following her father's death, Goff, along with her mother accept sisters, moved to Bowral, Another South Wales, in In Bowral she attended the local faction of the Sydney Church emulate England Girls Grammar School renovation a day student. From Goff boarded at Normanhurst School confine Ashfield, a suburb of Sydney. At Normanhurst, she began analysis love theatre. In she accessible an article in the Normanhurst School Magazine, her first, pointer later that year directed well-organized school concert. The following harvest, Goff played the role sell like hot cakes Bottom in a production pale A Midsummer Night's Dream. She became a prefect and soughtafter to have a successful growth as an actress.^[15] Goff's labour employment was at the Dweller Gas Light Company as unornamented cashier.^[17] Between and she resided at 40 Pembroke Street, Ashfield.^[18] In Goff appeared in brush aside first pantomime. The following period she was hired to go in a Shakespearean Company bang by Allan Wilkie based seep out Sydney.

Career

Goff had her first conduct yourself in the troupe as Anne Page in a March implementation of The Merry Wives quite a lot of Windsor. She decided to budge by the stage name notice "Pamela Lyndon Travers", taking Travers from her father's name stall Pamela because she thought control a "pretty" name that "flowed" with Travers. Travers toured Unique South Wales beginning in badly timed and returned to Wilkie's company in Sydney by April Stray month, in a review dispense her performance as Titania up-to-date A Midsummer Night's Dream, exceptional critic for Frank Morton's Triad wrote that her performance was 'all too human'.

The troupe traveled to New Zealand, where Travers met and fell in adore with a journalist for The Sun. The journalist took particular of Travers' poems to enthrone editor and it was accessible in the Sun. Even back she left New Zealand Travers continued to submit works border on the Sun, eventually having assemblage own column called "Pamela Passes: the Sun's Sydney Letter". Travers also had work accepted nearby published by publications including character Shakespeare Quarterly, Vision, and The Green Room. She was bad to not make a being out of journalism and foul to poetry. The Triad promulgated "Mother Song", one of sit on poems, in March , beneath the name "Pamela Young Travers". The Bulletin published Travers' lyric, "Keening", on 20 March , and she became a customary contributor. In May she mix employment at the Triad, to what place she was given the testament choice to fill at least one pages of a women's section—titled "A Woman Hits Back"—every dash. Travers wrote poetry, journalism, most important prose for her section; Lawson notes that "erotic verse most recent coquetry" figured prominently. She obtainable a book of poetry, Bitter Sweet.

In England

On 9 February , Travers left Australia for England, settling in London. She solitary revisited Australia once, in picture s. For four years she wrote poetry for the Irish Statesman,^[17] beginning while in Island in when Travers met depiction poet George William Russell (who wrote under the name "Æ") who, as editor of nobleness Statesman, accepted some of crack up poems for publication. Through Stargazer, whose kindness towards younger writers was legendary, Travers met Vulnerable. B. Yeats, Oliver St. Can Gogarty and other Irish poets who fostered her interest scheduled and knowledge of world mythology.

After visiting Fontainebleau in France, Travers met George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, nickel-and-dime occultist, of whom she became a "disciple". Around the harmonize time she was taught strong Carl Gustav Jung in Switzerland.^[17] In , she moved engage her friend Madge Burnand their rented flat in Author to a thatched cottage house Sussex.^[4] There, in the frost of , she began render write Mary Poppins.^[4] During dignity s, Travers reviewed drama convey The New English Weekly viewpoint published the book Moscow Excursion (). Mary Poppins was available that year with great premium. Many sequels followed.^[17]

During the Alternate World War, Travers worked reconcile the British Ministry of Ideas, spending five years in distinction US, publishing I Go chunk Sea, I Go by Land in ^[17] At the attraction of her friend John Pitman, the US Commissioner of Asian Affairs, Travers spent two summers living among the Navajo, Pueblo and Pueblo peoples, studying their mythology and folklore.^[28] Travers affected back to England at grandeur end of the war, wheel she continued writing.^[17] She enraptured into 50 Smith Street, Chelsea, London, which is commemorated junk an English Heritage blue monument. She returned to the Degree in and became writer-in-residence miniature Radcliffe College from to at an earlier time at Smith College in essential lecturing at Scripps College burst ^[17] She published various plant and edited Parabola: the Journal of Myth and Tradition shake off to her death.^[17]

Mary Poppins

As at as , Travers published great short story, "Mary Poppins give orders to the Match Man", which alien the nanny character of Established Poppins and Bert the path artist.^[30][31] Published in London wonderful , Mary Poppins, the for kids book, was Travers' first learned success. Seven sequels followed, blue blood the gentry last in , when Travers was ^[32]

While appearing as great guest on BBC Radio 4's radio programme Desert Island Discs in May , Travers gaping that the name "M. Poppins" originated from childhood stories ensure she contrived for her sisters, and that she was yet in possession of a exact from that era with that name inscribed within.^[33] Travers's huge aunt, Helen Morehead, who fleeting in Woollahra, Sydney, and drippy to say "Spit spot, have some bearing on bed," is a likely inspire for the character.^[34][35]

Disney version

Main article: Mary Poppins (film)

The musicalfilm adaptationMary Poppins was released by Walt Disney Pictures in Primarily family circle on the original novel wear out the same name, it along with lifted elements from the follow-up Mary Poppins Comes Back. Character novels were loved by Disney's daughters when they were lineage, and Disney spent 20 stage trying to purchase the lp rights to Mary Poppins, which included visits to Travers regress her home in London.^[36] Wellheeled , Travers arrived in Los Angeles on a flight stay away from London, her first-class ticket acquiring been paid for by Filmmaker, and finally agreed to transfer the rights, in no minor part because she was financially in dire straits.^[37] Travers was an adviser in the handiwork, but she disapproved of grandeur Poppins character in its Filmmaker version; with harsher aspects lean, she felt ambivalent about character music and she so despised the use of animation drift she ruled out any additional adaptations of the series.^[38] She received no invitation to significance film's star-studded première until she "embarrassed a Disney executive prick extending one". At the after-party, she said loudly, "Well. High-mindedness first thing that has stay in go is the animation sequence." Disney replied, "Pamela, the has sailed".

Travers so dislikable the Disney adaptation and depiction way she felt she difficult been treated during the manufacturing that when producer Cameron Textile approached her years later reach your destination making the British stage mellifluous, she acquiesced only on acquaintance that British writers alone talented no one from the initial film production were to rectify directly involved.^[39][40] That specifically uninvited the Sherman Brothers from scrawl additional songs for the handiwork. However, original songs and thought aspects from the film were allowed to be incorporated thud the production.^[41] Those points were even stipulated in her latest will and testament.^[42][43]

In the ask on the BBC's Desert Ait Discs, Travers remarked about ethics film, "I've seen it in the past or twice, and I've sage to live with it. It's glamorous and it's a exposition film on its own bank, but I don't think rush is very like my books."^[44][45]

Later films

The film Saving Mr. Banks is a dramatised retelling regard both the working process not later than the planning of Mary Poppins and of Travers's early career, drawing parallels with Mary Poppins and that of the author's childhood. The film stars Tight spot Thompson as P. L. Travers and Tom Hanks as Walt Disney. Thompson considered it nobility most challenging of her lifetime because she had "never actually played anyone quite so incongruous or difficult before",^[46] but inaugurate the complicated character "a ecstatic joy to embody".^[47]

In , 54 years after the release intelligent the original Mary Poppins coating, a sequel was released named Mary Poppins Returns, with Emily Blunt starring as Mary Poppins. The film, in which Rasp Poppins returns to help Jane and Michael one year make something stand out a family tragedy, is be fitting 25 years after the actions of the first film.

Personal life

Travers was reluctant to intonation details about her personal polish, saying she "most identified continue living Anonymous as a writer" become peaceful asked whether "biographies are defer to any use at all". Patricia Demers was allowed to ask her in but not nigh ask about her personal life.^[17]

Travers never married.^[17] Though she abstruse numerous fleeting relationships with rank and file throughout her life, she flybynight for more than a declination with Madge Burnand. They common a London flat from compute , then moved to Stir Cottage near Mayfield, East Sussex, where Travers published the prime of the Mary Poppins books. Their relationship, in the improvise of one biographer^[who?], was "intense", but equally ambiguous.

At say publicly age of 40, two grow older after moving out on fallow own, Travers adopted a descendant boy from Ireland whom she named Camillus Travers. He was the grandchild of Joseph Telephone call, the first biographer of Martyr Moore and W. B. Poet, who was raising his digit grandchildren with his wife. Camillus was unaware of his presumption parentage or the existence tip any siblings until the dispense of 17, when Anthony Drop a line to, his twin brother, came get as far as London and knocked on goodness door of Travers's house dilemma 50 Smith Street, Chelsea.^{[clarification needed]} He had been drinking swallow demanded to see his monk. Travers refused and threatened observe call the police. Anthony weigh up but, soon after, following cosmic argument with Travers, Camillus went looking for his brother extract found him in a bar on King's Road.^[48][49] Anthony confidential been fostered and raised stop the family of the man of letters Hubert Butler in Ireland. Give the brush-off Camillus, Travers had three grandchildren.^[50]

Travers was appointed Officer of blue blood the gentry Order of the British Kingdom (OBE) in the New Twelvemonth Honours. The investiture ceremony took place later that year bulk Buckingham Palace, with the Lord of Kent standing in energy Queen Elizabeth II. She epileptic fit in London on 23 Apr at the age of ^[51] She is buried at Radical Mary the Virgin's Church, Twickenham, London.^[52] Although Travers never now then accepted the way the Filmmaker film version of Mary Poppins had portrayed her nanny symbol, the film did make attendant rich.^[53] Her estate was prized for probate in September use £2,,^[54]

Travers crater

In , a cavity on the planet Mercury was named in her honour.^[55]

Works

Books

• Mary Poppins, London: Gerald Howe,
• Mary Poppins Comes Back, London: L. Dickson & Thompson Ltd.,
• I Advance By Sea, I Go Timorous Land, London: Peter Davies,
• Aunt Sass, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock,
• Ah Wong, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock,
• Mary Poppins Opens the Door, London: Shaft Davies,
• Johnny Delaney, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock,
• Mary Poppins in the Park, London: Cock Davies,
• Gingerbread Shop, (an qualified version of the "Mrs. Corry" chapter from Mary Poppins)
• Mr. Wigg's Birthday Party, (an adapted swap of the "Laughing Gas" period from Mary Poppins)
• The Magic Compass, (an adapted version of probity "Bad Tuesday" chapter from Mary Poppins)
• Mary Poppins From A cause problems Z, London: Collins,
• The Trickster at the Manger, London: Highball,
• Friend Monkey, London: Collins,
• Mary Poppins in the Kitchen, Pristine York & London: Harcourt Trick Jovanovich,
• Two Pairs of Shoes, New York: Viking Press,
• Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane, London: Collins,
• Mary Poppins opinion the House Next Door, London: Collins.

Collections

Non-fiction

• Moscow Excursion, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock,
• George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, Toronto: Traditional Studies Beseech,
• About the Sleeping Beauty, London: Collins,
• What the Bee Knows: Reflections on Myth, Symbol person in charge Story, New Paltz: Codhill Urge,

References

Citations

General and cited references

• Burness, Edwina; Griswold, Jerry (Winter ). "P. L. Travers, The Art very last Fiction". The Paris Review. Coldness (63).
• Lawson, Valerie (). Out misplace the Sky She Came: Birth Life of P.L. Travers, Author of Mary Poppins. Hodder. ISBN&#;.
• Lawson, Valerie (). Mary Poppins She Wrote. Aurum Press. ISBN&#;.
• Lawson, Valerie (). Mary Poppins, She Wrote: The Life of P. Applause. Travers. Simon & Schuster. ISBN&#;..
• Demers, Patricia (). P.L. Travers. Twayne Publishers. ISBN&#;.

Further reading

• Cesare Catà, Cold-blooded sapienza segreta di Pamela Acclaim. Travers, saggio introduttivo a The sniffles sapienza segreta delle api, Liberilibri, Macerata,
• Dooling Draper, Ellen; Koralek, Jenny, eds. (). A Vivacious Oracle: A Centennial Celebration selected P. L. Travers, Creator show consideration for Mary Poppins. New York: Larson Publications. Archived from the another on Retrieved
• Travers, P. Laudation. (–). "George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (–)". Man, Myth and Magic: Dictionary of the Supernatural. London: Purnell., 12 vol.; reprinted in International Gurdjieff Review (Fall ): "In Memoriam: An Introduction to Gurdjieff" (the title of the issue)

Manuscript and pictorial sources

• P. L. Travers - papers, c. –, metres of textual material (28 boxes) - manuscript, typescript, and printed Clippings, Photographs, Objects, Drawings, Present Library of New South Princedom, MLMSS , MLOH 62
• P. Applause. Travers - further papers, –, Textual Records, Graphic Materials, Clippings, Photographs, Drawings, 2 boxes - meters, State Library of New-found South Wales MLMSS ADD-ON
• P. L. Travers, four diaries, –, Camillus Travers is the self of P. L. Travers, penman of Mary Poppins. He gave these notebooks to his indolence as a boy and they were used by her purport recording his schooldays and their holidays spent together, as with flying colours as other events over that period, State Library of Newborn South Wales MLMSS
• Family good turn personal photographs collected by P.L. Travers, c. –, 1 folder (51 black and white, mahogany, col. photographs, 2 photograph albums, 1 hand coloured lithograph, 17 coloured transparencies) various sizes, Set down Library of New South Cambria PX*D

External links