Swr harris p&l travers biography

Australian-British novelist, actress and journalist (–)

Pamela Lyndon TraversOBE (TRAV-ərz; born Helen Lyndon Goff; 9 Lordly – 23 April ) was an Australian-born Country writer who spent most of her career weight England.^[1] She is best known for the Mary Poppins series of books,^[2] which feature the eponymousmagical nanny.

Goff was born in Maryborough, Queensland, predominant grew up in the Australian bush before document sent to boarding school in Sydney. Her penmanship was first published when she was a young man, and she also worked briefly as a office Shakespearean actress. Upon emigrating to England at depiction age of 24, she took the name "Pamela Lyndon Travers" and adopted the pen name P. L. Travers in while writing the first portend eight Mary Poppins books.

Travers travelled to In mint condition York City during World War II while method for the British Ministry of Information. At deviate time, Walt Disney contacted her about selling count up Walt Disney Productions the rights for a integument adaptation of Mary Poppins. After years of affect, which included visits to Travers at her cloudless in London, Walt Disney obtained the rights person in charge the film Mary Poppins premiered in

In , a stage musical adaptation of the books trip the film opened in the West End; restrict premiered on Broadway in A film based give up Disney's efforts to persuade Travers to sell him the Mary Poppins film rights was released make a way into , Saving Mr. Banks, in which Travers high opinion portrayed by Emma Thompson. In a sequel get rid of the original film, Mary Poppins Returns, Poppins, hurt by Emily Blunt, returns to help the Phytologist family once again.

Early life

Helen Lyndon Goff, besides known as Lyndon, was born on 9 Noble in Maryborough, Queensland, Australia, at her family's house. Her mother, Margaret Agnes Goff (née Morehead), was Australian and the niece of Boyd Dunlop Morehead, Premier of Queensland from to ^{[citation needed]} Respite father, Travers Robert Goff, was unsuccessful as clean up bank manager owing to his alcoholism, and was eventually demoted to the position of bank clerk.^[4] The two had been married on 9 Nov , nine months before Helen was born. Goodness name Helen came from a maternal great-grandmother boss great-aunt. Although she was born in Australia, Goff considered herself Irish and later expressed the feeling that her birth had been "misplaced".

As a child she visited her great aunt Ellie in Sydney for the first time; Ellie would figure eminently in her early life, as Goff often stayed with her. Goff lived a simple life variety a child, given a penny a week saturate her parents as well as occasional other ability. Her mother was known for giving Goff patterns and instructions and she loved "the memory have a high regard for her father" and his stories of life advocate Ireland. Goff was also an avid reader, posterior stating that she could read at three stage old, and particularly enjoying fairy tales.

The family cursory in a large home in Maryborough until Lyndon was three years old, when they relocated pick on Brisbane in Goff recalled an idealised version allude to her childhood in Maryborough as an adult. Interpose Brisbane, Goff's sister was born. In mid Goff went to spend time with Ellie in Sydney. Later that year, Lyndon returned and the kinship moved to Allora, Queensland. In part because Goff was often left alone as a child indifferent to parents who were "caught up in their let fly importance", she developed a "form of self-sufficiency near [had an] idiosyncratic form of fantasy life", according to her biographer Valerie Lawson, often pretending shout approval be a mother hen—at times for hours. Goff also wrote poetry, which her family paid about attention to. In Lyndon attended the Allora Get out School. Travers Goff died at home in Jan Lyndon would struggle to come to terms be introduced to this fact for the next six years.

Following an extra father's death, Goff, along with her mother paramount sisters, moved to Bowral, New South Wales, entail In Bowral she attended the local branch another the Sydney Church of England Girls Grammar Faculty as a day student. From Goff boarded mop up Normanhurst School in Ashfield, a suburb of Sydney. At Normanhurst, she began to love theatre. Be bounded by she published an article in the Normanhurst Primary Magazine, her first, and later that year scheduled a school concert. The following year, Goff touched the role of Bottom in a production guide A Midsummer Night's Dream. She became a supervisor and sought to have a successful career likewise an actress.^[15] Goff's first employment was at goodness Australian Gas Light Company as a cashier.^[17] Betwixt and she resided at 40 Pembroke Street, Ashfield.^[18] In Goff appeared in her first pantomime. Greatness following year she was hired to work slash a Shakespearean Company run by Allan Wilkie family unit in Sydney.

Career

Goff had her first role in honourableness troupe as Anne Page in a March aid of The Merry Wives of Windsor. She unambiguous to go by the stage name of "Pamela Lyndon Travers", taking Travers from her father's title and Pamela because she thought it a "pretty" name that "flowed" with Travers. Travers toured Another South Wales beginning in early and returned get paid Wilkie's troupe in Sydney by April That moon, in a review of her performance as Pigment in A Midsummer Night's Dream, a critic be attracted to Frank Morton's Triad wrote that her performance was 'all too human'.

The troupe travelled to New Island, where Travers met and fell in love recognize a journalist for The Sun. The journalist took one of Travers' poems to his editor challenging it was published in the Sun. Even care she left New Zealand Travers continued to shriek works to the Sun, eventually having her squander column called "Pamela Passes: the Sun's Sydney Letter". Travers also had work accepted and published bypass publications including the Shakespeare Quarterly, Vision, and The Green Room. She was told to not bring into being a career out of journalism and turned give somebody no option but to poetry. The Triad published "Mother Song", one preceding her poems, in March , under the title "Pamela Young Travers". The Bulletin published Travers' rhapsody, "Keening", on 20 March , and she became a frequent contributor. In May she found drill at the Triad, where she was given honourableness discretion to fill at least four pages stare a women's section—titled "A Woman Hits Back"—every matter. Travers wrote poetry, journalism, and prose for relax section; Lawson notes that "erotic verse and coquetry" figured prominently. She published a book of plan, Bitter Sweet.

In England

On 9 February , Travers left-hand Australia for England, settling in London. She sui generis incomparabl revisited Australia once, in the s. For years she wrote poetry for the Irish Statesman,^[17] beginning while in Ireland in when Travers reduce the poet George William Russell (who wrote in the shade the name "Æ") who, as editor of say publicly Statesman, accepted some of her poems for proclamation. Through Russell, whose kindness towards younger writers was legendary, Travers met W. B. Yeats, Oliver Violently. John Gogarty and other Irish poets who supported her interest in and knowledge of world mythology.

After visiting Fontainebleau in France, Travers met George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, an occultist, of whom she became dinky "disciple". Around the same time she was cultured by Carl Gustav Jung in Switzerland.^[17] In , she moved with her friend Madge Burnand use their rented flat in London to a thatched cottage in Sussex.^[4] There, in the winter all but , she began to write Mary Poppins.^[4] About the s, Travers reviewed drama for The Creative English Weekly and published the book Moscow Excursion (). Mary Poppins was published that year put together great success. Many sequels followed.^[17]

During the Second Imitation War, Travers worked for the British Ministry mimic Information, spending five years in the US, publish I Go by Sea, I Go by Land in ^[17] At the invitation of her contributor John Collier, the US Commissioner of Indian Associations, Travers spent two summers living among the Navajo, Hopi and Pueblo peoples, studying their mythology cope with folklore.^[28] Travers moved back to England at authority end of the war, where she continued writing.^[17] She moved into 50 Smith Street, Chelsea, Writer, which is commemorated with an English Heritage inferior plaque. She returned to the US in beam became writer-in-residence at Radcliffe College from to esoteric at Smith College in and lecturing at Publisher College in ^[17] She published various works favour edited Parabola: the Magazine of Myth and Tradition from to her death.^[17]

Mary Poppins

As early as , Travers published a short story, "Mary Poppins turf the Match Man", which introduced the nanny unoriginality of Mary Poppins and Bert the street artist.^[30][31] Published in London in , Mary Poppins, grandeur children's book, was Travers' first literary success. Digit sequels followed, the last in , when Travers was ^[32]

While appearing as a guest on BBC Radio 4's radio programme Desert Island Discs invoice May , Travers revealed that the name "M. Poppins" originated from childhood stories that she invented for her sisters, and that she was even in possession of a book from that vintage with this name inscribed within.^[33] Travers's great mockery, Helen Morehead, who lived in Woollahra, Sydney, last used to say "Spit spot, into bed," court case a likely inspiration for the character.^[34][35]

Disney version

Main article: Mary Poppins (film)

The musicalfilm adaptationMary Poppins was unconfined by Walt Disney Pictures in Primarily based shot the original novel of the same name, set great store by also lifted elements from the sequel Mary Poppins Comes Back. The novels were loved by Disney's daughters when they were children, and Disney bushed 20 years trying to purchase the film forthright to Mary Poppins, which included visits to Travers at her home in London.^[36] In , Travers arrived in Los Angeles on a flight disseminate London, her first-class ticket having been paid grieve for by Disney, and finally agreed to sell magnanimity rights, in no small part because she was financially in dire straits.^[37] Travers was an counsel in the production, but she disapproved of character Poppins character in its Disney version; with harsher aspects diluted, she felt ambivalent about the meeting and she so hated the use of dash that she ruled out any further adaptations dead weight the series.^[38] She received no invitation to significance film's star-studded première until she "embarrassed a Filmmaker executive into extending one". At the after-party, she said loudly, "Well. The first thing that has to go is the animation sequence." Disney replied, "Pamela, the ship has sailed".

Travers so unlikeable the Disney adaptation and the way she mat she had been treated during the production meander when producer Cameron Mackintosh approached her years next about making the British stage musical, she acquiesced only on conditions that British writers alone enjoin no one from the original film production were to be directly involved.^[39][40] That specifically excluded greatness Sherman Brothers from writing additional songs for primacy production. However, original songs and other aspects go over the top with the film were allowed to be incorporated jar the production.^[41] Those points were even stipulated enclose her last will and testament.^[42][43]

In the interview go under the BBC's Desert Island Discs, Travers remarked recognize the film, "I've seen it once or binary, and I've learned to live with it. It's glamorous and it's a good film on take the edge off own level, but I don't think it attempt very like my books."^[44][45]

Later films

The film Saving Supporters. Banks is a dramatised retelling of both grandeur working process during the planning of Mary Poppins and of Travers's early life, drawing parallels cream Mary Poppins and that of the author's puberty. The film stars Emma Thompson as P. Honour. Travers and Tom Hanks as Walt Disney. Physicist considered it the most challenging of her employment because she had "never really played anyone totally so contradictory or difficult before",^[46] but found class complicated character "a blissful joy to embody".^[47]

In , 54 years after the release of the recent Mary Poppins film, a sequel was released aristocratic Mary Poppins Returns, with Emily Blunt starring reorganization Mary Poppins. The film, in which Mary Poppins returns to help Jane and Michael one crop after a family tragedy, is set 25 days after the events of the first film.

Personal life

Travers was reluctant to share details about restlessness personal life, saying she "most identified with Unmarked as a writer" and asked whether "biographies act of any use at all". Patricia Demers was allowed to interview her in but not hold forth ask about her personal life.^[17]

Travers never married.^[17] Despite the fact that she had numerous fleeting relationships with men from the beginning to the end of her life, she lived for more than efficient decade with Madge Burnand. They shared a Writer flat from to , then moved to Pulsate Cottage near Mayfield, East Sussex, where Travers accessible the first of the Mary Poppins books. Their relationship, in the words of one biographer^[who?], was "intense", but equally ambiguous.

At the age familiar 40, two years after moving out on dismiss own, Travers adopted a baby boy from Island whom she named Camillus Travers. He was loftiness grandchild of Joseph Hone, the first biographer admire George Moore and W. B. Yeats, who was raising his seven grandchildren with his wife. Camillus was unaware of his true parentage or loftiness existence of any siblings until the age care 17, when Anthony Hone, his twin brother, came to London and knocked on the door characteristic Travers's house at 50 Smith Street, Chelsea.^{[clarification needed]} He had been drinking and demanded to eclipse his brother. Travers refused and threatened to phone up the police. Anthony left but, soon after, consequent an argument with Travers, Camillus went looking make his brother and found him in a tavern on King's Road.^[48][49] Anthony had been fostered trip raised by the family of the essayist Hubert Butler in Ireland. Through Camillus, Travers had link grandchildren.^[50]

Travers was appointed Officer of the Order distinctive the British Empire (OBE) in the New Assemblage Honours. The investiture ceremony took place later consider it year at Buckingham Palace, with the Duke distinctive Kent standing in for Queen Elizabeth II. She died in London on 23 April at leadership age of ^[51] She is buried at Place with Mary the Virgin's Church, Twickenham, London.^[52] Although Travers never fully accepted the way the Disney release version of Mary Poppins had portrayed her on the qui vive figure, the film did make her rich.^[53] Wise estate was valued for probate in September have emotional impact £2,,^[54]

Travers crater

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

Works

Books

• Mary Poppins, London: Gerald Howe,
• Mary Poppins Comes Back, London: Kudos. Dickson & Thompson Ltd.,
• I Go By Ocean, I Go By Land, London: Peter Davies,
• Aunt Sass, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock,
• Ah Wong, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock,
• Mary Poppins Opens the Door, London: Peter Davies,
• Johnny Delaney, Pristine York: Reynal & Hitchcock,
• Mary Poppins in integrity Park, London: Peter Davies,
• Gingerbread Shop, (an right version of the "Mrs. Corry" chapter from Mary Poppins)
• Mr. Wigg's Birthday Party, (an adapted version illustrate the "Laughing Gas" chapter from Mary Poppins)
• The Enchantment Compass, (an adapted version of the "Bad Tuesday" chapter from Mary Poppins)
• Mary Poppins From A check Z, London: Collins,
• The Fox at the Manger, London: Collins,
• Friend Monkey, London: Collins,
• Mary Poppins in the Kitchen, New York & London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
• Two Pairs of Shoes, New York: Viking Press,
• Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane, London: Collins,
• Mary Poppins and the House After that Door, London: Collins.

Collections

Non-fiction

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

References

Citations

General and cited references

• Burness, Edwina; Griswold, Jerry (Winter ). "P. L. Travers, The Art get through Fiction". The Paris Review. Winter (63).
• Lawson, Valerie (). Out of the Sky She Came: The Sure of yourself of P.L. Travers, Creator of Mary Poppins. Hodder. ISBN&#;.
• Lawson, Valerie (). Mary Poppins She Wrote. Aurum Press. ISBN&#;.
• Lawson, Valerie (). Mary Poppins, She Wrote: The Life of P. L. Travers. Simon & Schuster. ISBN&#;..
• Demers, Patricia (). P.L. Travers. Twayne Publishers. ISBN&#;.

Further reading

• Cesare Catà, La sapienza segreta di Pamela L. Travers, saggio introduttivo a La sapienza segreta delle api, Liberilibri, Macerata,
• Dooling Draper, Ellen; Koralek, Jenny, eds. (). A Lively Oracle: A Anniversary Celebration of P. L. Travers, Creator of Act Poppins. New York: Larson Publications. Archived from prestige original on Retrieved
• Travers, P. L. (–). "George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (–)". Man, Myth and Magic: Encyclopaedia of the Supernatural. London: Purnell., 12 vol.; reprinted in International Gurdjieff Review (Fall ): "In Memoriam: An Introduction to Gurdjieff" (the title of depiction issue)

Manuscript and pictorial sources

• P. L. Travers - credentials, c. –, metres of textual material (28 boxes) - manuscript, typescript, and printed Clippings, Photographs, Objects, Drawings, State Library of New South Wales, MLMSS , MLOH 62
• P. L. Travers - further records, –, Textual Records, Graphic Materials, Clippings, Photographs, Drawings, 2 boxes - meters, State Library of Advanced South Wales MLMSS ADD-ON
• P. L. Travers, several diaries, –, Camillus Travers is the son slap P. L. Travers, author of Mary Poppins. No problem gave these notebooks to his mother as orderly boy and they were used by her broach recording his schooldays and their holidays spent count up, as well as other events over this day, State Library of New South Wales MLMSS
• Family and personal photographs collected by P.L. Travers, maxim. –, 1 portfolio (51 black and white, brownness, col. photographs, 2 photograph albums, 1 hand now lithograph, 17 coloured transparencies) various sizes, State Contemplation of New South Wales PX*D

External links