Mary Poppins Comes Back

Description

On snailed the curious figure, its feet neatly clearing the tops of the trees. They could see the face now, and the well-known features - coal-black hair, bright blue eyes and nose turned upwards like the nose of a Dutch doll. The figure drifted down between the Lime Trees and alighted primly upon the grass. "Mary Poppins, Mary Poppins!" they cried, and flung themselves upon her...

P.L. Travers, born in 1899, grew up on a sugar plantation in Australia, one of three sisters. Pamela deliberately kept her life very private. She lived for a while in Ireland and London, and travelled frequently to America, where she was made writer in residence to both Smith and Radcliffe Colleges in Massachusetts. She also received an honorary doctorate from Chatham College, Pittsburgh. Although she worked as a secretary, a dancer and an actress, writing was P.L. Travers' real love, and for many years she was a journalist. It was while she was recuperating from a serious illness that she wrote Mary Poppins - 'to while away the days, but also to put down something that had been in my mind for a long time,' she said. She wrote eight Mary Poppins books altogether and several other children's books as well as adult books.

"Like all great children's classics Mary Poppins is frightening and sad as well as magic and very funny." The Observer "Absolutely alive, and aglint with magic." Walter de la Mare