Out of the Sky She Came : The Life of P.L. Travers, Creator of Mary Poppins

Biography. Mary Poppins has become familiar to generations of children all over the world as the quintessential English nanny. What is less well known is that she was the invention of a young Australian writter P.L. (Pamela Lyndon) Travers.

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Pamela Lyndon Travers, OBE ( 9 August 1899 – 23 April 1996) was an Australian-born British writer who spent most of her career in England. She is best known for the Mary Poppins series of children’s books, which feature the magical nanny Mary Poppins.

Goff was born in Maryborough, Queensland, and grew up in the Australian bush before being sent to boarding school in Sydney. Her writing was first published as a teenager, and she also worked briefly as a professional Shakespearean actress. Upon emigrating to England at the age of 25, she began to write under the pen name P. L. Travers. In 1933, she began writing the novel Mary Poppins, the first of eight Poppins books.

Travers travelled to New York City during World War II while working for the British Ministry of Information. At that time, Walt Disney contacted her about selling to Disney Studios the rights for a film adaptation of Mary Poppins, whose sequel Mary Poppins Comes Back was also in print. After years of contact, which included visits to Travers at her home in London, Walt Disney did obtain the rights and the Disney film Mary Poppins premiered in 1964. In 2004, a new musical adaptation of the books and the film opened in the West End; it premiered on Broadway in 2006.