Mary Poppins, She Wrote: The Life of P. L. Travers

This biography is well-researched. For someone who didn't want her life to be written about after her death, P. L. Travers certainly left extensive notes in a public library and the author not only used those notes, but was able to briefly contact Travers shortly before her death, though as fate would have it, their meeting never took place. From this rich source of material, author Valerie Lawson wrote a detailed and fascinating biography of the creator of "Mary Poppins." Despite having read all the Poppins books as a child, I knew nothing about P. L. Travers. She changed her name, she was Australian, though she comes across as British as a cup of strong tea, she had been an actress on the stage and she followed mystic Gurdjieff, among other odd facts. The book is detailed, especially about Travers' parents. This is slow going at first, but provides valuable background into her childhood, not a happy childhood but one that created vast sources to draw from to create the world of Mary Poppins. It was fascinating to learn who was the real life Mrs. Corry and her gigantic daughters who ran a candy shop. Was her domineering and inflexible great-aunt the source of the more rigid and snappish side of Mary Poppins? I couldn't put this book down. You have to like biographies, with lots of detail, because Lawson is a journalist and really goes into journalistic detail. This book was actually originally published in Australia in 1999, but due to the recent film "The Real Mr. Banks", it has gotten attention. I couldn't put it down--I love biographies, especially of authors and I was amazed at what I didn't know about the life of P. L. Travers. Highly recommended, with the caution that you have to like a lot of factual stuff because this is a biography and not a novel.

Valerie Lawson has done something P. L. Travers claimed she didn't want anyone to do: write her biography. It's a very good book. Travers discouraged personal questions in interviews, and preferred to discuss her work and, in later years, her philosophy of life -- the essence of experience as opposed to the mundane details of living. Lawson makes the case that if Travers had been serious about this she would have destroyed her papers -- which she decidedly did not do. Whatever her true feelings on the matter, this is a fascinating book, filled with insights into Travers' life and work, and with a respectable amount of attention to the work itself, especially the meanings and importance of the Mary Poppins books. I think Lawson gives somewhat short shrift to Travers work with Parabola magazine, which is some of her most brilliant writing -- inspiring to thousands of her readers, and collected in the now out of print "What the Bee Knows." (Note to publishers: bring it back!) You may also find out more than you want to known about her endless toing and froing with Disney, and the ways in which the movie deal echoed through the last thirty years of her life. But Lawson also gives the first comprehensive account of Travers' private life, her involvement AE and Gurdieff, her adoption of one twin, her son Camillus, and her early career as an actress. Her love affairs are touched on. I'm not sure, in the end, if all the private matters, interesting as they may be, really add to our understanding of Travers' work, though Lawson makes some persuasive connections between the fantasy and the reality. Mary Poppins herself, the Great Exception, survives the biography with her mystery intact, and in spite of Lawson's sympathetic and thorough craftsmanship, so does Travers. For those of us lucky ones who count Travers as a touchstone in our lives, that's just fine. Questions without answers can often be more satisfying than the other kind.

Ms Lawson provides incredibly detailed stories and back stories of pretty much every person who influenced or intrigued or somehow was involved in Travers' life. While I understand the necessity of information about how these people formed and informed Travers as a person, and the way she lived and how she thought, and what she believed, most of the time it felt like a series of mini biographies. Usually the information was interesting and did give good insight, it just felt like too much, and frankly distracted me from the fact that the book was about Travers. I have loved Mary Poppins since I was a child and for the most part I enjoyed learning about P.L.Travers and her life and how she came to write all the Mary Poppins books. It does provide insight and actually gave me a new appreciation of my precious Mary Poppins.

Supreme! I have greatly enjoyed reading this book. Did P.L.Travers know that in 1983 there was a musical film "Good buy, Mary Poppins" made in Russia, which became very popular there? It featured many great songs but none of them similar to Walt Disney production. In 1968 there was a radio musical production of Mary Poppins in Russia, and the books were translated into Russian by famous Russian poet Boris Zakhoder before that radio show.

This book is informative about the life of P L Travers (Helen Lyndon Goff). She wrote the Mary Poppins books. At first glance you may think she had a hard life and that why she was the way she was. After I finished the book, I thought so what. Many people grow up with an alcoholic parent or two and are not like that. So I did not feel sorry for her. She made a lot of money off of the Mary Poppins movie and that is what she needed but she was not a nice person. She was selfish and self centered. But the book was good.

Just started reading this, good at this point.

Very much enjoyed this book: very informative and no problems at all with print size, despite some readers' feedback.

Australian, Pamela Lyndon Travers, the author of the Mary Poppins books, worked as an actress in Australia and New Zealand while at the same time writing articles for various publications. She left Australia in 1924 to seek her literary fortune in London/ Because of her obsessions with all things Irish and the concept of the Celtic Twilight, she made her way to Dublin, Ireland where she was befriended by A.E. Russell and his circle. Her friendship with Russell endured until he died. Valerie Lawson covers all of this and more n this fascinating biography

Ein sehr angenehm zu lesendes Buch, auch wenn Englisch nicht die Muttersprache ist. Die Informationen über die Autorin P.L.Travers sind super aufbereitet und man versteht nach dem Lesen des Buches viel mehr Hintergründe und Aspekte zur Konzipierung der Filme Mary Poppins und Saving Mr. Banks. Für Fans der beiden Filme ein ganz klares Muss!

I am a MP fan. Wanted to know more about Pamela Lyndon Travers. Some facts interesting