| P L
Travers |
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| Nationality - Australian |
Profession - Author |
| Date of birth - 09 Aug 1899
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Date of death - 1996 |
| Place of birth
- : Queensland |
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Born: Pamela Lyndon Travers in Queensland, Australia, in 1906. Pamela grew up on a sugar plantation in Australia and was one of three sisters.
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.
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.
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She wrote eight MARY POPPINS books altogether and several other children's books as well as adult books.
She received an OBE in 1977, and died in 1996,
About the Books
Originally, the Mary Poppins series was three books - Mary Poppins (1934), Mary Poppins Comes Back (1935) and Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1943); and in 1952 came Mary Poppins in the Park which was a collection of incidents meant to take place during the original three books, rather than a sequel. And that was it, except for the Mary Poppins ABC Book (1962).
In 1981, Travers revised the "Bad Tuesday" chapter of MP, in which Mary Poppins took the children to the four points of a magic compass, where they met stereotype Eskimos, Blacks, Chinese, and American Indians. The Eskimo, Chinese, and Indian stereotypes don't give much offense - they give some, because the presentation of groups as quaintly exotic tends to turn them into toys, but the objection is slight compared to the stereotyping which presents Blacks as apparently stupid, unable to master the language they speak. ("You bring dem chillun dere into ma li'l house for a slice of water-melon right now.")
It's to Travers' credit that although she didn't see why the affectionately-intended stereotypes should give offense, she realized that those who said the stereotypes were offensive were dealing with an important issue. She revised the chapter so that the compass points are represented by a Polar Bear, a Macaw (south), a Panda (east), and a Dolphin (west).
Mary Shepard, the original illustrator, changed the illustration of the compass points accordingly. Shepard (the daughter of E. H. Shepard, the Pooh illustrator) illustrated all of the Poppins books (although in the American editions of MP Opens the Door, some drawings were by Agnes Sim, after wartime travel restrictions prevented the arrival of the originals).
This fifty-year collaboration of author and illustrator must be almost unprecedented. Shepard drew herself and Travers into the "Balloons and Balloons" chapter of MP Comes Back, soaring together into the air on magical balloons, and that professional companionship has endured.
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P L Travers
bibliography - 12
listed |
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