Famous Bis: P. L. Travers

P. L. Travers lived a life shrouded in mystery and whimsy, not unlike the character by which she is best known for writing, Mary Poppins. P. L. Travers was a successful Australian-British author, actress and poet. Though she endeavored to remain a fairly private individual following the success of Mary Poppins, Travers was certainly an unconventional woman for her time, including but not exclusively because of her bisexuality.

Travers was actually born Helen Lyndon Goff on the 9th August 1899, in Maryborough, Queensland Australia. She read proficiently and wrote consistently throughout her childhood, but this was something her family seemed to pay little mind to. Her parents were somewhat absent in her childhood, though this wasn’t uncommon for the time. Her father was an unsuccessful bank teller, largely due to his alcoholism, and died when Travers was only seven years old. 

"My mother’s greatest regret, that she never got over, was the early death of her father," her son Camillus explained in an interview for the 2013 documentary The Real Mary Poppins, "she couldn’t understand how God could have allowed her to be deserted by her most loved person so early in her life."^[1] It was the support of her aunt Helen or "Ellie", for whom she was named, that guided Travers through this dark time, and she played a pivotal role in shaping the woman Travers would become.[2]

The death of her father and the inspiration of her aunt would set Travers on a path of determined independence. As of 1920, she was using the name Pamela Lyndon Travers as a pseudonym both when publishing her writings and when on stage. She was becoming a fairly successful actress, having performed in a Shakspeare company as well as having various poems published in The Bulletin, a respected Australian newspaper. However, Travers had always expressed her wishes to live in Ireland, as her father had dreamed of. With the help of her aunt Ellie, at 24 years old Travers purchased a one-way ticket to Dublin, determined to put her life in Australia behind her.[3]

Once in Dublin, Travers sent her poems to the revered poet and editor George "Æ" Russell. Impressed with her work, Russell ensured Travers' consistent work by publishing her poems in his publication The Irish Statesman. Soon after, the two began an affair, despite their almost 35 year age gap (and Russell being married already). During their time together, Russell introduced Travers to many notable poets including W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot. The affair lasted, though on and off, for over a decade, and only ended with finality due to Russell’s death in 1935.

In 1931, Travers became involved with "The Rope", a group of predominantly lesbian and bi women writers who would meet on a regular basis to worship Russian occultist George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, who believed that humans did not have a unique consciousness, but this could be "unlocked with deep thought and self-reflection." It was around this time she recorded much of her turbulent affair with the controversial Jessie Orange, a woman who dared to wear trousers and smoke in public. Travers lived to travel during this time in her life, flitting between England, France, Ireland and America every few months. It wasn’t until Travers moved in with playwright Madge Burnand that she remained tied to one place. Together they lived in Pound Cottage in East Sussex for another ten years. Their relationship has often been described as "intense" by biographers, and it was during her time with Burnand that Travers began to develop the idea of Mary Poppins.

Travers was very secretive about how she came up with her most famous work. When discussing with an interviewer how the idea for Mary Poppins came to her, she explained "You know, I think in a way, there are ideas, perhaps, floating around the world and they pick on certain people… I don’t think it’s the other way around." In an interview with BBC Radio 4, she claimed that the name "M. Poppins" originated from stories she would tell her sisters during her childhood. It has also been suggested that Poppins was modeled partially on Travers’ beloved aunt Ellie, whose phrase "spit spot, into bed" is often used by Poppins. The first Poppins novel, simply titled Mary Poppins, was published in 1934. Several sequels followed, the last of which was published in 1988.^[4]

It wasn’t long before Walt Disney caught wind of Travers’s work. His daughters were huge fans of the magical Poppins and the charming Banks family. For over twenty years, Disney tried to woo Travers into allowing him the rights to adapt Mary Poppins for film, and visited her multiple times in her London home. Finally, in 1961, Traver’s financial situation had become desperate and she felt she had no other choice than to finally allow Disney to make the Poppins movie. From the start, she despised the direction Disney had chosen to take with it, particularly the animated sequences and musical numbers. Travers was seen sobbing during the film’s premiere in 1964, devastated by what her prized work had become. During the after-party, she approached Disney himself. "Well, the first thing that has to go is the animation sequence," she told him, to which he replied, "Pamela, the ship has sailed."

For the rest of her life, Travers lived comfortably off of the money that the Disney adaptation had made her, and retreated all but entirely from the public eye, only giving a few final interviews during her last twenty years. In 1977, she was given an OBE for her contributions to children’s literature and its mark on British childhood. She passed away at age 96, in London, in 1997, following complications from an epileptic fit.^[5]

With a life so full of adventure, it truly is a shame that Travers kept so much of it to herself — so many of her stories have been lost with her. Thanks to Travers, generations of children and adults alike have enjoyed the marvelous Mary Poppins, whether it be through the controversial Disney film or Traver’s original work itself.