The Author of Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins is a publishing phenomenon of eight books written across 55 years, translated into 20 languages, including Swahili. The 1964 Disney film starring Julie Andrews remains one of the most popular children’s movies of all time. Yet the author did not want it to be known whether she was ‘man, woman or kangaroo’. The elusive P.L. Travers was, in fact, born in outback Australia in the penultimate year of the 19th century. She became a pioneering journalist in Russia, wrote propaganda for…