The Australian-born author of the Mary Poppins books is to be honored with a statue of her heroine in New York's Central Park. And a rose hybrid has been named "Mary Poppins' after the fictional nursemaid. Yet the creator of Mary Poppins is one of the most enigmatic of literary figures.
"NO questions about me, now!" she said, holding her hand up, palm forward, when I went to visit P. L. Travers in Massachusetts, where she is writer-in-residence at Smith College.
"I want to be a legend. I don't want anything about my personal life to be known. I want to be 'Anon.' "
Almost entirely anonymous she is. P. L. Travers is the name on the title pages of the five Mary Poppins books, and the neatly coiffed woman with twinkling blue eyes who graciously entertained me to tea in her suite at Smith College answered to that name – P.L. for short.
Whether she is properly addressed as Miss or Mrs. Travers, she refuses to say.
"Nothing personal! I'm an 'anon.' "
The reason Miss Travers – if I may so address her – conceals her personality as a writer is: "I didn't want it known whether I was a man or a woman or a kangaroo. Too many women have written children's books.
And, by the way, there are no such things as children's books. There are books. 'Mary Poppins' wasn't written for children, certainly not!"
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