The Resume

(August 9, 1899-April 23, 1996)
Born in Mayborough, Queensland, Australia
Birth name was Helen Lyndon Goff
P.L. stood for Pamela Lyndon
Wrote 'Mary Poppins' (1934) and seven sequels

Why she might be annoying:

She shaved seven years off her age, claiming to have been born in 1906.
She complained, 'As a writer you can feel awfully imprisoned, because people, having had so much of one thing, want you to always go on doing more of the same.'
In one chapter of 'Mary Poppins,' a black character is referred to as a 'pickaninny' and offers everyone watermelon.
Her later Mary Poppins books were increasingly influenced by her interest in spiritualism and the occult.
She complained that the Walt Disney film of Mary Poppins made the character too sweet.

Why she might not be annoying:

When she was seven, her father died from alcoholism and when she was ten, her mother announced she was going to commit suicide and told Travers she was in charge of her two younger sisters. (The mother did not follow through on the threat and came back to the family.)
She toured Australia as an actress in a Shakespearean company.
She made a living as a poet, journalist and critic before writing Mary Poppins.
Fans of the Mary Poppins books include T.S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath and Princess Margaret.
A friend who hated children's books wrote to her, 'Mary Poppins with her cool green core of sex has me enthralled forever.'

Credit: C. Fishel

Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

• C. Fishel's Profiles [Series 20]
• Children's Book Authors
• I Adopted a Child
• I am Known by My Initials
• I Attended the Premiere of 'Mary Poppins' [1964]
• I Come from Oz
• I Died in 1996 (Ranked: 96)
• I Publicly Trashed My Book’s Movie
• Poets
• Profiles 25501-25750 (Ranked: 25698)
• Walt Disney Turned My Book Into a Movie

Year In Review:

For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
In 2023, Out of 35 Votes: 5.71% Annoying
In 2022, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
In 2021, Out of 10 Votes: 70.0% Annoying
In 2020, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
In 2019, Out of 7 Votes: 57.14% Annoying
In 2018, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
In 2017, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
In 2016, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
In 2015, Out of 10 Votes: 70.0% Annoying
In 2014, Out of 10 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
In 2013, Out of 12 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
In 2012, Out of 21 Votes: 47.62% Annoying
In 2011, Out of 28 Votes: 35.71% Annoying
In 2010, Out of 32 Votes: 37.50% Annoying
In 2009, Out of 24 Votes: 58.33% Annoying