Umbrella belonging to P.L. Travers (1899–1996)

This fanciful umbrella belonged to the author of Mary Poppins and resembles the one that allowed the title character to fly. Pamela Lyndon (P.L.) Travers’s American editor presented the umbrella to The New York Public Library in May 1972, at the same time that Travers herself donated a small collection of artifacts associated with her well-loved storybook series.



As a girl growing up in Australia, Travers had greatly admired a similar umbrella that a family maid considered her pride and joy. Travers began to save her pennies to purchase one of her own, only to hear her coolly sophisticated parents ridicule the servant’s—and by implication, her own—idea of finery.