Books

London: Gerald Howe Ltd., 1934� 8vo., yellow publisher?s cloth, blocked in blue with title and a central motif portrait of the title character to the upper board; lettered in blue to backstrip with publisher?s name to foot; upper edge blue; publisher?s device to rear corner of lower board; decorative endpapers featuring a host of characters from the story; pp. [viii], ix-xii, 206, [ii]; with frontis and a further 26 charming line drawings by Shepard, as well as insets and tailpieces; lacking the exceedingly rare dust wrapper, else in exceptionally good condition, a couple of small marks and scratches to boards, with rubbing to the cloth at spine ends and corners; ever-so-slight shelf lean; a couple of small dinks to the lower edge; internally clean and bright; very small finger mark to p.191.� First edition of this hugely popular children?s book, about a magical nanny who arrives by way of the East Wind to care for the Banks children. First appearing in short story form entitled� 'Mary Poppins and the Match Man' (1926), introducing the characters of Poppins and Bert, this first edition was Traver?s first full-length adaptation featuring the titular character. The first book in the series, Mary Poppins went on to form eight stories in total, ending with Mary Poppins and the House Next Door in 1988.� After flying in with her infamous carpet bag, Mary Poppins arrives at Number 17 Cherry Tree Lane, quickly asserting herself in the household as a stern, vain, and rather cross woman who proceeds to take the children on a series of magical adventures: tea parties on the ceiling, trips around the world, a meeting with the bird woman, and a birthday party at a Zoo surrounded by animals, before opening her umbrella and calmly floating away on the West Wind. In 1964, the book was adapted into film by Walt Disney, starring Julie Andrews as Poppins and Dick Van Dyke as Bert. It was widely considered to be Disney's "crowning achievement", and was the only Disney film to receive a Best Picture nomination. Travers, however, was fervently displeased with the adaptation, and never agreed to another Poppins/Disney collaboration.� The illustrations for the work are now the ones for which Mary Shepard is best known, but it was only by chance that she was discovered. The daughter and protegee of �E. H. Shepard, famous illustrator of Winnie-the-Pooh and The Wind in the Willows, Mary was 23 when her father was too busy to illustrate Mary Poppins. She was asked to provide the drawings after Travers discovered her work on a Christmas card.�.

Mary Poppins is a beloved children's book written by P.L. Travers, first published in 1934. The story introduces the mysterious and magical English nanny Mary Poppins, who is blown by the East wind to Number Seventeen Cherry-Tree Lane, London, and into the Banks family's home, where she embarks on a series of fantastical adventures with the Banks children.