Providence, Rhode Island is a creepy city and has fathered some very creepy people but the creepiest of them all was H P Lovecraft. He was the 20th centuries Edgar Allen Poe who was oddly enough another creepy guy who once lived in Providence. Lovecraft wrote what is now called science fiction and in the horror genre. His writing is part of a sub-genre of fiction called "weird Fiction". The stories are weird and creepy and unearthly. As was the man himself.
Lovecraft's father died at an early age after being committed to Butler Hospital, a mental hospital. Butler Hospital is a Gothic pile of a building in the creepiest built in a 19th century mental hospital vernacular. The hospital's grounds on Swan Point abut a cemetery also named Swan Point. This is where Lovecraft's father died of syphilis in 1898 when little Howard was eight. Lovecraft was raised by his maternal grandfather, mother and two maiden aunts in his grandfather's home. His grandfather, Whipple Van Buren Phillips, was of an old New England family tracing themselves back to the Mayflower. When he was a child Lovecraft's grandfather would tell him Gothic horror tales. He died in the family home when Lovecraft was 14. Because of a mismanagement of his grandfather's estate the family was left rather poor. They were forced to sell the family home and move to smaller less grand quarters. Lovecraft had always been a sickly child and suffered from night terrors. He was a delicate young man when he attended public high school. He suffered what is now considered a nervous breakdown and never obtained his diploma.
Starting as a child Lovecraft wrote. His earliest works were poetry.One of his earliest poems was"Night Gaunts" a poem about his night terrors and filled with devil-like faceless creatures. He was always interested in chemistry and astronomy and other early works had those themes as their subjects. Between 1908 and 1913 Lovecraft lived like a hermit. His only real contact was with his mother with whom he lived. At this time Lovecraft started writing for various pulp magazines. It was around then his mother suffered from hysteria and was also confined to Butler hospital for a time.
Lovecraft was a voracious letter writer and correspondent.
In 1921 Lovecraft's mother died. A short time after her death he travelled to Boston to attend a conference and he met a woman. Her name was Sonia Greene and she lived in New York. they married and moved to New York. Lovecraft initially loved New York. His aunts did not approve of the marriage and his wife as she was a "tradeswoman" and owned a hat shop. Lovecraft couldn't secure any work and tensions mounted in their marriage. Greene moved away to Ohio and Lovecraft eventually returned to providence to live with his two aunts in a large Victorian home. This is where he wrote most of his best known works.
In 1936 Lovecraft was diagnosed with cancer of the small intestine. He lived his last days with his aunt and in tremendous pain and malnutrition. He kept a diary of his sickness until almost his last day. He died in March of 1937. Lovecraft is buried in the family plot in Swan Point Cemetery next to butler hospital.
Her name may not ring a bell but her work is unmistakable. P. L. Travers or Pamela Lyndon Travers was the writer of one of the children's classics, "Mary Poppins". Pamela Lydon Travers was born in Australia with the name of Helen Lyndon Goff in 1899. Her father was a ne're do well banker in Queensland who died young leaving a widow and three children. Helen and her family moved to New South Wales where Helen started writing poems. She also dabbled in the theater and eventually started acting under the stage name of Pamela Lyndon Travers. She travelled Australia and New Zealand with a Shakespeare company and that eventually brought Her to London. Travers arrived in London in 1924 and worked as an actress aa well as a writer. She and a friend moved to a thatched cottage in rural Sussex and it was there she started writing in earnest. In 1934 she started work on what would become her most famous work "Mary Poppins". She was a great admirer of J M Barrie the writer of "Peter Pan". She emulated Barrie and the style of "Mary Poppins" is very similar to Barrie's. In fact her publisher was Barrie's son.
Her first and most successful novel "Mary Poppins" was published in 1934. There are seven sequels to the original book but the first was the most famous of them all. Her last "Mary Poppins" book; "Mary Poppins and the House Next door" was published in 1988.
P.L. Travers will forever be linked with a man she despised, Walt Disney because of the 1964 movie he made based on her first book. Roy Disney first approached Travers in 1938 about making a movie of her book but she turned him down as she didn't think an animated film would do her character justice. Travers met Disney while she was living in Manhattan. She left England just before the start of war and lived there until the war was over.
It wasn't until 1961 that the Disneys could convince her to sell them the rights to "Mary Poppins" and even then she had script approval. This doesn't mean she was happy with the script. Disney had cut a lot of the characters and toned down Mary Poppins' manner making her more like able and less prickly. She also didn't care for the songs or the animated segments. At the films premiere (she wasn't invited and had to ask for tickets) she told Walt Disney that the animation had to go. Disney reportedly responded "Pamela the ship has sailed" and walked away from her. She would never allow another Disney adaptation even though they made may requests for sequels. Travers left a credo in her will that Disney could never do another film.
It wasn't until Cameron Mackintosh approached her that she agreed for any adaptations of her work. Travers said yes to Mackintosh but insisted that only English people be involved. No Americans at all and especially no one from the film version was to be involved.
Until her death she was unhappy with the film adaptation of her book although it had made her a wealthy woman as she owned a percentage of the film. Travers was known to be a rather prickly spinster not unlike her creation. She never married but at the age of 40 adopted a son. He was one of a set of twins. She refused to adopt the other.
P.L. Travers was given an OBE in 1977. She published her last book in 1989 and died in London 1996 at the age of 96.
