History Literature / MaryPoppins

* PainfulRhyme: Invoked when a penguin tries to write a song for Mary Poppins' birthday. When he tries to come up with a rhyme for her first name, he decides against using the words "contrary", which already found use in the poem "Mary, Mary Quite Contrary", and "fairy", which doesn't sound like an accurate description of Mary Poppins. He ends up singing, "Oh, Mary Mary/She's my dearie/She's my dearie-o!"[[note]]The word that "Jolly Holiday" rhymes Mary Poppins' first name with, "ordinary", probably wouldn't have worked in this context.[[/note]]

* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: The Park-Keeper, the Sweep, the Match-Man, and the Ice Cream Man among others. The Match-Man and the Park-Keeper do have actual names (Herbert "Bert" Alfred and Fred Smith, respectively), but rarely get called by those, even by the narrator.

* SuddenlyVoiced: The parrot on the handle of Mary Poppins' umbrella speaks for the first time in the "Topsy-Turvy" chapter of ''Mary Poppins Comes Back''.

* TokenRomance: The 1983 Russian movie tacks on a romance between Mary Poppins and the Banks hippy uncle. Sure, it culminates in great tear jerker of a song but is still doesn't really fit the rest of the film.

* AdaptationalModesty: Neleus is naked in the book, and once he returns to his place, One person remarks it's good someone gave him a coat. The Soviet movie has him clothed from the start, and it is instead remarked he has a book now.

Creator/WaltDisney's [[Film/MaryPoppins 1964 film adaptation]] uses some events and characters from the first book, but also has a slightly less episodic plot and some different characterizations (eg, toning down Mary Poppins' sternness).

* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: Travers was one of the few classic authors to live long enough to have to personally edit her books to eliminate racist terms and stereotypes.

* ''Mary Poppins and the Match-Man'' (1926)[[note]]This story first appeared in a periodical, then became the second chapter of ''Mary Poppins''.[[/note]]

%%* LondonTown

* PortalToThePast: In ''Mary Poppins Comes Back'', [[spoiler:entering the design on the Royal Doulton bowl causes Jane to almost become trapped 60 years in the past.]]

* PortalToThePast: [[spoiler:The antique Royal Doulton bowl displayed in the nursery becomes this after Jane accidentally cracks it.]]

** The antique Royal Doulton bowl displayed in the nursery becomes this[[labelnote:*]]and a PortalToThePast[[/labelnote]] after Jane accidentally cracks it.

** The antique Royal Doulton bowl displayed in the nursery becomes this after Jane accidentally cracks it.
* PortalToThePast: The antique Royal Doulton bowl displayed in the nursery becomes this after Jane accidentally cracks it.

** The antique Royal Doulton bowl displayed in the nursery becomes this[[labelnote:*]]and a PortalToThePast[[/labelnote]] after Jane accidentally cracks it.

** The antique Royal Doulton bowl displayed in the nursery becomes this after Jane accidentally cracks it.

* PortalPicture: Bert's pavement drawings.

* ''Mary Poppins in the Park'' (1952)

* CharacterTitle

* InsaneTrollLogic: In ''Mary Poppins Opens the Door'', Mary Poppins tells Jane and Michael, "I'll stay til the door opens", then clarifies that she refers to the "other door" of the nursery. Michael interprets this to mean that she will never leave, because the nursery only has one door, and therefore the "other door" will never open. [[spoiler: Mary Poppins eventually leaves through the door's reflection on the window.]]

* LondonTown
* MagicalGuardian

** ''Mary Poppins Comes Back'' has Mary Poppins purchase a two-way ticket before [[spoiler: flying away on the carousel]], admitting, "You never know. It might come in useful." In the following book, she tells the Park Keeper to collect this ticket after she returns to the Banks children.

* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: Travers was one of the few classic authors to live long enough to have to personally edit her books to eliminate racist terms and stereotypes. In other cases, such as Creator/EnidBlyton, this was done posthumously.

* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: Travers was one of the few classic authors to live long enough to have to personally edit her books to eliminate racist terms and stereotypes. In other cases, such as EnidBlyton, this was done posthumously.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: ''Mary Poppins and the Match-Man'' describes Mary Poppins' age as 17, despite later books and adaptations making her seem older than that. It also has a plot in which the Banks children play a minimal role, though their omission from Mary Poppins' day out does tie in well with the lesson she teaches them at the end of the episode, that everyone has their own fairyland (which will probably look different for an older person than for a young child. On their date, Mary and the Match-Man had afternoon tea and rode carousel horses around an idealized landscape, whereas the children enquired if she had met storybook characters). When P.L. Travers re-wrote the story as "The Day Out", she removed the specificity of Mary's age, but the Banks children remained mostly absent.

* GoodIsNotNice: Mary.

* InexplicablyAwesome: Mary is a classic example.

* {{Interquel}}: P.L. Travers explains in the introduction to ''Mary Poppins in the Park'' that the stories within happened during Mary's stays in the first three books. Since the books written from the 1960s through the '80s do not begin with Mary Poppins making a dramatic entrance back into the Banks' lives, these probably take place during those visits as well.

** ''Mary Poppins in the Park'' reveals one of Jane's plasticine figures, Samuel Mo, as another of Mary's cousins.

* MisterMuffykins: Andrew, the spoiled and pampered lapdog of the rich and elderly Miss Lark. He is revealed to absolutely hate this treatment and wish for a simpler dog's life. And with Mary Poppin's help, he gets it.

** ''Mary Poppins'' ends with Jane receiving a letter from Mary signed, "Au revoir," explained as French for, "To meet again."

[[quoteright:290:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/marypoppins-book_114.jpg]]

* TeleportersAndTransporters: Mary Poppins' compass (which becomes Michael's shortly before Mary Poppins' first departure) can teleport its user(s) to the any of the four corners of the world.

''Mary Poppins'' is a children's book by P.L. Travers, with seven sequels.