Mary Poppins Opens the Door Mary Poppins Opens the Door Mary Poppins Opens the Door is a British children's fantasy novel by the Australian-British writer P.L. Travers, the third book and last novel in the "Mary Poppins" series that features the magical English nanny Mary Poppins. It was published in 1943 by Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc and illustrated by Mary Shepard and Agnes Sims. On Guy Fawkes Night, Mary Poppins arrives in the wake of the last fireworks display by the Banks family. The Banks children Michael, Jane, the twins, and Annabel plead with her to stay. She reluctantly agrees to do so "till
Mary Poppins (character) Banks children of whom she is in charge. Mary also has a friendship with Bert (Dick Van Dyke), a jack-of-all-trades who is quite at home with Mary's brand of magic. She also is less vain and selfish (although there are a couple of references to her vanity when she replaces a dingy wall mirror with a more elegant one, and sings a duet with her reflection), and far more sympathetic towards the two children than the nanny in the original stories. Emily Blunt portrayed Mary Poppins in the sequel "Mary Poppins Returns". In both the West End and Broadway versions