Mary Shepard Mary Shepard Mary Eleanor Jessie Knox née Shepard (25 December 1909 – 4 September 2000) was an English illustrator of children's books. She is best known for the "Mary Poppins" stories written by P. L. Travers (1934 to 1988): "Mary Shepard: Putting Mary Poppins in the picture", "The Times" of London titled an obituary article. She used her married name Mary Knox outside the publishing industry. She was the daughter of E. H. Shepard, a famous illustrator of children's literature including "Winnie-the-Pooh" by A. A. Milne in the 1920s and a 1931 edition of "The Wind in the Willows" by
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