My Brilliant Career

Written with all the high spirits of youth, My Brilliant Career is the unforgettable tale of Sybylla Melvin, a headstrong country girl—passionate, endearing, stubborn, honest—and her fraught journey from rags to riches to rags.

Introduction by Jennifer Byrne.

Miles Franklin was born in central New South Wales, in 1879. By the age of twenty, Franklin had completed her first novel, My Brilliant Career. After it was rejected by local publishers, she sent it to Henry Lawson, who called it ‘the first great Australian novel’. He helped her to get it published in Britain in 1901. Miles Franklin published nineteen novels and provided for the creation of the Miles Franklin Award, Australia’s premier literary award.

Jennifer Byrne has worked as an award-winning journalist in print, television and radio. She now hosts the popular ABC programs First Tuesday Bookclub and Jennifer Byrne Presents.

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‘The book is true to Australia—the truest I ever read.’ Henry Lawson