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'''My Brilliant Career''' is a 1901 novel by Miles Franklin.
It is the first of many novels by Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin (1879-1954), one of the major Australian writers of her time. It was written while she was still a teenager, as a romance to amuse her friends. Franklin submitted the manuscript to Henry Lawson who contributed a preface and took it to his own publishers in Edinburgh. The popularity of the novel in Australia and the perceived closeness of many of the characters to her own family and circumstances as small farmers in New South Wales near Goulburn caused Franklin a great deal of distress and led her to withdrawing the novel from publication until after her death.
Shortly after the publication of ''My Brilliant Career'', Franklin wrote a sequel, ''My Career Goes Bung,'' which would not be published until 1946.

Contents

Plot summary

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

Allusions/references from other works

Release details

External links

Plot summary

The heroine, Sybylla, a headstrong girl growing up in early 20th century Australia, has the opportunity of marriage to a wealthy young man (Harry), but rejects it in order to maintain her independence, instead being forced to take a job as governess/housekeeper to the family of an illiterate neighbour to whom her father owes money.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

Sybylla is a young woman with big dreams (of becoming a well known writer) who lives in the outback of Australia with her family struggling with the drought and monetary problem.
Her journey to finding her self and making the hardest choices of her life begins when her mother says she can’t afford to keep her and sends Sybylla to her rich grandmothers house where she learns to love. But instead of pursuing love and becoming a rich house wife like every young lady should do, in the end Sybylla does not wish to give on her big dreams of becoming a distinguished writer.
Sybylla chooses a 'brilliant' career over love and getting married and she gets a book printed in ‘1901’

Allusions/references from other works

Western Australian band The Panics released a song of the same name on their debut EP in 2002, which is presumably named after the book.

Release details

★ 1901, Australia, William Blackwood & Sons (ISBN NA), Pub date ? ? 1901, hardback (First edition)

★ 1980, UK, Virago Press (ISBN 0-86068-193-9), Pub date 14 July 1980, paperback

★ 1980, UK, St Martins Press (ISBN 0-312-55599-7), Pub date ? October 1980, hardback

★ 1987, UK, G K Hall & Co (ISBN 0-8161-4158-4), Pub date ? February 1987, hardback

★ 2006, USA, Filiquarian Publishing (ISBN 1-59986-972-1), Pub date 16 May 2006, paperback

External links

★

★ ''My Brilliant Career'' at the Internet Movie Database