Miles Franklin

Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin, known as Miles Franklin (14 October 1879 – 19 September 1954) was an Australian writer and feminist who is best known for her novel My Brilliant Career, published in 1901. While she wrote throughout her life, her other major literary success, All That Swagger, w...

Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin, known as Miles Franklin (14 October 1879 – 19 September 1954) was an Australian writer and feminist who is best known for her novel My Brilliant Career, published in 1901. While she wrote throughout her life, her other major literary success, All That Swagger, was not published until 1936. She was committed to the development of a uniquely Australian form of literature, and she actively pursued this goal by supporting writers, literary journals, and writers' organisations. She has had a long-lasting impact on Australian literary life through her endowment of a major literary award known as the Miles Franklin Award. Franklin was born at Talbingo, New South Wales, and grew up in the Brindabella Valley on a property called Brindabella Station. She was the eldest child of Australian-born parents, John Maurice Franklin and Susannah Margaret Eleanor Franklin, née Lampe, who was the great-granddaughter of Edward Miles (or Moyle) who had arrived with the First Fleet in the Scarborough with a seven years sentence for theft. Her family was a member of the squattocracy. She was educated at home until 1889 when she attended Thornford Public During this period she was encouraged in her writing by her teacher, Mary Gillespie (1856-1938) and Tom Hebblewhite (1857-1923) editor of the local Goulburn newspaper. Her best known novel, My Brilliant Career, tells the story of an irrepressible teenage feminist growing to womanhood in rural New South Wales. This heroine, Sybylla Melvyn, is one of the most endearing characters in Australian literature and obviously has much in common with Franklin herself, who wrote the novel while she was still a teenager. It was published in 1901 with the support of Australian writer, Henry Lawson. After its publication, Franklin tried a career in nursing, and then as a housemaid in Sydney and Melbourne. Whilst doing this she contributed pieces to The Daily Telegraph and The Sydney Morning Herald under the pseudonyms "An Old Bachelor" and "Vernacular." During this period she wrote My Career Goes Bung in which Sybylla encounters the Sydney literary set. The book proved too hot to publish and did not become available to the public until 1946.