Miles Franklin - The Woman and The Writer

Miles Franklin is known to all Australians, particularly for her novels My Brilliant Career and its sequel My Career Goes Bung. She is also known for setting up Australia's premier literary award - The Miles Franklin Award for Australian fiction.

Miles Franklin is also known overseas for the film made of this book starring Judy Davis as Sybylla Melvyn.

Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin was born 14 October 1879 on the grazing property, Talbingo, near Tumut in New South Wales belonging to her maternal grandmother. She spent the early part of her life at Brindabella, the family home station in the Monaro region of New South Wales. In 1889 the family moved to a property near Goulburn NSW, as did Sybylla Melvyn's family in My Brilliant Career. In 1903 the family moved to Penrith, a suburb on the western outskirts of Sydney, then in 1914 to Carlton an inner suburb of Melbourne.

After the publication of My Brilliant Career, she trained as a nurse and also took a year working as a housemaid, as a "Mary Ann" to gain information and experience for her writing. She wanted people to be more aware of the girls who served them, cleaned their rooms and cooked their meals. She worked for the businessmen of Melbourne and also in the smart homes of Toorak. She enjoyed this immensely, seeing how the high and mighty of the world really were in their own homes.

Miles Franklin cultivated the well-known Australian writers of her day, such people as Joseph Furphy, Norman Lindsay and Henry Lawson. She wrote as a freelance journalist for the Daily Telegraph and The Sydney Morning Herald under the pseudonyms "An Old Battler" and "Vernacular.

She was involved in the early Australian feminist movement through her friendship with Rose Scott and Vida Goldstein. Franklin's feminism and her rejection of traditional women's roles made her books controversial in Australia. My Career Goes Bung, though written in 1902, was not published until 1946 because it was judged so audacious, and couldn't find a publisher willing to take it on before this.

Henry Lawson saw her as his "protégé", as he had highly praised her My Brilliant Career, and agreed to write a foreword to it. Lawson was upset about her friendship with the feminist Rose Scott as Rose was also a friend of his wife, who was threatening to divorce him for his drunkardness. He believed that Rose, his wife and the other women in this feminist circle were spreading tales about his faults as a husband.

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic