The fierce, irreverent novel of aspiration and rebellion that is both
a cornerstone of Australian literature and a feminist classic
Miles Franklin began the candid, passionate, and contrary My Brilliant
Career when she was only sixteen, intending it to be the Australian
answer to Jane Eyre. But the book she produced-a thinly veiled
autobiographical novel about a young girl hungering for life and love in
the outback-so scandalized her country upon its appearance in 1901 that
she insisted it not be published again until ten years after her death.