My Brilliant Career is a 1901 novel written 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.
59-403: Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin (14 October 1879 – 19 September 1954), known as Miles Franklin , was an Australian writer and feminist who is best known for her novel My Brilliant Career , published by Blackwoods of Edinburgh 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
118-669: A biography of Joseph Furphy (1944) "in painful collaboration with Kate Baker ". Previously, in 1939, she and Baker had won the Prior Memorial prize for an essay on Furphy. Dever writes that the letters between Dymphna Cusack and Miles Franklin that are published in Yarn Spinners "provide a see-sawing commentary on the delicate art of literary collaboration". In her will she made a bequest for her estate to establish an annual literary award known as The Miles Franklin Award . The first winner
177-662: A biography of Furphy. Baker eventually agreed to work on the biography with Franklin and in late 1938 she travelled to Sydney to live with Franklin for the duration of their collaboration. The two women worked together for five months and in June 1939 submitted the manuscript "Who Was Joseph Furphy" to The Bulletin . The two evidently found working together challenging. Baker wrote to Victor Kennedy that she felt she had suffered "a touch of purgatory, whose cleansing fires burn out every touch of self-conceit and vanity". Franklin also found Baker to be trying, not least because by this point Baker
236-550: A book about his life. Furphy valued Baker's input and encouragement; biographer John Barnes described Baker as "providing the intellectual companionship [Furphy] had never known with his wife", from whom he was estranged. Baker became friends with Joseph's sister Annie, and through this relationship Baker invited Joseph to visit her, which he did around 1887. Despite the presence of Annie, the relationship between Baker and Furphy caused suspicions within his family, and Joseph's brother John effectively prevented Furphy from visiting Baker
295-528: A central character, along with British painters Grace Pailthorpe and Stanley Spencer , and Australian adventurer Olive King . My Brilliant Career The book was written while Franklin was still a teenager, as a romance to amuse her friends. She submitted the manuscript to Henry Lawson , who contributed a preface and took it to his publishers in Edinburgh. The popularity of the novel in Australia and
354-534: A heraldic painter. Her father died when Baker was only 3 months old, and the family subsequently moved to Williamstown, Victoria , in 1870 to live with Catherire's sister, who was the wife of the then mayor, Edward Crane. Baker's attended Williamstown North State school, and in 1881 she became a teacher at Hyde Street State school in Footscray , before taking charge in 1881 of a school at Wanalta Creek near Rushworth . Whilst teaching at Wanalta school she boarded at
413-534: A lack of understanding of Australian humour of the time, heavily used in Furphy's work. She wrote that "if such 'editing' of this nobly indigenous work was the only way to gain English attention for it, then our very feeble stature as colonial writers is painfully exposed." This placed Baker in an awkward position. She had approved, as literary executor, the abridged version. Baker had known that it would be difficult to have
472-641: A letter to the Labor Call . Her autograph book, now held in the manuscripts section of the State Library of Victoria, includes signatures from many notable authors of the day, including Bernard O'Dowd , Marie Pitt , Frank Dalby Davison , Edward Harrington , Mary Gilmore , and Bertha Lawson (the widow of Henry Lawson ). She wrote extensively to many Australian authors – in 1931, for instance, she wrote to Arthur Upfield expressing her appreciation for his novel The Beach of Atonement . A collection of her letters
531-630: A lot of affection for Baker in spite of their past differences, later writing that Baker was "a triumph, 91 next month, and still going about by herself and tripping down steps in a half light without holding the side rail – looks so nice too". In later life Baker remained active in the Australian literary scene. In 1942 she presented to the Australian National Library an unpublished manuscript of biographical essays entitled Silhouettes on notable figures of Australian literature. These included
590-582: A number of dignitaries, including the Speaker of the Victorian Legislative Assembly , William Hugh Everard . Baker also donated a blackwood cabinet containing Furphy's works and various tributes and messages. In March 1937 an abridged version of Such as Life was published in London by Jonathan Cape , and almost immediately met with a storm of criticism in Australia. Vance Palmer had agreed to edit
649-480: A powerful ally, and in his autobiography Long Enough for a Joke he admits he became "willingly the slave of Kate Baker in the service of Joseph Furphy" In 1931 Baker campaigned to establish a plaque on the site of the house where Furphy grew up, which was by then the Yarra Glen primary school. Her campaign was successful and in 1934 the plaque was unveiled at a ceremony accompanied by Furphy's sister Annie Stewart and
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#1732851279365708-542: A row with everyone & insisted on being head. I just let 'em muddle along and take no notice as I've had a year's training in London of English ways. Will think my own thoughts and write a book if the plot comes into my head. From 1919 to 1926 Franklin worked as Secretary with the National Housing and Town Planning Association in London. She organised a women's international housing convention in 1924. Her life in England in
767-738: A sanatorium for a period in 1912 In 1915, she travelled to England and worked as a cook and earned some money from journalism. In March 1917 Franklin volunteered for war work in the Ostrovo Unit of the Scottish Women's Hospitals during the Serbian campaigns of 1917–18. She served as a cook and later matron's orderly in a 200-bed tent hospital attached to the Serbian army near Lake Ostrovo in Macedonian Greece from July 1917 to February 1918. Was made staff cook against my will. ... Then Miss Brown made
826-518: A series of biographical notes, which she later donated to the National Library of Australia, she included a history of Cambridge's life. This included an observation that Cambridge's maid was unwilling to leave in order to be married, which literary critic Roy Duncan has obliquely noted seemed "completely unmindful that there may have been other reasons for this than loyalty to a mistress [which revealed] something of [Baker's] own personality". Baker
885-572: A war on Australian soil at this time. While Miles Franklin had many suitors, she never married. She died on 19 September 1954, aged 74 and her ashes were scattered in Jounama Creek, Talbingo close to where she was born. Miles Franklin engaged in a number of literary collaborations throughout her life. In addition to co-editing the journal Life and Labor with Alice Henry in the US, she also wrote Pioneers on Parade in collaboration with Dymphna Cusack and
944-463: Is an imaginative, headstrong girl growing up in rural Australia in the 1890s. Drought and a series of poor business decisions reduce her family to a subsistence level, her father begins to drink excessively, and Sybylla struggles to deal with the monotony of her life. To her relief, she is sent to live on her grandmother's property, where life is more comfortable. There, she meets wealthy young Harold Beecham, who loves her and proposes marriage. But Sybylla
1003-603: Is convinced that she is ugly and cannot believe he could love her. By this time, her father's drinking has plunged the family into debt, and she is sent to work as a governess/housekeeper for the family of an almost illiterate neighbor to whom her father owes money. She finds life there unbearable and eventually suffers a physical breakdown, which leads to her return to the family home. When Harold Beecham returns to ask Sybylla to marry him, she concludes that she would only make him unhappy and sends him away, determined never to marry. The novel ends with no suggestion that she will ever have
1062-501: Is currently held at the National Library of Australia and includes letters to J. S. Neilson , Guy Innes , Vance and Nettie Palmer , Miles Franklin and J. K. Ewers. J. S. Neilson met Baker in 1929 and credited Baker as introducing him to many Melbourne writers. In their coronation biographies for OBE recipients, The West Australian credited her with being "largely responsible for the publication of [his] poems". When Baker
1121-451: Is her monomania". After the work had been submitted to The Bulletin it won the S. H. Prior Memorial Prize in August of the same year. When Baker moved back to Melbourne, she wrote of having felt she had been "stabbed" and insufficiently acknowledged by Franklin. In spite of this, Baker believed it was more important that it furthered Furphy's cause and so swallowed her pride. When Franklin
1180-527: The First Fleet in the Scarborough with a seven-year 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
1239-714: The Mitchell Library to unearth if it had not been for the enlightened energy of Miss Kate Baker" and that "not all writers are lucky enough to have such a devoted friend to act as their literary trustee." By 1921 Baker had located and purchased Rigby's Romance in the files of the Barrier Truth and entered it into the C. J. De Garis Publishing House's Australian Novel Competition, who awarded it an Honourable Mention, and decided to publish it. The edition came with an introduction from A. G. Stevens, who had originally positively reviewed but declined to publish Such Is Life until
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#17328512793651298-743: The National Women's Trade Union League in Chicago, and co-edited the league's magazine, Life and Labor . Her years in the US are reflected in On Dearborn Street (not published until 1981), a love story that uses American slang in a manner not dissimilar to the early work of Dashiell Hammett . Also while in America she wrote Some Everyday Folk and Dawn (1909), the story of a small-town Australian family, which uses purple prose for deliberate comic effect. She suffered regular bouts of ill health and entered
1357-612: The Order of the British Empire . In this period of her life Franklin was a constant attendee and speaker at various cultural and literary events. Her message was centred on free speech and the championing of Australian literature. Franklin was not a member of any political party, although her diaries reveal an interest in socialism and ASIO did have a file on Franklin during the Cold War. Franklin's literary friend P.R. ('Inky') Stephenson launched
1416-785: The PEN and the Bread and Cheese", with the suggestion they form a remembrance monument to "writers who have passed on". Her efforts eventually led to the formation, in 1947, of the Australian Literature Commemorative Association. In 1951 she presented a collection of writings and photographs of Furphy to the La Trobe Library. Baker died on 7 October 1953 at Camberwell private hospital, aged 92. Her funeral service took place at St Peter's Church in East Melbourne and she
1475-514: The S. H. Prior Memorial Prize in 1939 together with Kate Baker for their collaborative work 'Who Was Joseph Furphy?'. Throughout her life, Franklin actively supported Australian literature . She joined the Fellowship of Australian Writers in 1933 and the Sydney PEN Club in 1935. She encouraged young writers such as Jean Devanny , Sumner Locke Elliott and Ric Throssell and she supported
1534-496: The "brilliant career" she desires as a writer. A 1979 film version , produced by Margaret Fink and directed by Gillian Armstrong , features Judy Davis and Sam Neill in starring roles as Sybylla and Harry. Kate Baker Catherine Baker OBE (1861–1953) was an Irish-born Australian teacher best known for championing the work of her friend Joseph Furphy , whose novel Such Is Life had received an indifferent reception upon its initial publication in 1909 but
1593-454: The 1920s gave rise to Bring the Monkey (1933), a satire on the English country house mystery novel. The book reveals Franklin's views on nationality and class. The book was a literary and commercial failure. Franklin resettled in Australia in 1932 after the death of her father in 1931. During that decade she wrote several historical novels of the Australian bush, most of which were published under
1652-488: The British public; but it is not Joseph Furphy's Such Is Life ." She further wrote that "I hope the book will sell well in England. I fear Australian connoisseurs will resent it fiercely." Baker was highly regarded by many notable figures in Australian literature, and regularly wrote to Australian authors. She counted as her long time friend Robert Samuel Ross , lamenting his death after an unbroken friendship of 30 years in
1711-564: The creation of the Stella Prize , awarded annually for the best work of literature by an Australian woman. 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
1770-471: 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 annual prize for literature about "Australian Life in any of its phases", the Miles Franklin Award . Her impact was further recognised in 2013 with
1829-530: The first edition, the second met with lackluster sales, possibly due to bookseller Angus & Robertson 's declined of distribution rights. A review in The Socialist by William John Miles appearing some five years after the edition's release was pointed about the lack of publicity around the work. Palmer responded to Miles's criticisms in an open letter, which he concluded by noting that "probably Joseph Furphy's work would have been left for some antiquarian in
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1888-647: The following year. Furphy and Baker's remained in frequent correspondence, and at some point he resumed annual visits to Melbourne to see them until the end of 1903 when he moved across the country to Swanbourne , near in Perth . Baker had been teaching at her old school in North Williamstown from 1887 to 1898, after which she continued as an infants teacher. In 1889, after much encouragement by Baker and his friend and fellow blacksmith , William Cathels, Furphy submitted his work Such Is Life to The Bulletin under
1947-512: The home of the parents of pupil Isaac Furphy, before the next year moving to board with the parents of Joseph Furphy in Burramboot East . Before leaving her lodgings to move to Melbourne, Baker was delayed for three days due to weather. Joseph Furphy, who had been working outdoors, returned home for several days, and the two met. The encounter made a lasting impression on Baker, who later recalled to reporter J. K. Ewers that Furphy "had much
2006-618: The new literary journals, Meanjin and Southerly . Miles entertained literary figures at her home in Carlton, NSW. An autograph book known as Miles Franklin's Waratah Book held by the State Library of NSW was used for autographs and inscriptions. Guests were encouraged to drink tea from the Waratah Cup and to write in the Waratah Book. In 1937, Franklin declined appointment as an Officer of
2065-420: The novel, however—though his name was prominent on the cover of the work-it was in fact edited largely by his wife Nettie Palmer assisted by their daughter Aileen. The most vociferous critic was P. R. "Inky" Stephenson , who wrote that "this edition howls to heaven to be withdrawn. It must be flung into the discard, and Vance Palmer with it, unless he publicly admits the enormity of his blunder". Miles Franklin
2124-456: The novelist Ada Cambridge, Victor Kennedy, Edith Coleman , the poet Marie E. J. Pitt , Joseph Furphy, journalist Alice Henry and the poet John Shaw Neilson. Her heavy involvement in the Australian literary world is perhaps best shown through a letter she sent to Victor Kennedy in 1945, where she referred to a variety of societies she had contributed to, including the "ALS, Lawson [Henry Lawson Society], Gordon [Lindsay Gordon Society], APLS, and
2183-495: 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 withdraw 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. The heroine, Sybylla Melvyn,
2242-613: The poet Marie E. J. Pitt , journalist Alice Henry and the poet John Shaw Neilson . She was made a life member of the Henry Lawson Society, and honored with a bronze plaque by the society in 1936. Shortly before her death in 1953 she was made vice-president of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties . Baker was born on 23 April 1861 in Cappoquin , Ireland, to Catherine Baker ( née Sheffield ) and Francis Wilson Baker,
2301-440: The pro-isolationist, anti-war Australia First Movement in late 1941, to which Franklin was vehemently opposed, as evidenced by her diary entries and correspondence at the time - "Reds or pinks or 'rightists' all showed their ignorance" she wrote after attending a AFM meeting, and of Stephenson "I could not have anything to do with his politics". Franklin was staunchly anti-war and, traumatized by her WWI experiences, very much feared
2360-493: The pseudonym "Brent of Bin Bin". New South Wales State Librarian, Dagmar Schmidmaier , said "Miles increasingly feared that nothing she wrote matched the success of My Brilliant Career and resorted to writing under different names, including the pseudonym Brent of Bin Bin, to protect herself from poor reviews." However, All That Swagger was published under her own name in 1936, winning the S. H. Prior Memorial Prize . Franklin also won
2419-495: The pseudonym Tom Collins. The hand-written manuscript submitted was 1,200 pages (which would have been about 550 printed pages) and, despite a positive review, literary editor A. G. Stephens determined it could not be published due to its length. An abridged version was published in 1903 to disappointing sales, but a section that had been excised enjoyed greater success serialized in the Barrier Truth between 1905 and 1907 under
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2478-548: The pseudonyms "An Old Bachelor" and "Vernacular." During this period she wrote My Career Goes Bung in which Sybylla encounters the Sydney literary set, but it was not released to the public until 1946. An overtly anti-war play, The Dead Must Not Return , was not published or performed but received a public reading in September 2009. In 1906, Franklin moved to the US and undertook secretarial work for Alice Henry , another Australian, at
2537-405: The remaining 800 or so unbound copies of the novel for £60 and began arranging to have it republished by The Specialty Press as a second edition. Between 1915 and 1918, Baker recommenced teaching at a number of country schools and would occasionally tutor students, despite an accelerated loss of hearing. In 1917, the second edition, re-edited by noted writer Vance Palmer , was released. Like
2596-479: The same style in speaking as in writing, discursive, breaking into side issues, but ever returning to the main topic", and that "at the time of meeting him I compared him in my mind to the gentle scholar in Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn . Later, knowing him more perfectly, I likened him to Leonardo da Vinci ...". After moving back to Melbourne Baker began a correspondence with him, encouraging him to write
2655-463: The section that formed Rigby’s Romance was excised. In his introduction, he described Baker as "Furphy's standard-bearer ". Miles Franklin later requoted the phrase, adding the word "gallant". In November 1929, J. K. Ewers wrote a series of articles about Australian authors entitled "Pioneers of the Pen", his piece on Furphy reached Baker and she struck up a correspondence with him. With Ewers she found
2714-593: The shop-front of Robertson and Mullens' in Elizabeth Street, Melbourne . Such was her influence in the literature world at that time that James Booth and the Australian Literary Society lobbied for her to be honoured by the King and in 1937 she was appointed an OBE for her contributions to Australian literature. Miles Franklin had been corresponding with Baker since the mid-1930s, badgering her to write
2773-402: The story of an irrepressible teenage girl, Sybylla Melvyn, growing to womanhood in rural New South Wales. 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
2832-503: The title Rigby's Romance . After Furphy died in 1912, Baker had a nervous breakdown and retired from the then Victorian Department of Education . In 1913 she collected and published The Poems of Joseph Furphy via the Lothian Book Publishing Company, financing the publication from her own funds. In 1914, after half the original edition of Such Is Life was found at The Bulletin under some lumber, she purchased
2891-485: The work nor devitalize it". She found, however, that the abridgement was not what she had expected. Despite her friendship with the Palmers, she wrote to The Bulletin on 9 June 1937 that she had told the publishers that "I am pleased with the book's format ― its paper, the printing, the binding; the editor has certainly kept the continuity of the story, and has written a plain, unvarnished tale that will no doubt be pleasing to
2950-491: The work published as she had already attempted to have Such Is Life published by Australian publisher Angus & Robertson, but this had failed. She found interest from English publisher Jonathan Cape however, and after discussions she agreed to allow Vance Palmer to abridge the novel. In a telegram to Cape, she wrote that she was confident it would allow the work to "stand out as an Australian classic [Kate Baker's emphasis]', and that '[Palmer's] cutting will neither emasculate
3009-589: Was Patrick White with Voss in 1957. The Canberra suburb of Franklin and the nearby primary school Miles Franklin Primary School are named in her honour. The school holds an annual writing competition in her memory. Additionally the Franklin Public School in Tumut , NSW is also named in her honour. During her lifetime Miles Franklin donated several items to the Mitchell Library . Manuscript material
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#17328512793653068-482: Was a member of the Henry Lawson Society. In 1932 she gave a lecture on the works of poet Hubert Church . She was held in high esteem by the members and in September 1939 she was presented with life membership for her services to the Society and Australian literature. The Society later commissioned a bronze plaque of Baker by sculptor Wallace Anderson, which was presented to her by Bernard O'Dowd and placed on exhibition in
3127-460: Was cremated at Springvale Botanical Cemetery with Methodist rites . Shortly after her death, J. K. Ewers paid tribute to Baker in an article in The West Australian , echoing A. G. Stephens' assertion that Baker "bore Joseph Furphy's standard" and quoting Furphy's compliment that Baker was "a woman who has probably never lost a friend, except by death". Baker had been a founding member of
3186-499: Was given a Commonwealth Literary Fund (CLF) grant, Baker continued to check primary manuscripts to allow Franklin to write the 1944 biography Joseph Furphy: the Legend of a Man and His Book , the same year as an unabridged version of This is Life was released. Franklin acknowledged Baker's contribution as she ensured that the biography was credited as being authored "in association with Kate Baker". Franklin, for her part, showed she had
3245-494: Was growing increasingly deaf – on 13 February 1939 she wrote in her diary "Hot day. The fatigue of trying to get K.B. [Kate Baker] to hear is killing. She has no idea of literary procedure or construction and one can't yell a notion into her deafness." Franklin, who had a more prosaic view of Furphy than Baker – who refused to see his imperfections – wrote to J. K. Moir that Baker had the "illusion that she created Furphy", and that she "lives and breathes and thinks only of Furphy... he
3304-475: Was later embraced by critics and the public. Miles Franklin incorporated Baker's recollections into the essay "Who Was Joseph Furphy?", which won the S. H. Prior Memorial Prize in 1939. Baker was appointed an OBE in 1937 for her efforts in promoting Furphy's work and to broader Australian literature. She was an influential part of the Australian literary scene, supporting, writing to and encouraging writers such as Ada Cambridge , Victor Kennedy , Edith Coleman ,
3363-523: Was no less cutting, writing in The Bulletin that "the cover is a nice blue, the dust jacket in mourning hue ― appropriately, I feel". Amongst her criticisms was the removal of the ironic use of parentheticals whenever a swear-word was mentioned, which was a comic technique used by Furphy that poked fun at the censors of the time; the removal of references easily understood by Australians but which might not have been clear to an English audience; and what seemed
3422-877: Was presented over the period 1937–1942. The various drafts of "Pioneers on Parade" were presented in 1940. She bequeathed her printed book collection, correspondence and notes as well as the poems of Mary Fullerton . 47 of Miles Franklin's diaries are in the State Library of New South Wales , including one copy discovered in 2018. A revival of interest in Franklin occurred in the wake of the Australian New Wave film My Brilliant Career (1979), which won several international awards. In 2014, Google Doodle celebrated her 135th birthday. In her 2022 novel, Salonika Burning , The Australian writer Gail Jones fictionalises Miles Franklin (as 'Stella'), and her experiences in Macedonia, as
3481-599: Was young she had frequented the Williamstown Mechanic's Institute, which served as the local library. She often shared this space with Ada Cross, better known as Ada Cambridge . Baker later agitated for a memorial to Cambridge, and in 1946 a plaque, erected in the foyer of Williamstown Town Hall by the Lindsay Gordon Lover's Society, was unveiled by president of the Bread and Cheese Club , J. K. Moir. When Baker wrote
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