My Brilliant Career Study Guide

Like the protagonist of her novel My Brilliant Career, Miles Franklin was the daughter of an Australian landowner and a descendant of aristocrats. Her family moved around during her childhood and early adulthood, losing more and more money until they finally settled in a suburb of Sydney in 1915. Her family could not afford an extensive education, but Franklin nevertheless took an interest in literature and writing, and she published My Brilliant Career when she was only 22. As a young woman, she worked as a nurse and a housemaid until moving to the United States in 1906. For the next several years, Franklin worked as a secretary and assisted in philanthropic efforts. In 1915, she moved to England, where she continued to write. In her time away from home, her patriotism and love of Australia grew, and she returned to Australia in 1932. She wrote more novels about the Australian bush under the pseudonym Brent of Bin Bin, and she was actively involved in Australia’s literary world. Like Sybylla Melvyn (the protagonist of My Brilliant Career), Franklin prioritized her career over romance, and she never married.

Feminism was gaining traction in Australia when Franklin was writing My Brilliant Career. Australian women fought for suffrage throughout the late 19th century, inspired by their New Zealand counterparts, who made history in 1893 as the first women in a self-governing nation to achieve the right to vote. Many Australian states legalized women’s suffrage in the 1890s, and in 1902, Australia granted its female citizens the right to vote in all federal elections. Other social movements also began in the 1890s, including labor movements and the movement to form a federalist Commonwealth of Australia.

The 1903 novel This is Life was written by Australian author Joseph Furphy, a contemporary and associate of Franklin’s. It examines rural life in late-19th-century Australia, and it makes use of Australian slang and dialect. Another friend to both Furphy and Franklin was teacher Kate Baker, who worked with Australian writers such as poet John Shaw Neilson and essayist Nettie Palmer. Because My Brilliant Career largely revolves around Sybylla’s navigation of social customs and expectations, it’s also worth considering the book alongside famous novels of manners like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility, in addition to Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady—all of which feature young women making their way through challenging societal conventions in ways that often parallel Sybylla’s experience in My Brilliant Career.