'My Brilliant Career was written by Stella Franklin (1879-1954) when she was just nineteen years old. The novel struggled to find an Australian publisher, but was published in London and Edinburgh in 1901 after receiving an endorsement from Henry Lawson. Although Franklin wrote under the pseudonym 'Miles Franklin', Lawson’s preface makes it clear that Franklin is, as Lawson puts it 'a girl.'
'The novel relates the story of Sybylla Melvyn, a strong-willed young woman of the 1890s growing up in the Goulburn area of New South Wales and longing to be a writer.' (Publication summary)
'In this sequel to Miles Franklin's famous novel My Brilliant Career, once again we encounter the enchanting Sybylla Melvyn. She's a little older now, catapulted from bush obscurity into sudden fame with the publication of her autobiography. Sybylla goes to fashionable Sydney to further her career in the literary world, but her patrons, her critics and her innumerable suitors meet more than they bargained for in the wilful Sybylla.'
Source: Publisher's blurb (House of Books ed.).
