My Brilliant Career

Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin (1879-1954) was born in Old Talbingo, Australia. Despite a difficult and isolated childhood in the impoverished bush regions of New South Wales, with limited formal education, she completed her first book at the age of nineteen. The ironically titled My Brilliant Career (1901), published under a male pseudonym, met with immediate success and acclaim. Its story of an impassioned, ambitious heroine frustrated by rural bush life resonated with young Australian women and established Franklin as a bold new feminist voice in literature. Following her debut novel, Franklin moved to Sydney, then to America and Britain. She authored and published nineteen books in her lifetime and also worked as an editor and women’s advocate for organizations such as the National Women’s Trade Union League. Her endowment of the major literary award, the Miles Franklin Award, has solidified her legacy in Australian literary life.

Kerrie Davies is the author of Miles Franklin Undercover, released March 2025 (Allen & Unwin), available in the U.S. November 2025. Her previous book, A Wife’s Heart, sparked national discussion about the poet Henry Lawson and his marriage. Davies has appeared at the Sydney Writers’ Festival, Brisbane Writers Festival, and the National Folk Festival. A former journalist, she was a visiting fellow at the State Library NSW and is a Senior Lecturer at the School of the Arts Media, UNSW Sydney. Kerrie writes for The Conversation and lives on the NSW North Coast and in Sydney.

Tina Kover is the translator of over thirty books from French, including Anne Berest’s The Postcard, Négar Djavadi’s Disoriental, and Emmelie Prophète’s Blue. Her work has received the Albertine Prize, the French Voices Award, and the Lambda Literary Award, and has been shortlisted for the (U.S.) National Book Award, the International Dublin Literary Award, the PEN Translation Prize, the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize, and the Scott Moncrieff Prize. She leads workshops for the American Literary Translators Association and masterclasses in literary translation for Durham University. She is also a co-founder of Translators Aloud, a YouTube channel that features literary translators reading from their own work. She lives in Durham, UK.

Allison Miriam Woodnutt (née Smith) is an Acquiring Editor and the Publishing & Publicity Manager for Unnamed Press, as well as a co-founder of Smith & Taylor Classics. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English & Creative Writing from the University of Southern California and a Master’s degree in 18th & 19th c. Literature from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Prior to her work at Unnamed Press, she worked in libraries and bookshops.

Brandon Taylor is an Acquiring Editor at Unnamed Press and co-founder of Smith & Taylor Classics. He is the author of Minor Black Figures, The Late Americans, Real Life (a finalist for the Booker Prize and the NBCC John Leonard Prize), and Filthy Animals (winner of The Story Prize and a finalist for the Dylan Thomas Prize). His work has been published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Cut, Vulture, and other publications.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.