My Brilliant Career is a 1901 novel about a headstrong girl growing up in rural Australia. Drought and a series of poor business decisions reduce her family to subsistence level. She is sent to live with her grandmother where life is more comfortable. There she meets wealthy young Harry Beecham, who loves her and proposes marriage but Sybylla is unable to believe that he could really love her. Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin was an Australian writer and feminist who is best known for her novel My Brilliant Career. She was committed to the development of a uniquely Australian form of literature, and she actively pursued this goal by supporting writers, literary journals, and writers' organizations.