Author(s): Miles Franklin

Fiction

Trapped on her parents' farm in the Australian outback, ebullient sixteen-year-old Sybylla Melvyn simultaneously loves bush life and hates the physical burdens it imposes. She longs for a more refined, aesthetic lifestyle - to read, to think, to sing - but most of all she longs to do great things. Suddenly her life is transformed. Whisked away to live on her grandmother's gracious property, she finds herself under the gaze of the rich and handsome Harry Beecham. And soon she finds herself choosing between everything a conventional life offers and her own plans for a 'brilliant career'.