Miles Franklin - An Unpublished Teenage Novel

Abstract

When My Brilliant Career appeared in 1901 it was rightly discerned by the Bulletin to be a remarkable piece of work. Not only did it innovate in such away as to invite the judg ment: 'a book full of sunshine' and 'the very first Australian novel', but it seemed the more remarkable as a product of adolescence. In the light of this and in the subsequent attention given to My Brilliant Career (it was detested by its author in her later years but reprinted after her death), it is appropriate to note the fact that the text of another teen-age novel exists. It is to be found in handwritten form among the Miles Franklin Papers in the Mitchell Library. Lodged among fragments and jottings and extending over more than one notebook, it has apparently remained unnoticed. It is a complete work however, and probably amounts to 90,000 words. The title is 'Within a Footstep of the Goal'.