Miles Franklin was born in 1879, a fifth-generation Australian, and grew up on grazing properties run by her family in the Monaro region of New South Wales. At nineteen, she wrote 'My Brilliant Career', an important study of the opportunities and expectations faced by young Australian women in the 1890s. She left Australia in 1906, travelling first to America and then to England. During the 1920s in England, she wrote pseudonymously a series of six well-received novels. In 1932 Franklin returned to Australia permanently, continuing her important contributions to the promotion and development of Australian literature. She died in 1954.

For works of this author written under pseudonyms, search also under Brent of Bin Bin, 1879-1954 and L'Artsau, Ogniblat, Mr and Mrs