These next two books are proving to be something of a challenge to me.
Well, not actually the books themselves. Reading Miles Franklin’s teenage bestseller, My Brilliant Career, and her publisher-suppressed sequel (and apology to her parents) My Career Goes Bung, has been a fascinating process. My dilemma lies in how best to express what these books are really all about, and how they reflect the strong ideals of their author in her own life, while still inhabiting the fictional realm.
I will try to keep things brief(ish); one could go on for pages and pages and pages. Luckily there are others who have covered this ground before, and I think that if I succeed in piquing your interest in this writer and her books I will have to say, “Good enough.” Biographies and resources are definitely available for further study.
My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin ~ 1901. This edition: Virago, 2002. Introduction by Carmen Callil. Paperback. ISBN: 0-86068-193-9. 232 pages.
My rating: 8.5/10
My sphere in life is not congenial to me. Oh, how I hate this living death which has swallowed all my teens, which is greedily devouring my youth, which will sap my prime, and in which my old age, if I am cursed with any, will be worn away! As my life creeps on for ever through the long toil-laden days with its agonizing monotony, narrowness, and absolute uncongeniality, how my spirit frets and champs its unbreakable fetters—all in vain!
Whoa, steady on, there!
These emotions, from the introduction of My Brilliant Career, written in the voice of fictional autobiographer, almost-seventeen-year-old Sybylla Melvyn, absolutely sob teen angst. Appropriately so, for their real author, Australian Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin, was just sixteen herself when she dashed these words off in the late 1900s, and the youth of the author is very evident throughout the story.
The fictional Sybylla starts life as the indulged child of a successful New South Wales landholder and an aristocratic mother. When Sybylla is eight years old, a prolonged drought inspires her father to change his occupation, to that of a stock dealer in nearby dairy-farming region, and the landholdings are sold and the family relocated to a much smaller farm. Sybylla’s father proves to be a very poor businessman, and his escalating failures start him drinking to excess, until the family’s circumstances become reduced to the point of bankruptcy. Sybylla’s mother is predictably soured by all of this, and her frustration with her declining lot in life and with her continually sulking eldest daughter comes to a head. Sybylla is told to get out into the world and earn a living, as the family cannot support either her careless ways or her continued financial drain on family resources. A reprieve comes through an offer by Sybylla’s well-off maternal grandmother to come and live on the family estate.
Sybylla finds life at her grandmother’s very congenial, and she blossoms into something of a local belle, eventually attracting the attention of the district’s wealthiest bachelor, the dashing Harry Beecham. Harry and Sybylla come to a tentative agreement – tentative, anyway, on Sybylla’s part, though ironclad on Harry’s – that she will marry him once she turns twenty-one. As she is just seventeen when this takes place, anything might happen in the ensuing years, and of course it does.
Harry loses his estate and leaves the district in order to re-establish himself; Sybylla’s parents send for her to take on a post as a governess with a family friend who has loaned the Melvyns money; Sybylla’s labors will count towards the interest. This proves to be a squalid and humiliating experience; Sybylla ends up having a nervous and physical breakdown, and returns to her parents’ home to recuperate, much to their combined dismay.
Harry returns, with fortune well on its way to being restored, but Sybylla has developed a deep antipathy to the married state, having observed the brutal physical and emotional effects of even a happy marriage on the women she has been observing as she becomes ever more acquainted with the wider world. Though Harry offers her a deep respect and swears that he will allow her the freedom to pursue her own interests (writing and music), and she is herself more than a little in love with him, she is ultimately unable to commit herself to him, and there Sybylla’s story abruptly ends.
This novel was an immediate bestseller, and brought the young author – Miles Franklin was twenty-one when it appeared – much fame and notoriety, as it was claimed by the publisher to be autobiographical, and the parallels between aspects of the lives of fictional Sybylla and real-life Miles were too obvious to dismiss. Teenage girls thrilled to Sybylla’s emotional outpourings and her desire to make something of herself, to have a “brilliant career”. The melodramatic tone of the tale caught adult readers’ attention, while family friends and neighbours raised querying eyebrows at the “Franklin girl’s” manipulation of the facts, and eagerly purchased the book for its curiousity value.
Despite the welcome income her debut novel brought, Miles Franklin was appalled at how it was received, and by the assumption that her family was accurately portrayed; she had meant it as a fiction. When her publisher inquired as to whether she would allow a second edition, Miles Franklin staunchly refused, and the book went out of print, until it was finally reissued in 1966, twelve years after her death.
The emotions expressed in the novel, chiefly those of frustration at the lack of opportunities for education and professional development for women, resonated with the modern feminists of the 1960s, and My Brilliant Career has been in print ever since, a highly regarded piece of early feminist literature, and a blazing example of a young woman’s refusal to bow to the status quo.
So much for the “meaningful” aspect of this book. Was it a “good” read?
Well, yes. It really was. I enjoyed it greatly.
Sybylla, for all of her over-the-top rantings about the woefulness of her life, early on turns into a very real and relatable character. I found that I was completely drawn in to her rather heart-rending little saga, and though I had moments of wanting to shake her vigorously – my “mother” side coming to the fore, I’m sure – I was completely on her side throughout. I sighed a bit when she turned down Harry Beecham at the very last; he was a wonderful catch, especially for the time and place. It was touch and go there for a bit, until Sybylla’s deeply entrenched intention of lifelong single womanhood got the upper hand!
Fascinating, then, to read the “sequel” to My Brilliant Career, which was written soon after the first book was published, but which was turned down by the publisher because of fear of scandal. More below.
First edition cover of “My Brilliant Career”, showing the illustration which is gently mocked in the author’s sequel/rebuttal, “My Career Goes Bung”.
My Career Goes Bung by Miles Franklin ~ 1946. This edition: Virago, 1981. Foreword by Verna Coleman. Paperback. ISBN: 0-86068-220-X. 234 pages.
My rating: 9/10
I bless the serendipity which brought this book to me just before Christmas, when I was assembling books for the Century reading challenge. The name “Miles Franklin” was in the forefront of my awareness, having just purchased her first novel, My Brilliant Career, to represent 1901, and that in combination with the green Virago cover caught my eye.
While My Brilliant Career is something of a curiousity, a teenage writer’s attempt at dramatic fictional autobiography, My Career Goes Bung shows a polish and maturity which make me eager to explore more of this writer’s work.
The back story behind the delayed publication of the novel is fascinating as well. Written in 1902, concurrent with the author’s brief social success in Sydney as an up and coming young writer due to the instant popularity of My Brilliant Career, this next novel was returned by Franklin’s publisher with a terse, “No, thanks!”, citing fears of libel suits as well as concerns about its audacious and “advanced” views on sexuality and women’s rights. Miles Franklin then packed the manuscript away, and for decades believed it to have been destroyed, until the discovery of a second copy in an old trunk of her mother’s led to its publication in 1946.
In My Career Goes Bung, we are introduced to the “real” Sybylla, the young woman who has penned a bestseller based very loosely on fact, but which has been accepted as strictly autobiographical. In My Brilliant Career the fictional Sybylla’s parents and associates are portrayed as much less than admirable, and it is not at all surprising that the young author finds herself humiliated by the whole experience, and deeply apologetic to her parents, who were in actuality supportive of the young Sybylla’s literary strivings.
Peeling away the layers then, we have three characters to consider while reading these books. At the core, the very real person, Miles Franklin. Then her sympathetic alter-ego, the Sybylla Number Two of My Career Goes Bung, and lastly the teenage creation of excessive emotion and high imagination, Sybylla Number One, of My Brilliant Career.
Got that? It’s not all that complicated once one is immersed in the books; it all falls into place quite neatly. (Trust me!)
Sybylla Number Two goes off to Sydney to attempt to take advantage of the hubbub around her bestselling novel and to meet some of the literary stars of the day, with an eye to advancing her writing career. She is greeted with enthusiasm as the novelty of the moment, the little “bush girl” in her simple frocks, very much the innocent abroad, fending off the wolves by her impermeable naïvety in regards to their social manipulations, and in the case of many of the men, their sexual advances.
Sybylla attracts the eye of the handsome, calculating and immensely successful Goring Hardy, a thinly disguised version of the real-life “Banjo” Paterson (Waltzing Matilda, The Man From Snowy River, et al), who finds the virginal Sybylla a tempting prospect for conquest. Sybylla submits to his caresses, but allows no further liberties than some hot and heavy fondling and kissing; at the end of a week of secretive meetings, both parties realize that the relationship is not about to progress any further, and politely part ways. (Miles Franklin did have a short-term relationship of some sort with Paterson, hence the libel suit fears in regard to the fictional version.)
Sybylla is apparently something of a “babe” – in the most modern sense of the term – attracting the lavicious attentions of every many she meets. Another suitor, one Henry Beauchamp, assumed by all to be the original of the dashing Harry Beecham of My Brilliant Career, appears to vigorously woo Sybylla, but she spurns his frequent marriage proposals with steadfast determination. Sybylla then rather scornfully dismisses Sydney society as an artificial and fickle atmosphere antipathetic to true creativity, and returns to her family home more than ever determined to live the life of an independent woman, unshackled by the chains of marriage and childbearing, to pursue her ideals alone.
The End. (With the sound of enthusiastic feminist cheering faintly off on the sidelines.)
The real Miles Franklin stood by her convictions as firmly as did her fictional alter-ego. Though courted by many men, she never married. She continued to further develop her unique literary voice, supporting herself while writing by a variety of occupations, including nursing, housemaiding, and working as a secretary. She adopted the unlikely and picturesque nom-de-plume “Brent of Bin Bin”, avoiding her (modified) real name in order to sidetrack unfavourable comparisons of her subsequent work to My Brilliant Career, and had a modest success in her lifetime as a writer of Australian historical sagas and slightly quirky fictions.
Miles Franklin. I don’t think I’m quite done with her yet. What an interesting writer. Century of Books, you’ve already introduced me to a number of new-to-me mind-broadening reading experiences, of which this one stands out, so early along. I wonder what other happy surprises this reading year will bring?
Project Gutenberg Australia has a number of Miles Franklin’s works represented online, well worth looking at. My Brilliant Career and My Career Goes Bung are widely available in physical book form, in some cases as a combined edition, which I highly recommend. The second book enhances the first, and they greatly reward being read together.
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Pied Piper by Nevil Shute ~ 1942. This edition: Heinemann, 1962. Hardcover. 303 pages.
Something Wholesale by Eric Newby ~1962. This edition (revised 1970 and 1985): Picador, 1985. Softcover. ISBN: 978-0-00-736751-1. 228 pages.
Leaves & Pages 
The Gilded Ladder by Laura Conway
Posted in 1940s, Century of Books - 2014, Read in 2014, tagged Century of Books 2014, Dorothy Phoebe Ansle, Hebe Elsna, Historical Fiction, Laura Conway, Light Fiction, Relationships, Romance, Social Commentary, The Gilded Ladder, Vintage Fiction on January 23, 2014| 4 Comments »
My rating: 5/10
Found recently among my mother’s stored-away books was this mildly engaging relationship novel. (One can’t really slot it neatly into the romance category as it has larger ambitions, and the love affairs are off on the sidelines as compared to the niece-aunt partnership at the centre of the drama.)
It is just good enough to get a pass from me, though I doubt it will be high on the re-read list. A keeper, I think, though one for the bottom shelf. It pleasantly helped while away the time I spent in the orthodontist’s waiting room yesterday while my son was getting his braces tightened up a few more notches.
Young Lucy Erskine, ten years old in 1888 when this novel opens, is slightly in awe of her Aunt Madelon. Lucy’s mother is dead; her father’s new wife has produced two step-siblings, and Lucy feels rather out of things and appreciates the occasional attention she receives from her father’s rather glamorous unmarried sister who resides in a small suite of antique-furnished rooms in the Erskine family home.
Lucy has a small but genuine talent for music, both for playing the piano and for composing original little melodies, which Madelon notices and files away for future reference as a trait worthy of further encouragement. Madelon herself is fully occupied with hoisting herself up on the social scale – the “gilded ladder” of the title – and she gains each rung by strenuous though hidden exertions and more than a little single-minded plotting.
In Lucy’s tenth summer, all are agog at the upcoming marriage of Madelon’s old school chum, Lady Pamela, to a wealthy young man who cherishes an altruistic interest in slum projects. Lady Pamela hesitates at the thought of David’s plans to turn the major part of their prospective home into a convalescent hospital for ailing factory girls and as Pamela momentarily bobbles, Madelon slinks in and scoops away the fiancé. Marrying in haste, the two decamp on a honeymoon in France, but tragedy strikes and David is killed in a railway accident, leaving Madelon a devastated widow, albeit an exceedingly wealthy one.
Back then to the Erskine family home, where yet more tragedy has occurred, for Lucy’s father has suddenly died. Bereft Madelon, looking about for a new interest to assuage her grief, offers to give a home to young Lucy, and our story is off and running.
Madelon is truly fond of her niece, but can’t resist speculating about the possibilities of Lucy’s mild accomplishments as a minor musical prodigy to gain entry into noble drawing rooms. Tea for auntie, and a command performance from pretty little Lucy is the unspoken “deal” Madelon makes with her acquaintances in the social strata directly above her own, for Madelon’s new wealth, and, ironically, her past friendship with Lady Pamela, have given her a renewed taste for the joys of class climbing.
The novel wends on its way following Madelon’s steady social progress, and detailing Lucy’s growing awareness of her aunt’s manipulative ways, which Lucy starts to quietly confound when they touch upon herself. Lucy’s growing self-awareness and her rather clever provisioning for an life independent of her aunt’s control were rather admirable and renewed my interest in the plot, which had started to flag just a little.
This is a shortish novel, so things do keep moving at a respectable pace right up until the last chapter, where Lucy’s love affair, originally sabotaged by jealous Madelon’s manipulations, promises to finally come out all right. Madelon herself gets a brutally permanent comeuppance: she perishes rather dramatically just as she reaches the pinnacle of her social ambitions.
More irony here, for, as the author delicately informs us, Madelon’s bitterly hard-won ascent up the social scale is about to be rendered obsolete, as mere wealth alone is now becoming the golden ticket to social status. Madelon was born a generation too early; her long-sought-for prize is merely gilded base metal, and her tragedy is only appreciated by Lucy, who has loved her manipulative aunt for the good qualities of her personality, and by Lady Pamela, who has forgiven Madelon for the long-ago treachery of the stolen husband-to-be.
The writing is far from stellar, being rather pedestrian, more tell than show, full of awkwardly-written dialogue from the lower-class characters, and with the characters remaining at arm’s length from the reader. Despite the flaws, it was well-paced and just good enough to hold my interest, though as the climax of the story approached the strands of plot were increasingly predictable. No surprises there, but I have encountered much worse in some of the “bestsellers” of our present day (Rosemary Pilcher, your name springs to mind), and it was a mostly painless reading experience, though I cringed at the pat predictability of the last few pages.
Though The Gilded Ladder is decidedly a formula story, it is a well-polished one. A search of the internet to find out more about the author yielded little in the way of biographical insight, but it did produce some rather startling information.
Laura Conway was one of the pseudonyms of the terrifically prolific Dorothy Phoebe Ansle, who published, between 1928 and 1982, something like one hundred (!) popular novels under a variety of names, including Hebe Elsna, Vicky Lancaster and Lyndon Snow.
A long list appears on the Fantastic Fiction – Hebe Elsna web page, and the titles are surprisingly intriguing. Now I don’t recommend you rush out and acquire any of these. If The Gilded Ladder is a fair example of the author’s output then it is a very average sort of casual romantic fiction aimed at the housewife market (forgive my using that phrase – it’s not meant to be derogatory of actual housewives, of whom I myself am one, merely descriptive of a certain cliché) and certainly not “literary”.
But don’t some of these sound quite fascinating in an “Oops, I didn’t do the dishes as I was too wrapped up in my latest dime novel” sort of way?
What could This Clay Suburb concern? What is a Receipt for Hardness? Is it really true that Women Always Forgive? What happened The First Week of September? Are Marks Upon the Snow as sinister as they sound?
I sadly suspect that the titles may be the best part of many of these…
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