Stella Miles Franklin was a pioneering author and feminist who used pen names to sidestep patriarchal publishers. Photo: State Library NSW.
When legendary Australian author and pioneering feminist Stella Miles Franklin passed away in 1954, journalist Zelie McLeod wrote in the Daily Telegraph that she had “died as she had lived — an enigma both to her friends and to the literary profession”.
McLeod described her as “the central figure in Australia’s biggest literary mystery” and speculated that the true identity of popular author ‘Brent of Bin Bin’ would finally be revealed.
“If Miles Franklin does turn out to be Brent of Bin Bin she certainly went to considerable effort to conceal it,” she mused.
Stella Miles Franklin was born in October 1879 at Talbingo, near Tumut on the edge of the Snowy Mountains.
Her father was a third-generation member of the squattocracy and she and her six siblings experienced the highs and lows of life on the land as the family’s fortunes declined during the economic depression and droughts of the 1890s.
Despite limited schooling, Franklin was an avid reader and began publishing articles in the local newspapers as a teenager under the more masculine pen name Miles Franklin.
She began writing the novel My Brilliant Career at just 17 and, after a string of rejections from publishers, she reached out to her literary hero Henry Lawson who was duly impressed.
Lawson connected Franklin with publishers in Britain and the precocious young writer made it clear that she did not want her gender revealed when the book went to print.
“Please on no account allow ‘Miss’ to prefix my name on the title page as I do not wish it to be known that I’m a young girl but desire to pose as a bald-headed seer of the sterner sex,” she wrote to the UK publishers Blackwood and Sons.
Contrary to her wishes, Franklin was inadvertently unmasked by her champion as Lawson described her as “just a little bush girl, barely 21” in the preface.
When the book hit shelves in 1901 it was an instant hit with it’s authentic understanding of rural Australia and its bold challenge to the traditional expectations placed on women.
Despite the book’s feminist undercurrents, and the writer’s desire to be judged by the value of her work, Franklin found herself slapped with the title of “girl author”.
“When you remember that Miss Franklin was only 17 years of age when she wrote the book, it is nothing less than a marvel,” enthused the Adelong Times in April of 1904 with a string of backhanded compliments.
“Whatever mistakes you find in it, remember they are the mistakes of a child engaged in scribbling.”
While successful, the novel was also controversial as many readers, including neighbours and family, thought it biographical and Franklin continued to fight for royalties and for further publishing opportunities.
Franklin found work as a domestic servant and nurse while continuing to write under several pseudonyms and publish articles based on her experience. She later lived overseas, spending time in Chicago and London before returning permanently to Australia in the 1930s.
It was around this time that a series of historical novels celebrating rural Australian life, began to appear under the pen name Brent of Bin Bin.
An article in Melbourne’s The Herald speculated on the author’s identity in June 1930.
“Rumours concerning the identity of this newest and perhaps greatest of Australian narrators, have been many, but none of them has proved to be true,” they lamented.
“That which, has gained most credence is the report that the author is Stella Miles Franklin, who, at the beginning of the century produced a striking girl novel My Brilliant Career.
“The rumour began when it was discovered that a character in My Brilliant Career was called Brent of Bin Bin East.”
For more than two decades, Franklin herself remained vague on the mystery and even obscured her identity from the publishers, acting as the agent for ‘Brent’ and suggesting that a squatter named William Blake was behind the stories.
In her obituary in the Telegraph, reviewer Zelie McLeod speculated that “Miles Franklin herself was not Brent of Bin Bin but was one, perhaps the most important, of several writers who produced these books under a common pen name”.
Franklin took her secret to the grave, however subsequent examination of her private papers and manuscripts revealed the truth and the six-volume Brent of Bin Bin saga is counted among her most successful works.
The enigmatic and unmarried author left her estate, valued at almost £9000, to establish an award for Australian literature.
