Up the Country - A Saga of Pioneering Days - Tapa blanda

Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin was born in Talbingo in central New South Wales, in 1879. Her parents belonged to the "Squattocracy" - Europeans who lived off the land because they were the only ones there, but had no land rights. She wrote her first novel in her teens - My Brilliant Career -and it was hailed as the 'first great Australian novel', it could only be written by someone who lived and breathed Australian life. She was committed to writing in a distinctively Australian style. Similarly, "Up The Country" is a tale about mid-19th-century pioneer families in New South Wales and is characterised by authenticity. Reading it, we live and breathe the pioneer life, the challenges and benefits of community and the harshness of the environment. There are disasters and difficulties but there are also picnics, dances and other enjoyable experiences, in amongst the raising of cattle, mining camps and lush natural wonders of Australia.

Miles Franklin (1879-1954) was born Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin in 1879 on a grazing property near Tumut in NSW. She spent the early part of her life at Brindabella, the family home station in the Monaro region of NSW. After the publication of My Brilliant Career in 1901, Franklin trained as a nurse and worked as a housemaid in both Sydney and Melbourne. She also wrote as a freelance journalist for the Daily Telegraph and The Sydney Morning Herald. Miles Franklin moved to the USA in 1906 where she worked for the National Women's Trade Union league, left for England in 1915 and between 1917 and 1918 worked as a nurse in Ostrovo during the Serbian campaigns. She returned to Sydney in 1932 where she remained until her death at the age of 75.