My Brilliant Career: Real influences behind the Netflix reimagining of a feminist classic

My Brilliant Career has arrived on Netflix to a well deserved flurry of fanfare, brilliant reviews and the accolade of being hailed as the next Bridgerton.

The six-part series lands on August 13, and is based on the 1901 novel by Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin, writing under the name Miles Franklin, and needs to go straight on your watch list.

The semi-autobiographical novel is considered to be one of the earliest feminist classics, and when the series it's based on is billed as something "the world is about to love" that is "unashamedly written for women," (The Guardian) you know you're settling down for something unmissable.

This latest reimagining follows in the footsteps of previous adaptations including a 1979 film version starring a Judy Davis and Sam Neill, and there's also been stage and musical outings of the novel.

The Netflix show follows Sybylla Melvyn (Philippa Northeast) who is determined to be a writer, while her family show equal determination to marry her off.

When the Melvyns receive a letter from Sybylla’s grandmother, requesting Sybylla move in to her sprawling estate, the family immediately see it as an opportunity for their daughter to get a foot in the door of Australian society and find a wealthy husband.

Still wanting to opt out of marriage, Sybylla agrees to go, seeing the move as a way to gain life experiences for her first novel if nothing else.

Sybylla breaks every rule and convention of 1900 Australia as she hunts for the story that will allow her to write her way to independence and not have to rely on a man - until she falls in love.

As a novel based on Miles Franklin's life, we look at the real influences behind My Brilliant Career, as it becomes your next gripping must-see.

Real influences behind My Brilliant Career

Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin was born in 1879 in the Monaro region of New South Wales.

Initially taught by a private tutor, her education suffered from disruption, although National Museum Australia reports that she "read voraciously."

Like Sybylla, Franklin fiercely followed her dream to become a writer and had no ambition to marry - in real life, Franklin herself never did marry, actively resisting falling into traditional domestic life and expectations placed on women, referring to them as a "trap" and "rabbit" work.

This put Franklin seriously ahead of her time, in a world where not only were women expected women to marry, have children and run a household, they had few opportunities to support themselves if they opted out of this life.

With societies built around forcing women to be dependant on a man, unmarried women only had low-paying jobs to turn to, such as domestic service, teaching, or nursing. Veering away from this path could have left Franklin, and others wanting the same for themselves, facing immense difficulty.

Also reflecting Franklin's actual upbringing in rural Australia, women living the bush faced extra difficulties of drought, isolation and challenging physical labour. This extra aspects of domesticity of the time are also explored in the novel and series.

Still determined not to face this life, Franklin wrote My Brilliant Career aged 19, carving out time to finish it around the chores she needed to complete on the farm she lived on.

By 1899 the writer was submitting her finished work to publishers, but faced multiple rejections. In the end, she sent it to literary hero, poet Henry Lawson, who immediately helped her get it published in Edinburgh.

The novel was published in April 1901 and as is already clear, Franklin used a common trick used by female writers of the era and decades gone by before her, and used a male pseudonym.

Also ahead of her time, she did realise that readers were likely to recognise a true female voice in her writing, and shared her true gender in the preface.

While she had no intention to marry, Miles Franklin did have multiple marriage proposals that were inevitably turned down.

While it's unknown how much romance in the novel is drawn from the author's real experience, the series makes a departure from the book by getting Sybylla involved in a love triangle.

The protagonist in the series finds herself caught between the handsome foreman of her grandmother’s estate, Frank Hawden (Jake Dunn), and local society celebrity Harry Beecham (Christopher Chung). In the novel, Harry is Sybylla's only love interest.

Casting Chung in the role also alters the character's heritage from the original book, and gives audiences a chance to explore a more accurate reflection of the people living in Australia at the time, including those with Chinese heritage.

According to The Conversation, while making up less than 1% of the total Australian population, Chinese people "were part of many rural and urban communities, particularly in the eastern states of New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria."

For showrunner Liz Doran, introducing indigenous characters, such as Nell (Sherry-Lee Watson) was equally important. She says, "The book has a very loose narrative structure that still feels fresh and alive, but it is inevitably old-fashioned, especially in the stories it doesn’t tell."

She adds, "Our inclusion of First Nations characters was fundamental to this process."

My Brilliant Career airs on Netflix from August 13.