My Career Goes Bung: Purporting to be the Autobiography of Sybylla Penelope Melvyn is a satirical novel by Australian author Stella “Miles” Franklin, and the sequel to her widely acclaimed debut novel, My Brilliant Career. Written 1902−1904, revised c. 1935, but not published until 1946, 45 years after the previous work, it was written “as a corrective” to public perceptions of autobiographical details in what was supposedly fiction. Under the title of “The End of My Career”,[3] it was initially rejected by Angus & Robertson, the major Australian-based publisher, not just for its overt feminism, as is often claimed, but more likely for its clearly recognizable, and less than flattering, portraits of society figures and, in particular, Sybylla’s mock affair with a thinly disguised Banjo Paterson. The manuscript was lost during the First World War, and after rediscovery, she reworked it and published it in 1946.
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