Who was Colleen McCullough?
Colleen McCullough was an Australian author, born in Wellington, New South Wales, in 1937, best known for The Thorn Birds, a 1977 family saga that became one of the best-selling novels of all time.
McCullough trained as a neurophysiologist and worked in Sydney, London and at Yale University in the United States before becoming a full-time writer.
The Thorn Birds follows three generations of the Cleary family on a sheep station called Drogheda in outback New South Wales, focusing on the forbidden love between Meggie Cleary and the priest Ralph de Bricassart. It sold tens of millions of copies.
The Thorn Birds on television
A 1983 television miniseries starring Richard Chamberlain and Rachel Ward was one of the most watched miniseries in American history.
McCullough also wrote the Masters of Rome series, a detailed seven-book history of the late Roman Republic, along with crime novels, a musical and a cookbook. She was known for her outspoken personality and sharp humour.
She lived on Norfolk Island for many years, where she wrote much of her later work. Her success made her one of the wealthiest authors in Australia, and The Thorn Birds remains one of the best-known Australian novels around the world.
Did You Know?
McCullough married a Norfolk Island man, Ric Robinson, in 1984 and lived there until her death in 2015.