Colleen McCullough

Colleen McCullough was born in Wellington, New South Wales, in 1937. Before becoming a full-time novelist, she trained and worked in medical science, specialising in neurophysiology. Her career took her from hospitals and research posts in Australia and London to Yale University in the United States. This scientific background contributed to the disciplined research and interest in human motivation that later characterised her fiction.

McCullough first attracted notice with Tim and became internationally famous through The Thorn Birds, a multigenerational Australian family saga. Her most ambitious historical achievement was the seven-volume Masters of Rome series, beginning with The First Man in Rome. The novels trace the transformation of the Roman Republic through figures including Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar, Cleopatra and Octavian. McCullough combined political debate, military campaigns, family alliances and extensive explanatory material to make the institutional struggles of late Republican Rome accessible to general readers. She settled on Norfolk Island and continued writing until her death in 2015. Her Roman novels remain particularly useful for readers interested in republican government, elite competition and the long crisis that produced the Roman Empire.