Her contribution to storytelling is the stuff of legend, she will be greatly missed,” Random House Books Australia tweeted. “It is very sad to lose Colleen McCullough. “She was one of the first Australian writers to succeed on the world stage,” according to HarperCollins Books Australia. She was also featured on an Australian Post postage stamp. She was a neurophysiologist and worked at hospitals in Australia and Britain, and for 10 years at Yale Medical School in New Haven, Connecticut.Īside from “The Thorn Birds,” McCullough wrote more than ten other novels including the historical series “The Masters of Rome.” Her most recent novel, “Bittersweet,” was published in 2013. McCullough was born in Australia, but lived and studied abroad for many years.

“A priest torn between his calling and the lure of a rancher’s daughter in this sumptuous epic…resulted in the second highest rated miniseries ever after Roots,” according to TV Guide.Īt the time, the book’s paperback rights sold for a record setting price of $1.9 million. The generation spanning novel is set in the Australian outback. The bestselling Australian novel of all time, THORN BIRDS is the sweeping saga of three generations of the Cleary family. Her 1977 novel “The Thorn Birds,” which sold 30 million copies worldwide, was made in to a TV miniseries in 1983, starring Richard Chamberlain, Barbara Stanwyck, Jean Simmons and Christopher Plummer. Set primarily on Drogheda a fictional sheep station in the Australian Outback named after Drogheda, Ireland, the story focuses on the Cleary family and spans 1915 to 1969. McCullough was best known for her novel The Thorn Birds, a huge hugely popular romance which has sold 30 million copies. The Thorn Birds is a 1977 novel by Australian author Colleen McCullough. The Thorn Birds is a chronicle of three generations of Clearysan. “It is with great sadness that HarperCollins Books Australia advise(s) that the iconic and much-loved author, Colleen McCullough, passed away on Thursday in hospital on Norfolk Island, aged 77,” the publisher posted on Facebook. Australian writer Colleen McCullough died Thursday she was 77 years old. One of the most beloved novels of all time, The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough’s sweeping family saga of dreams, titanic struggles, dark passions, and forbidden love in the Australian Outback, returns to enthrall a new generation. The Australian author of the best-selling novel “The Thorn Birds” has died.

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