A phenomenal worldwide bestseller since 1977 THE THORN BIRDS is a robust, romantic saga of three generations. It begins in the early years of this century when Paddy Cleary moves his wife and seven children to Drogheda, an Australian sheep station, owned by his autocratic and childless older sister. For more than half a century we follow their fates, particularly those of Meggie, the only Cleary daughter, and the one man she truly loves, Ralph de Bricassart - stunningly handsome, ambitious, and a priest. As background to the Cleary family's lives there is the land itself: relentless in its demands, brilliant in its flowering.

THE THORN BIRDS is a book that enfolds the reader in its capacious arms.

The story begins in 1915 when Paddy Cleary moves his wife and seven children to an Australian sheep station. It ends after World War II when the only survivor of the third generation sets a course of life and love halfway round the world from her roots.

Colleen McCullough was born in Wellington, New South Wales, working in hospitals in Sydney and London before moving to the Yale University Medical School to train as a nurse. There she wrote the phenomenal bestseller THE THORN BIRDS.

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考琳·麥卡洛（Colleen McCullough, 1937- ），澳大利亞當代女作傢。1977年，她以自己全部的生活積纍，創作齣版瞭嘔心瀝血之作《荊棘鳥》。作品一齣版便引起轟動，不但拍成電影廣為流傳，而且翻譯成二十多種文字在世界各地齣版，成為當代世界最暢銷的小說之一。

除《荊棘鳥》外，麥卡洛還創作十二部長篇小說，一部傳記。她與丈夫居住在澳大利亞南太平洋的諾福剋島。