(1947- )
Merilyn
Bourke’s daughter had just started school when Bourke returned to the
workforce. She was engaged to fill a part-time position in the Jessie
Webb Library in the History Department for six months in 1983 and left,
14 years later, in 1997. It was her longest period of continuous employment.
In her final year at Melbourne Church of England Girls’ Grammar School,
Bourke and her partner won several ballroom dancing competitions and
an Australian title. Dancing as a career was ruled out when she was
17, however, by a major knee injury and she undertook secretarial training.
Employment with Qantas allowed her to travel, which fuelled a lifelong
interest in British history.
About halfway through her time in the History Department, Merilyn Bourke
bravely launched into a very different career, under the name of Julia
Byrne. After three medieval novels, Julia Byrne has published three
Regency romances. Like many romance novelists, Bourke was ‘an avid reader,
devouring a steady stream of Georgette Heyer, Mary Stewart, Mills &
Boon authors and a variety of mysteries’. Surrounded by professional
historians, she published Gentle Conqueror, the first of several popular
historical novels, with Mills & Boon. The book is set in England, two
years after the Norman Conquest.
Her novels have been translated into Japanese, French, Greek, Polish,
Russian, German, Norwegian and other Scandinavian languages. Her Regency
romances in particular are distinguished by their comic touches. Although
Merilyn Bourke/Julia Byrne is probably the University’s only Mills &
Boon author, a number of distinguished academics have written popular
romance novels for younger readers, among them Sarah Ferber and Jenny
Pausacker, whose Dolly Fiction titles appeared under the names of Jane
Carlson, Mary Forrest and Jaye Francis. The University has many bestselling
authors. With sales of more than 70,000 copies of a single title, Bourke
is perhaps the one whose work remains the least known by her former
colleagues.
