The Thorn Birds
The Thorn Birds is a 1977 best-selling novel by Australian author Colleen McCullough. 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 the years 1915 to 1969.
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In 1921 the Cleary family of New Zealand sheep farmers moves to the great Drogheda station in the Australian Outback at the call of an aging great-aunt. Across three generations, daughter Meggie loves the parish priest Father Ralph de Bricassart, who is climbing toward a cardinal's hat in Rome.
The Thorn Birds was written by Colleen McCullough and published in 1977. It became one of the best-selling Australian novels in history and was adapted into a major TV miniseries.
Yes. ABC produced a 1983 miniseries adaptation starring Richard Chamberlain. It was one of the highest-rated miniseries in U.S. television history. A 1996 prequel TV movie titled The Thorn Birds: The Missing Years also exists.
The Thorn Birds is 597 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Thorn Birds takes most readers 9 to 13 hours to finish.
The Thorn Birds is a standalone novel by Colleen McCullough, not part of a series.
The Thorn Birds is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
