In 1971, Maclean was awarded an MA by the University of Melbourne for her thesis Le Grande Meaulnes d'Alain-Fournier: Etude structurale et thématique, which was published by the Paris publishing house, José Corti, two years later. New Zealand academic, A. S. G. Butler, wrote: "I found this a most readable and even exciting study, not only for its treatment of the novel under consideration but also for the insights it suggests into other works probably influenced by it".
