Muriel Sparková

Edinburgh, 1930, and the world is on the brink of change. Leading the charge is the glamorous, free-spirited Miss Jean Brodie, schoolteacher at the Marcia Blaine Academy, whose guiding principle is ‘Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she’ll be mine for life. I am dedicated to you in my prime.’ While Miss Brodie manipulates and charms ‘her girls’ – known as the Brodie Set – with notions of romance and heroism, tragedy and a cruel betrayal beckon.This is one of the 22 novels written by Muriel Spark in her lifetime.

The first of two volumes of the letters of Muriel Spark, one of the greatest and most fascinating writers of the twentieth century. *One of the TLS Books of the Year 2025* In 1944, on her return to England after a disastrous marriage, Muriel Spark was unknown as a writer except to a handful of close friends; by 1963 she was the internationally renowned author of seven critically acclaimed, bestselling novels. Her letters - witty, affectionate, sharp, mercurial - reveal the turbulence of her early career in postwar London: her struggles to earn a living as a writer, her difficult love affairs, a terrifying breakdown, and her conversion to Catholicism. They also trace her development from little-known poet to celebrated novelist, with glittering insights into the emergence of her unique literary voice, as well as her relationships with friends, lovers, writers and publishers. Selected from her extensive correspondence and insightfully edited and annotated, this is an essential read for anyone interested in Spark's work and world. PRAISE FOR VOLUME 1: '[An] immaculately-edited collection . . . Feisty, fun-filled, witty and, of course, sparky, the letters are a window into a remarkable life that was lived in devotion to literature'ALAN TAYLOR, author of Appointment in Arezzo: A Friendship with Muriel Spark'What an extraordinary life of adventure the young Muriel Spark led. These funny and fraught early letters capture her triumphs and disasters vast and small, not to mention the curious predicaments--personal, artistic, familial--to which she seemed fated. A marvelous book'JOSEPH O'NEILL'Letters is a marvel. Taking in faith, love, fame and feuds, Spark's letters reveal her life to be every bit as compelling as the novels she wrote' JAMES BAILEY, author of Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark'Meticulously edited . . . The letters invited an investigation into both the life and the work' RACHEL CUSK, NEW YORKER'Fascinating . . . edited with exemplary attention to detail by Dan Gunn. There are delightful touches throughout' SPECTATOR'The book I wanted not to end was The Letters of Muriel Spark (Virago), superbly edited by Dan Gunn, spanning 1944 to 1963. She was fun, she was charming, and if you weren't careful - sometimes even if you were - she was vengeful'JAMES CAMPBELL, TLS Books of the Year 2025'Wonderful . . . An eye-opening reflection of her daily life and an important contribution to her literature' SCOTTISH SUNDAY POST'A must-read' STANDARD'Gunn faced a formidable task in distilling into two volumes a body of about 3,500 letters and capturing the nature and force of Spark's personality. . . he has risen to the challenge impressively' CLAIRE HARMAN, LITEARY REVIEW'Spark's selected letters [exhibit] the glorious range of Muriel's intellect, anxieties, love and rage, her sense of frailty as well as of strength. For these are often spectacularly good, funny, painful statements, which Gunn has edited brilliantly' MARTIN STANNARD, THE OLDIEAs Gunn's meticulously edited first volume of Muriel Spark's letters shows, so much happened to her it is no surprise she found material for a lifetime's fiction . . . A spellbinding portrait of the writer as a relatively young woman' ROSEMARY GORING, HERALD

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books Muriel Spark claimed The Driver’s Seat to be her best and creepiest novel. Once you have met her heroine Lise – heading for the holiday of a lifetime in an extraordinarily garish dress and with violence on her mind – you will understand why.

I can't help it. Sometimes the words just come out and I can't stop them. It feels like preaching the gospel. When publishing assistant and war widow Nancy Hawkins tells Hector Bartlett he 'urinates frightful prose', the repercussions are swift. Losing not one, but two, much-sought-after literary jobs, Mrs Hawkins finds herself embroiled in a mystery involving anonymous letters, quack remedies and blackmail. Years later, and a far cry from Kensington, she looks back with a sharp and mischievous eye at the cost of telling the truth. Introduced by Ali Smith. 'Mercurially funny, playful and mischievous' Ali Smith 'I was in heaven reading this book. . . just blissful' Stephen Fry'Funny, astringent, shrewd, her take on life is wonderfully bracing' William Boyd'Wonderfully entertaining' Sunday Telegraph'An outstanding novel . . . A Far Cry From Kensington has an effortless, translucent grasp of the spirit of the period' Observer'The divine Spark is shining at her brightest . . . Pure delight' Claire Tomalin

Je těsně po druhé světové válce a Londýn se nesměle probouzí z hubených válečných let. Obyvatelky londýnských "ženských domovů", dobročinného klubu May of Teck, se nadechují svobody a lační po nových šatech, nových mužích, novém životě. Metropole ale zůstává poznamenána válečnými šrámy, zboží je na příděl a dívky zjišťují, že zlu se daří i v dobách míru. V novele čerpá autorka ze svého opakovaného pobytu v edinburském ženském penzionu Helena Club, ke kterému byla donucena kvůli nedostatku financí. Próza zachycuje snahu skupinky mladých žen zajistit si samostatnou existenci a zorientovat se v novém světě - přičemž Sparková pojednává závažná témata morálky, náboženství a poezie formou společenské komedie a prokazuje při tom svébytnou formulační úspornost, umění diskrétního náznaku a smysl pro vtip i tragiku prostou sentimentality či patosu.

Dějovou linku novely Nejlepší léta slečny Jean Brodieové, považované za autorčino nejlepší dílo, tvoří příběh skupiny studentek dívčí školy, které si jejich osobitá učitelka slečna Brodieová vyvolí za své stoupenkyně. Během období, které považuje za přelomové jak pro ně, tak i pro sebe, se jim snaží vtisknout postoje, jež jsou podle ní pro důstojný život nezbytné. Kniha zachycuje především zvláštní ambivalenci vztahu mezi dívkami na prahu dospělosti a jejich sebevědomou vůdkyní, jejíž protikladná a rozporuplná povaha se formuje vlivem nejrůznějších aspektů, očekávání a vzpomínek. Muriel Sparková dokázala vykreslit své postavy v jejich přirozenosti a lidské nedokonalosti, střídmým, přesto však propracovaným a inteligentním stylem bez patosu. Časopis Time zařadil Nejlepší léta slečny Jean Brodieové mezi sto nejlepších ang­licky psaných románů od roku 1923. V roce 1969 byl podle knihy natočen stejnojmenný film v hlavní roli s Maggie Smithovou, která za svou roli získala Oscara.

Described as 'a metaphysical shocker' at the time of its release, Muriel Sparks' The Driver's Seat is a taut psychological thriller, published with an introduction by John Lanchester in Penguin Modern Classics. Lise has been driven to distraction by working in the same accountants' office for sixteen years. So she leaves everything behind her, transforms herself into a laughing, garishly-dressed temptress and flies abroad on the holiday of a lifetime. But her search for adventure, sex and new experiences takes on a far darker significance as she heads on a journey of self-destruction. Infinity and eternity attend Lise's last terrible day in an unnamed southern city, as she meets her fate. One of six novels to be nominated for a 'Lost Man Booker Prize', The Driver's Seat was adapted into a 1974 film, Identikit, starring Elizabeth Taylor. Muriel Spark (1918 - 2006) wrote poetry, stories, and biographies as well as a remarkable series of novels, including The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), The Mandelbaum Gate (1965) which received the James Tait Black Prize, and The Public Image (1968) and Loitering with Intent (1981), both of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Spark was awarded the T.S. Eliot Award for poetry in 1992, and the David Cohen Prize for literature in 1997. If you enjoyed The Driver's Seat, you might like Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'An extraordinary tour de force, a crime story turned inside out' David Lodge 'Her spiny and treacherous masterpiece' New Yorker.

Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie includes an introduction by Candia McWilliam in Penguin Modern Classics. Romantic, heroic, comic and tragic, unconventional schoolmistress Jean Brodie has become an iconic figure in post-war fiction. Her glamour, unconventional ideas and manipulative charm hold dangerous sway over her girls at the Marcia Blaine Academy - 'the creme de la creme' - who become the Brodie 'set', introduced to a privileged world of adult games that they will never forget. Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was adapted into a successful stage play, and later a film directed by Ronald Neame and starring Maggie Smith. Muriel Spark (1918 - 2006) wrote poetry, stories, and biographies as well as a remarkable series of novels, including The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), The Mandelbaum Gate (1965) which received the James Tait Black Prize, and The Public Image (1968) and Loitering with Intent (1981), both of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Spark was awarded the T.S. Eliot Award for poetry in 1992, and the David Cohen Prize for literature in 1997. If you enjoyed The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, you might like Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'A sublimely funny book ... it is a book to be read by all ... unforgettable and universal' Candia McWilliam, author of Debatable Land