Muriel Spark was a prolific Scottish novelist, short story writer, and poet whose darkly comedic voice made her one of the most distinctive writers of the twentieth century. Her work often delves into the complexities of human nature and society, frequently employing absurdity and irony. Spark masterfully wielded language, crafting unforgettable characters and narratives that provoke thought in the reader. Her unique style and profound insight into the human psyche establish her as a significant literary voice of her era.
Loitering With Intent / The Girls Of Slender Means / The Abbess Of Crewe / The Bachelors / The Ballad Of Peckham Rye
Loitering with Intent / The Girls of Slender Means / The Abbess of Crewe / The Bachelors / The Ballad of Peckham Rye
It is perhaps her short stories that demonstrate her gifts best: wit, perception, acute characterisation, elegance and precision. They mark her out as one of the finest writers of her generation Observer
In the summer of 1816, aged nineteen, Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. A pioneering work of science fiction, it captured the popular imagination from the start. The daughter of radical philosopher William Godwin and pioneering feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley lived an unconventional life marred by tragedy. At sixteen she scandalised ..
Doran, Amanda-Jane, Punchlines - 150 years of humorous writing in Punch. London, HarperCollins, 1991. 26cm. XII, 371 pages. Original hardcover with dustjacket in protective mylar. Excellent, close to new condition with only minor signs of external wear. Includes work by authors / comedians such as: John Bentjemen / Mary Dunn / Graham Greene / Melvyn bragg / Stevie Smith / William Boyd / Robert Graves / etc.
The divine Spark is shining at her brightest . . . Pure delight' Claire Tomalin, INDEPENDENT
Sir Quentin Oliver steals the manuscript of Fleur Talbot's novel, "Warrender Chase". What sinister use will he make of it? Or, more tantalizing still, what if fiction were to overpower trust and Fleur's novel appropriate him?
She was a schoolmistress with a difference. Proud, cultured, romantic, her ideas were progressive, even shocking. And when she decided to transform a group of young girls under her tutelage into the 'creme de la creme' of Marcia Blaine school, no one could have predicted the outcome.
These five stories amply display Muriel Spark's extraordinary talent; her cool, biting humour and unique vision of human nature - all the trademark Spark obsessions are here, and much more besides.
An election is held at the abbey of Crewe and the new lady abbess takes up her high office with implacable serenity. This is a satirical fantasy about ecclesiastical and other kinds of politics. The author has also written "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" and "Girls of Slender Means".
The author's 19th novel, which begins and ends at a dinner party. In a chic Islington house, ten people eat salmon mousse around a dinner table while a manservant unobtrusively pours the wine. The talk is of a robbery, a honeymoon and marriage.
In the night the snow came. She awoke on Christmas morning in that unmistakable light, coming up from the earth and shining between her curtains. Celebrate Christmas through the creative minds of a host of authors, including Beryl Bainbridge, Maeve Binchy, Richmal Crompton, Alice Munro and Elizabeth von Arnim. From the delightful consequences of decorating the tree by Stella Gibbons to a disorientating encounter at 35,000 feet on a Christmas Day flight by Muriel Spark, an amateur pantomime by Stella Margetson and a New Year's resolution by Alice Childress, these stories are sure to fortify you over the Christmas period. Stories for Christmas and the Festive Season explores the joys and disappointments, pressures and preparations of this time of year from a female perspective. In keeping with the spirit of the series, the stories are plucked from different decades of the twentieth century and penned by familiar as well as forgotten authors writing for both books and popular magazines. The British Library Women Writers series is a curated collection of novels by female authors who enjoyed broad, popular appeal in their day. In a century during which the role of women in society changed radically, their fictional heroines highlight women's experience of life inside and outside the home through the decades in these rich, insightful and evocative stories.
In the May of Teck Club -- a London hostel 'three times window shattered since 1940 but never directly hit' -- the young lady residents do their best to act as if the war never happened -- Back cover.
Dame Lettie Colston is the first of her circle to receive these anonymous calls, and she does not wish to be reminded. Nor do her friends and family - though they are constantly looking out for signs of decline in others, and change their wills on a weekly basis.As the caller's activities become more widespread, soon a witch-hunt is in full cry, exposing past and present duplicities, self-deception, and blackmail. Nobody is above suspicion. Only a few, blessed with a sense of humour and the gift of faith, can guess at the caller's identity.
Exhilarating, unpredictable, and up-to-the-minute, Spark's 20th novel introduces the reader to the sexual secrets, the eccentric imagination, and the troubled family of a movie director.
Caroline Rose has a problem. She hears voices and the incessant tapping of typewriter keys, and she seems to be a character in a novel . . . A comedy of errors, a crime novel, a book about books, Spark's debut remains as otherworldly and mischievous as it was when first published sixty years ago.The publishers acknowledge investment from Creative Scotland towards the publication of this book.Supported by the Muriel Spark Society.
Barbara, engaged to an archaeologist, has pursued the beauty and danger of a life of faith. On a visit to Jerusalem she has befriended the diplomat Freddy Hamilton. Ignoring his warning that she risks arrest because of her Jewish blood, she has set out on a pilgrimage beyond the Mandelbaum Gate.
A barrister, a priest, a detective, a lovelorn Irishman, a handwriting expert, a heinous spiritual medium - the very British bachelors of Muriel Spark's supreme 1960 novel come in every stripe.. "First found contentedly chatting in their London clubs and shopping at Fortnum's, the cozy bachelors (as any Spark reader might guess) are not set to stay cozy for long. Soon enough, the men are variously tormented - defrauded or stolen from; blackmailed or pressed to attend horrid seances - and then plunged, all together, into the nastiest of lawsuits. At the center of that suit hovers pale, blank Patrick Seton, the medium. Meanwhile, horrors of every size plague the poor bachelors - from the rising price of frozen peas to epileptic fits, forgeries, spiritualists foaming with protoplasm, and murder.
Four stories that illustrate Muriel Spark's unique wit and wisdom: 'The Portobello Road', 'Bang-bang You're Dead', 'The Seraph and the Zambesi' and 'The Dragon', all taken from The Collected Stories (1994).
This comedy and macabre study of old age has been reissued to coincide with the television programme in the "Screen 2 Season", which stars Maggie Smith, Michael Horden, Cyril Cusack, Thora Hird and Zoe Wannamaker.
The Ballad of Peckham Rye is the wickedly farcical fable of a blue-collar town turned upside down. When the firm of Meadows, Meade & Grindley hires Dougal Douglas (a.k.a. Douglas Dougal) to do "human research" into the private lives of its workforce, they are in no way prepared for the mayhem, mutiny, and murder he will stir up. "Not only funny but startlingly original," declared The Washington Post, "the legendary character of Dougal Douglas...may not have been boasting when he referred so blithely to his association with the devil." In fact this Music Man of the thoroughly modern corporation changes the lives of all the eccentric characters he meets, from Miss Merle Coverdale, head of the typing pool, to V.R. Druce, unsuspecting Managing Director.
Robert arrives in Venice leaving the manipulative and wealthy Curran, his family and the Romanian emigre Anna behind. He soon discovers, however, that they have followed him and are all staying in the Pensione Sofia hotel, which harbours a dark secret involving blackmail, murder and intrigue.
The Finishing School, Muriel Spark's twenty-second and final novel, was published in 2004
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 the obsessional experience takes on a far darker significance.
In 'Aiding and Abetting', the doyenne of literary satire has written a wickedly amusing and subversive novel around the true-crime case of one of England’s most notorious uppercrust scoundrels and the “aiders and abetters” who kept him on the loose. When Lord Lucan walks into psychiatrist Hildegard Wolf’s Paris office, there is one problem: she already has a patient who says he’s Lucan, the fugitive murderer who bludgeoned his children’s nanny in a botched attempt to kill his wife. As Dr. Wolf sets about deciding which of her patients, if either, is the real Lucan, she finds herself in a fierce battle of wills and an exciting chase across Europe. For someone is deceiving someone, and it may be the good doctor, who, despite her unorthodox therapeutic method (she talks mainly about her own life), has a sinister past, too. Exhibiting Muriel Spark’s boundless imagination and biting wit, 'Aiding and Abetting' is a brisk, clever, and deliciously entertaining tale by one of Britain’s greatest living novelists.
Not to Disturb, Muriel Spark's eleventh novel, was first published in 1971.
The first of two volumes of the letters of Muriel Spark, one of the greatest and most fascinating writers of the twentieth century. 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. '[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
And Other Stories
Der Roman beleuchtet das vielgesichtige Leben unter Londoner Fabrikarbeitern und -arbeiterinnen, Stenotypistinnen und Fabrikanten, in das Dougal Douglas, der junge, zynische Held, Unruhe und Verwirrung bringt. Muriel Sparks Gabe, Tatsachen mit überraschend komischer Fantasie zu vermengen, zeigt sich von ihrer besten Seite. Die Kritiken bestätigen es.
Die Brontës
In sturmzerzauster Welt : die Brontës, wie sie wirklich waren und wie sie sich selbst sahen der Versuch einer Autobiographie in Briefen, Gedichten und Selbstzeugnissen, kongenial zusammengestellt und nacherzählt von Muriel Spark.
Es beginnt wie eine moderne Ehekomödie, es endet wie ein Kriminalroman: Die tragische Geschichte des begüterten Privatgelehrten Harvey Gotham, der sich mit Mitte Dreißig nach Frankreich aufs Land zurückzieht, um ein Buch über Hiob zu schreiben, während er im Leben das Prinzip des Bösen erforscht.
Annabel Christopher is a goddess to her adoring Italian public, her loving husband part of her perfect image. To keep the eager sycophants, ruthless paparazzi and anxious admirers under her spell the image must be carefully cultivated. Only Annabel hasn't calculated on the plans of her husband.
Gespenster und eine Psychiaterin, ein hängender Richter und empfindliche Gemüter mit viel Phantasie - das sind die Helden von Muriel Sparks durchtriebenen Geschichten.
Eine Frau kauft sich ein paar knallbunte Sommersachen und fliegt in den Süden. Schon auf dem Flug beginnt sie zielstrebig nach einem ganz bestimmten Typ Mann zu suchen: ihrem Mörder. Das Drehbuch für den Mord ist geschrieben, die Tatwaffe besorgt. Die junge Frau lernt eine interessante Dame kennen, gerät in eine Demonstration, läßt sich in Makrobiotik unterweisen - und sucht nur den einen - ihren Mörder.
Es gab drei Überlebende bei der Flugzeugkatastrophe. Die Lissabon-Maschine war über Robinsons kleiner vulkanischer Insel abgestürzt, tausend Meilen fern von jeder Zivilisation. Robinson führte dort ein Einsiedlerleben. Während die drei Überlebenden gesundgepflegt werden, zeichnen sich nach und nach ihre verschiedenen Charaktere immer deutlicher ab, was zu verhängnisvollen Konflikten führt.
Quando, nel 1956, l’editore londinese Macmillan comprò il primo romanzo di una giovane autrice sconosciuta, I consolatori , si rese subito conto di aver fatto una scelta molto ardita. Così, temendo che fosse «troppo difficile» per il pubblico del tempo, esitò un anno prima di darlo alle stampe. Muriel Spark non si stupì particolarmente del ritardo: forse, dentro di sé, sapeva già di essere, secondo le parole di John Updike, «uno dei pochi scrittori che abbiano abbastanza risorse, coraggio e grinta da modificare la macchina della narrativa». Oggi qualunque lettore, avvezzo o meno ai suoi romanzi più celebri, non potrà che soccombere allo charme che si sprigiona dalla sublime eccentricità dei consolatori (o persecutori?) che popolano queste pagine: una nonna contrabbandiera, un libraio satanista, un giovane cronista con la vocazione del detective, e un’eroina che ha il sommo cruccio di sapersi personaggio di un romanzo. Li seguiremo, avvinti ed esilarati, fra storie d’amore, ricatti e terribili vendette in un intreccio prodigo di suspense e sortilegi. Un intreccio che dovette colpire anche Evelyn Waugh, se si risolse a scrivere a un’amica: «Mi sono state mandate le bozze del geniale romanzo di una signora che si chiama Muriel Spark. La protagonista è una scrittrice cattolica che soffre di allucinazioni. Il libro uscirà presto e sono sicuro che tutti penseranno che l’abbia scritto io. Vi prego di smentire».
Königs Erläuterungen Textanalyse und Interpretation mit ausführlicher Inhaltsangabe und Abituraufgaben
Roman à la fois divertissant (l'humour écossais) et documentaire (les tensions religieuses et raciales entre Jordaniens et Israéliens avant la guerre des Six Jours), publié en 1965 et diversement accueilli par la critique (en général, plutôt bien).
Was sich in den Klassenzimmern eines Internats am Genfersee abspielt, ist äußerst lehrreich. Aber nicht immer lehrplangemäß. Der letzte Schliff : eine moderne Schulgeschichte, ein amouröser Clinch zweier Jungautoren, eine Mordgeschichte. Ein obsessiver Reigen, in dem nicht nur wichtig ist, wer mit wem schlief, sondern wer wem wie an den Kragen will.
Hrdinou románu, či spíše romaneta, mísícího legendární baladičnost s realistickou přítomností, je jakýsi moderní Mefisto, pokušitel a rozvraceč lidských vztahů. Civilním povoláním je referent v personálním výzkumu jedné londýnské podnikatelské firmy, který má nalézt cesty ke zlepšení vztahů mezi zaměstnavateli a zaměstnanci, avšak ve skutečnosti působí pravý opak – rozvrat vztahů v dělnických a úřednických rodinách maloměstského předměstí Londýna. Vtipná karikatura se společensky kritickými šlehy.
Povídka známé skotské autorky, v níž si bere na mušku snobismus a rasové předsudky nové střední vrstvy v Británii 50. let. V této době sice Británie prožívá období prosperity a více se otevírá světu, ale pokrytectví, sociální a rasová předpojatost společnosti z minulosti stále přetrvávají. Manželé Lou a Raymond jsou velmi aktivními katolíky, kteří se považují za představitele moderních mravních a pokrokových názorů. Jednou byla do jejich kostela nainstalována socha Černé madony z bahenního dubu. Brzy se začaly šířit zprávy, že řadu lidí vyslyšela v jejich trápení. Také Lou a Raymond ji požádají o pomoc, ale v tu chvíli ještě netuší, jaké zkoušce bude jejich mravnost a tolerantnost podrobena. Výborná povídka s motivem nadpřirozena.
Dva romány (Idol verejnosti, 1968; Balada o predmestí, 1960) známej anglickej spisovateľky zo sveta filmu a veľkomestského prostredia, nastavujúce zrkadlo súčasnej anglickej spoločnosti.
