It is no surprise that one of Muriel Spark's most lively and entertaining workswould be her own memoir, Curriculum Vitae. Born to a Scottish Jewish fatherand an English Presbyterian mother, Spark describes her childhood in 1930sEdinburgh in brief, dazzling anecdotes. In one she recalls a cherished schoolteacher,Christina Kay, who would later be used as the prototype for MissJean Brodie. Spark boldly details her disastrous first marriage to SydneyOswald Spark (S.O.S.) — himself thirty-two, she just nineteen — whom she followedto Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and left behind to return to England. Inthe midst of WWII, Spark took a bizarre position working in the disinformationcampaign of the British Secret Service, eliciting information from GermanPOWs to combat Nazi propaganda. She later moved to the Poetry Society ofLondon, where she mingled with literati and other intellectuals, befriended bysome (such as Graham Greene, an early supporter of her work) and sparringwith others. We experience Spark's joy with the publication of her firstnovel, The Comforters, her trials with other writers' envy, and her emergence asthe most brilliant femme fatale of 20th-century English literature.

A winter's night; a luxurious mansion near Geneva; a lucrative scandal. The first to arrive is the secretary dressed in furs with a bundle of cash, then the Baron, and finally the Baroness. They lock themselves in the library with specific instructions not to be disturbed for any reason. Soon, shouts and screams emerge from the library; the Baron's lunatic brother starts madly howling in the attic; two of the secretary's friends are left waiting in a car; a reverend's services are needed for an impromptu wedding—and despite all that the servants obey their orders as they pass the time playing records, preparing dinner, and documenting false testimonies while a twisted murder plot unfolds upstairs.

At the staid Marcia Blaine School for Girls, in Edinburgh, Scotland, teacher extraordinaire Miss Jean Brodie is unmistakably, and outspokenly, in her prime. She is passionate in the application of her unorthodox teaching methods, in her attraction to the married art master, Teddy Lloyd, in her affair with the bachelor music master, Gordon Lowther, and—most important—in her dedication to 'her girls,' the students she selects to be her crème de la crème. Fanatically devoted, each member of the Brodie set—Eunice, Jenny, Mary, Monica, Rose, and Sandy—is 'famous for something,' and Miss Brodie strives to bring out the best in each one. Determined to instill in them independence, passion, and ambition, Miss Brodie advises her girls, 'Safety does not come first. Goodness, Truth, and Beauty come first. Follow me.'

And they do. But one of them will betray her.

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 un libro '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 giovanotto 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'.

'Mi rendevo conto che c'era un demone in. me che gioiva nel vedere le persone per quello che erano, e sempre di più, sempre di più'. Così Fleur Talbot rievoca per noi gli albori del suo talento letterario negli anni del dopoguerra londinese, quando, giovane e 'piena di gaudio', scriveva il suo primo libro, Warrender Chase. Insieme a lei partecipiamo alle riunioni dell'Associazione Autobiografica, dove lavora come stenografa alle dipendenze dell'anziano e altezzoso Sir Quentin. I soci leggono al gruppo le proprie memorie, che Fleur, al momento della battitura, arricchirà di dettagli scabrosi. Dal canto suo Sir Quentin si premura di conservare i fascicoli sottochiave per ignoti, forse sordidi, usi futuri. Ma com'è possibile che intanto Sir Quentin vada somigliando sempre più a Warrender Chase'? O è Warrender Chase a precorrere misteriosamente, tappa per tappa, quel che accade a Sir Quentin?

New edition of this extremely clever and entertaining novel, published as a }Virago Modern Classic{ with an introduction by Mark Lawson.

In questo romanzo si dipana un groviglio di trame da un pretesto già poco resistibile in sé, le riunioni periodiche di un inaudito circolo spiritistico gestito dal luciferino Patrick Seton, in cui si danno convegno personaggi molto diversi fra loro ma uniti dal medesimo stato civile, e più ancora da un'avversione a cambiarlo talmente tenace da poter condurre, se le circostanze lo richiedono, anche al delitto. Questa situazione di partenza viene immersa in una Londra trasformata con pochi tocchi in una geografia metafisica.

Dame Muriel Spark delivers a delightfully alarming novel, full of high society and low cunning.

One October evening five posh London couples gather for a dinner party, enjoying 'the pheasant (flambe in cognac as it is)' and waiting for the imminent arrival of the late-coming guest Hilda Damien, who has been unavoidably detained due to the fact that she is being murdered at this very moment

Symposium was applauded by Time magazine for the 'sinister elegance' of Muriel Spark's 'medium of light but lethal comedy.' Mixed in are a Monet, a mad uncle, some unconventional nuns, and a burglary ring run by a rent-a-butler. Symposium stars a perfectly evil young woman (a classic sweet-faced hair-raising Sparkian horror) who has married rich Hilda's son by hook or by crook, hooking him at the fruit counter of Harrod's. There is also spiritual conversationand the Bordeaux is superb. 'The prevailing mood is urbane: the wine is poured, the talk continues, and all the time the ice on which the protagonists' world rests is being thinned from beneath, by boiling emotions and ugly motives .No living writer handles the tension between formality of expression and subversiveness of thought more elegantly.' (The Independent on Sunday).

Seemingly banal dinner-party chat reveals strange tales of the guests' dodgy pasts and unreliable futures.

A man of devilish charm and enterprising spirit, Dougal Douglas is employed to revitalize the ailing firm of Meadows, Meade & Grindley. He succeeds, but not quite in the way his employer intended.

Lise has been driven to distraction by working in the same 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.

Detti, imperativi categorici e stravaganze di Miss Kay - la futura Miss Brodie - riportati dalla sua alunna più fedele e caustica.

Tic è un bellissimo orologio, che vive in una bellissima villa vittoriana. La sua vita scorre tranquilla, sempre in orario. Finché un giorno il professor John e i suoi colleghi non se ne escono con una strana proposta, che potrebbe mettere a soqquadro la sua vita. Una storia ilare e bizzarra che solo la penna di Muriel Spark poteva raccontare, e solo il pennino di Edward Gorey illustrare.

From Muriel Spark, the grande dame of literary satire, comes this swift, deliciously witty tale of writerly ambition that recalls her beloved The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.College Sunrise is a somewhat louche and vaguely disreputable finishing school located, for now, in Lausanne, Switzerland. Rowland Mahler and his wife, Nina, run the school as a way to support themselves while he works, somewhat falteringly, on his novel. Into Rowland's creative writing class comes seventeen-year-old Chris Wiley, a red-haired literary prodigy whose historical novel-in-progress, on Mary Queen of Scots, has already excited the interest of publishers. The inevitable result: keen envy, and a game of cat and mouse fraught with jealousy and attraction, both literary and sexual.

Bontà, Bellezza e Verità: sono i dogmi dell'insegnamento di Miss Jean Brodie. Siamo a Edimburgo, negli anni Trenta, Miss Brodie ammette, con candida alterigia, che la sua unica vocazione sono le allieve, e l'unica missione farle diventare 'la crème de la crème'. Tanto zelo può persino indurla a cercare di trasformare le più dotate in doppi di se stessa e a scegliere una di loro per vivere in sua vece un amore che ritiene improprio soddisfare di persona. Tortuose collusioni psicologiche, tentativi di plagio, una passione repressa e goduta per interposta persona, il rigore calvinista di una crisi di coscienza: il libro è un labirinto psicologico ed insieme un congegno narrativo perfetto.

A collection of the author's poems covers such topics as European cities and the literary world.

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

The brevity of Muriel Spark's novels is equaled only by their brilliance. These four novels, each a miniature masterpiece, illustrate her development over four decades. Despite the seriousness of their themes, all four are fantastic comedies of manners, bristling with wit.

Spark's most celebrated novel, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, tells the story of a charismatic schoolteacher's catastrophic effect on her pupils. The Girls of Slender Means is a beautifully drawn portrait of young women living in a hostel in London in the giddy postwar days of 1945. The Driver's Seat follows the final haunted hours of a woman descending into madness. And The Only Problem is a witty fable about suffering that brings the Book of Job to bear on contemporary terrorism.

All four novels give evidence of one of the most original and unmistakable voices in contemporary fiction. Characters are vividly etched in a few words; earth-shaking events are lightly touched on. Yet underneath the glittering surface there is an obsessive probing of metaphysical questions: the meaning of good and evil, the need for salvation, the search for significance.

Nina e Rowland Mahler, una coppia di giovani e cinici inglesi, hanno messo a segno il colpo della loro vita: sfruttare l'inesauribile fame di bon ton di una rampante e cosmopolita nuova casta disposta a spedire i suoi rampolli in Svizzera, dove potranno apprendere le regole dell'etichetta. Tutto funziona egregiamente, fino a quando piomba al College Sunrise un diciassettenne dai capelli rossi. Brillante e capriccioso, Chris ama circondarsi di mistero. Non solo: sta scrivendo un romanzo su Maria Stuarda e non nutre dubbi sul suo futuro di grande scrittore. Quanto basta per suscitare ammirazione, desiderio, astio e invidia. L'autrice fa vibrare una corda segreta in ciascuno di noi, scatenando una tensione che solo un inaspettato evento saprà allentare.

Eight spooky stories from the mistress of the unexpected. I aim to startle as well as please,' Muriel Spark has said, and in these eight marvelous ghost stories she manages to do both to the highest degree. As with all matters in the hands of Dame Muriel her spooks are entirely original. A ghost in her pantheon can be plaintive or a bit vengeful, or perhaps may not even be aware of being a ghost at all. One in fact is the ghost of a man who isn't even dead yet. Another takes the bus home from work, believing she is still alive, though she is haunted by an odious tune stuck in her head (which her murderer had been relentlessly humming), and distressed by a 'feeling of incompletion.' And a reflective ghost recalls her mortal days of enjoying 'the glory of the world, as if it would never pass. Spark has a flair for confiding ghosts: 'I must explain that I departed this life nearly five years ago. But I did not altogether depart this world. There were those odd things still to be done which one's executors can never do properly.' In her case the odd things include cheerily hailing her murderer, 'Hallo George!' and driving him mad. The remarkably nonchalant stories here include some of her most wicked and famous'The Seraph and the Zambesi,' 'The Hanging Judge,' and 'The Portobello Road'and they all gleam with that special Spark sheen, the quality The Times Literary Supplement has hailed as 'gloriously witty and polished.'

A suspense novel about three castaways marooned on an island owned by an eccentric recluse. January Marlow, a heroine with a Catholic outlook of the most unsentimental stripe, is one of three survivors out of twenty-nine souls when her plane crashes, blazing, on Robinson's island. Presumed dead for months, the three survivors must wait for the annual return of the pomegranate boat. Robinson, a determined loner, proves a fair if misanthropic host to his uninvited guests; he encourages January to keep a journal: as 'an occupation for my mind, and I fancied that I might later dress it up for a novel. That was most peculiar, as things transpired, for I did not then anticipate how the journal would turn upon me, so that having survived the plane disaster, I should nearly meet my death through it.' In Robinson, Muriel Spark's wonderful second novel, under the tropical glare and strange fogs of the tiny island, we find a volcano, a ping-pong playing cat, a dealer in occult as well as lucky charms, flying ants, sexual tension, a disappearance, blackmail, andperhapsmurder. Everything astounds, confounds, and convinces, frighteningly. 'She is,' as Charles Alva Hoyt once put it, 'the Jane Austen of the Surrealists.' Robinson, a unique and marvelous novel, is another display of the powers of 'the most gifted and innovative British novelist' (The New York Times). In the work of Dame Murielin the last words of Robinson 'immediately all things are possible.'