Muriel Spark: 34 books

In her foreword to All The Poems (2003) Muriel Spark wrote, 'Although most of my life has been devoted to fiction, I have always thought of myself as a poet. I do not write "poetic" prose, but feel that my outlook on life and my perceptions of events are those of a poet.' Including previously...

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....

When an heiress moves to a villa on Italy’s Lake Nemi, a houseguest plots to take it—and more—in this novel by a prizewinning master of dark comedy. When American heiress Maggie Radcliffe relocates to enchanting Lake Nemi, just south of Rome, she is determined to live in tune with ancient...

Touched by madness and haunted by a secret past, Paul and Elsa’s relationship reveals that there can be no normality for people who witnessed the worst of war   In 1970s New York, Paul and Elsa are like many other well-off middle-aged couples, worrying over their apartment and psychoanalyst...

A witty, romantic farce from the author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie: “Beautifully put together and effortlessly entertaining” (The New York Times). Robert wants nothing more than to become a serious art historian. But his hopes for a staid academic life are put on hold when he’s...

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...

"Long ago in 1945 all the nice people in England were poor, allowing for exceptions," begins The Girls of Slender Means, Dame Muriel Spark's tragic and rapier-witted portrait of a London ladies' hostel just emerging from the shadow of World War II. Like the May of Teck Club itself—"three...

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...

**“**Sleek and suggestive . . . [Reality and Dreams] is so smart and seductive that you fail to notice how completely you’ve accepted a world gone utterly awry.” —Kirkus Reviews British film director Tom Richard won acclaim for his moments of pure creative inspiration. But when Richard...

Spark’s very British bachelors come in every stripe First found contentedly chatting in their London clubs, 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 séances — and then plunged into the nastiest of lawsuits.

Spark’s mind-bogglingly stunning 1957 debut With easy, sunny eeriness, Spark lights up the darkest things: blackmail, a drowning, nervous breakdowns, a ring of smugglers, a loathsome busybody, a diabolic bookseller, human evil.

The essays, reviews, memoirs, and other writings collected here for the first time conjure up one of the great critical imaginations of our time. The Golden Fleece, which takes its title from Spark’s first published essay, has four sections—Art & Poetry; Autobiography & Travel; Literature;...

The Driver’s Seat, Spark’s own favorite among her many novels, was hailed by the New Yorker as “her spiny and treacherous masterpiece.” Driven mad by an office job, Lise flies south on holiday — in search of passionate adventure and sex. In this metaphysical shocker, infinity and...

A strange, thrilling novel about desperate love, paranoia, and heartbreak by one of America's most singular writers. “What’s new. What else. What next. What’s happened here.” Pitch Dark is a book about love. Kate Ennis is poised at a critical moment in an affair with a married...