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The Biography
by Martin Stannard
Born a working-class Scot, Muriel Spark became the epitome of literary chic. Hers is a Cinderella story: teenage marriage in Africa, divorce, return to wartime London as an impoverished poet-critic until a breakdown and conversion to Catholicism in 1954 transfigured her life. Five brilliant novels followed (including The Comforters and Memento Mori?), but it was The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), initially published as a single issue of The New Yorker and then triumphantly adapted as a stage play and movie, that brought international celebrity and enabled her to leave a Britain that had not always accepted her.
In 1992 the secretive Spark invited Martin Stannard to write her biography, offering interviews and full access to her papers. The result is a compelling portrait that has received rave reviews in the UK.
"Starred Review. His prose is graceful and assured, his literary judgments discerning, and his biography is as definitive as we can expect to find." - Publishers Weekly
"A gifted biographer with a fine turn of phrase ... this account will not be surpassed." - The Independent (UK)
"Will undoubtedly become the standard biography of a writer with perhaps the most distinctive voice ... in postwar British fiction." - The Observer
This information about Muriel Spark was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Martin Stannard is a is a professor of modern English literature at the University of Leicester, where he has taught since 1979. He was previously Leverhulme Research Fellow in English Literature at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of Muriel Spark: The Biography, Evelyn Waugh, The Early Years: 1903–1939 and Evelyn Waugh, The Later Years: 1939–1966 and editor of Evelyn Waugh, The Critical Heritage. His many articles and reviews have appeared in Modern Language Review, Essays in Criticism, The New York Times Book Review, the Times Higher Education Supplement, and Novel, among others.
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