When Barbara Vaughan's fiance joins an archaeological excursion to the Dead Sea Scrolls, she takes the opportunity to explore the Holy Land. It is 1961, and the nation of Israel is still in its infancy. For Barbara, a half-Jewish Catholic convert, this is a journey of faith, and she ignores warnings not to cross the Mandelbaum Gate from Israel into Jordan. An adventure of espionage and abduction, from pilgrimage to flight, The Mandelbaum Gate is one of Spark's most compelling novels, and won the James Tait Memorial Prize.
When Barbara Vaughan's fiance joins an archaeological excursion to the Dead Sea Scrolls, she takes the opportunity to explore the Holy Land. It is 196...
Muriel Sparks's celebrated autobiography has been unavailable since her death in 2006. This new edition adds a preface by the poet and biographer Elaine Feinstein.
Muriel Sparks's celebrated autobiography has been unavailable since her death in 2006. This new edition adds a preface by the poet and biographer Elai...
Robert wants nothing more than to become a serious art historian. But his hopes for an academic life are put on hold when he's driven from London to Venice to escape one lover and seek out another: the enigmatic Bulgarian refugee Lina Pancev. In Venice, Robert encounters a grand carnival of lust, lies, blackmail, cocktail parties and regicide. As he chases Lina, his heart's desire, the city itself provides a priceless education in love, art and beauty.
Robert wants nothing more than to become a serious art historian. But his hopes for an academic life are put on hold when he's driven from London to V...
Annabel Christopher is every inch the star: a glamorous actress with a devoted, handsome husband. To keep the paparazzi and her adoring public under her spell, her perfect image must be carefully cultivated, whatever the cost. Beneath the facade, though, her husband cannot bear her or their vapid existence. Envious of her success, he plots his revenge and stages a scandal even Annabel will find a challenge to recover from.
Annabel Christopher is every inch the star: a glamorous actress with a devoted, handsome husband. To keep the paparazzi and her adoring public under h...
First published in 1993, this book brings together Muriel Spark s writings on the Bronte sisters, including a selection of their letters and a selection of Emily Bronte s poems. Perceptively but unsentimentally, Spark considers the Brontes lives and works, including their generally disastrous attempts at teaching, and reflects on her own fascination, as a writer and a reader, with Emily Bronte and with the immortal Wuthering Heights and its nightmare hero. This edition features a new foreword by Boyd Tonkin, the literary editor at the Independent."
First published in 1993, this book brings together Muriel Spark s writings on the Bronte sisters, including a selection of their letters and a selecti...
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.
Annabel Christopher is a goddess to her adoring Italian public, her loving husband part of her perfect image. To keep the eager sycophants, ruthless p...
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 uncollected work, this new edition demonstrates her ear for the rightness of a line and her eye for the telling detail, her command of poetic forms and her ability to rise to the different challenges of freer verse. Spark's poems are witty, idiosyncratic and haunting, transforming the familiar...
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 mys...
The Bachelors displays the best of Sparkian satire, placing her at the heart of a great literary tradition alongside Waugh and Trollope, Wilde and Wodehouse. It demands rediscovery.
'It's easy to see why Waugh admired The Bachelors. On one level, it is a blithely carnivorous satire in the Waugh mould. The bachelors of the title - almost the only men we meet in the narrative - are the thirty-something male barristers, teachers, journalists and museum attendants of a small patch of West London. They lead inturned, doddery, superannuated lives, pottering between...
The Bachelors displays the best of Sparkian satire, placing her at the heart of a great literary tradition alongside Waugh and Trollope, ...
'One of her funniest novels . . . Spark at her sharpest, her purest and her most merciful' ALI SMITH
In The Finishing School Muriel Spark is once again at her biting, satirical best. On the edge of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, a struggling would-be novelist and his wife run a finishing school of questionable reputation to keep the funds flowing. When a seventeen-year-old student's writing career begins to show great promise, tensions run high.
A keen portrait of devouring regret, psychological unravelling and the glittering promise of youth, The Finishing...
'One of her funniest novels . . . Spark at her sharpest, her purest and her most merciful' ALI SMITH
John Masefield (1878-1967) lived a life as varied as his work. At the age of fifteen he went to sea as an apprentice in a windjammer and made the voyage round Cape Horn. The next three years he spent in New York, in a bakery, a livery stable, a saloon and a carpet factory. Back in England, he wrote for the Guardian and in the First World War served with the Red Cross. Throughout these years he had been writing poetry, and when in 1923 his Collected Poems appeared they sold over 200,000 copies. In 1930 he succeeded Robert Bridges as Poet Laureate.
John Masefield (1878-1967) lived a life as varied as his work. At the age of fifteen he went to sea as an apprentice in a windjammer and made the voya...
