The Letters of Muriel Spark (Volume 1)

Author: Muriel Spark and Dan Gunn

Hardcover

An essential read for fans of Muriel Spark - the definitive selection of her correspondence from her disastrous married life in South Africa, through to her experience in post-war London as a struggling writer, and her glittering success as a novelist.

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24th November 2025

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Hardcover

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Summary

Description

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

About the Author

Muriel Spark, D.B.E, C. Litt, was born in Edinburgh in 1918. A poet and novelist, she also wrote children's books, radio plays, a comedy, 'Doctors of Philosophy', first performed in London in 1962, and biographies. She is best known for her stories and many successful novels, including Memento Mori, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Loitering With Intent, The Comforters, A Far Cry from Kensington and The Public Image. For her long career of literary achievement, Muriel Spark won international praise and many awards, including the David Cohen British Literature Award, the T. S. Eliot Award, the Saltire Prize, the Boccaccio Prize for European Literature, the Gold Pen Award and the Italia Prize for dramatic radio. Muriel Spark was given an honorary doctorate of Letters from a number of universities, London, Edinburgh and Oxford among these. She died in 2006.

Dan Gunn is a novelist, critic, and translator, as well as being one of the editors of the four-volume Letters of Samuel Beckett and editor of the Cahiers Series. He is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature & English at the American University of Paris where he directs the Center for Writers & Translators. He was designated in 2017 as editor of Muriel Spark's letters.