Muriel Spark

The Ballad of Peckham Rye is a novel written in 1960 by the Scottish author Muriel Spark. It tells the story of a devilish Scottish migrant, Dougal Douglas, who moves to Peckham in London and wreaks havoc amongst the lives of the inhabitants. The text draws upon the supernatural, as well as issues of Irish and …

The Comforters is the first novel by Scottish author Muriel Spark. She drew on experiences as a recent convert to Catholicism and having suffered hallucinations due to using Dexedrine, an amphetamine then available over the counter for dieting. Although completed in late 1955, the book was not published until 1957. A …

The Driver's Seat is a novella by Muriel Spark. Published in 1970, it was advertised as "a metaphysical shocker". It is indeed in the psychological thriller genre, dealing with themes of alienation, isolation and loss of spiritual values. It was filmed in 1974 starring Elizabeth Taylor and featuring Andy Warhol. In …

The Finishing School is the last novel written by Scottish author Muriel Spark and published by Viking Press in 2004. It concerns 'College Sunrise', a mixed-sex finishing school in Ouchy on the banks of Lake Geneva near Lausanne in Switzerland.

The Girls of Slender Means is a novella written in 1963 by Scottish author Muriel Spark. It was included in Anthony Burgess's 1984 book Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English since 1939 — A Personal Choice .

The Mandelbaum Gate is a novel written by Scottish author Muriel Spark published in 1965. The title refers to the Mandelbaum Gate in Jerusalem around which the novel is set. In 1965, it won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize that year. In 2012, it was shortlisted for the Best of the James Tait Black. It was included …