Muriel Spark was born and educated in Edinburgh. She was active in the field of creative writing since 1950, when she won a short-story writing competition in the Observer, and her many subsequent novels include Memento Mori (1959), The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1960), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), The Girls of Slender Means (1963) and Aiding and Abetting (2000). She also wrote plays, poems, children's books and biographies. She became Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1993, and died in 2006.

The most gifted and innovative British novelist of her generation--David Lodge, The New York Times

Spark's most celebrated novel. This ruthlessly and destructively romantic school ma'am is one of the giants of post-war fiction--Independent

Spark's novels linger in the mind as brilliant shards--John Updike, New Yorker

One of the greatest books about growing up--James Wood, Guardian

"Clever and elegant" is very acute as a catch-all description of Muriel Spark's appeal--William Boyd, Telegraph

Publisher: Harper Perennial

Pub date: 2016-06-13

Length: 162 pages