Muriel Spark

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The publishing career of MS spanned the later twentieth century, extending beyond each end of that fifty-year period. She began writing as a poet, and went on to short fiction, literary criticism, biography, journalism, and drama. Having come to prose fiction through narrative poetry, she only gradually came to take the novel genre seriously.
Spark, Muriel. Curriculum Vitae: Autobiography. Constable, 1992.
197
She is, however, best known for her twenty-three novels, and especially for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, 1961. She experimented with the longer novel, but her critical and commercial success came with shorter works. She said she preferred minor novels, in which she could explore precisely defined subjects within clear formal boundaries.
  • BirthName: Muriel Sarah Camberg
  • Nickname: Sparklet
    This was her nickname while she worked at the Poetry Society .
    Spark, Muriel. Curriculum Vitae: Autobiography. Constable, 1992.
    168

  • Married: Spark
  • Pseudonyms: Aquarius
    This name derives from her zodiac sign.
    Spark, Muriel. Curriculum Vitae: Autobiography. Constable, 1992.
    66, 198
    ; Evelyn Cavello

Milestones

1 February 1918

Muriel Sarah Camberg (later MS ) was born in a small rented flat at 160 Bruntsfield Place, in the Morningside district of Edinburgh, the younger of two children.
Baldwin, Dean, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 139. Gale Research, 1994.
139: 227
Spark, Muriel. Curriculum Vitae: Autobiography. Constable, 1992.
12, 17
Stannard, Martin. Muriel Spark. The Biography. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2009.
1

July 1930

The magazine of James Gillespie's High School for Girls included five poems by Muriel Camberg (later MS ), although it was not generally done to include more than one piece by the same girl.
Stannard, Martin. Muriel Spark. The Biography. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2009.
38 and n56

December 1930

The five poems by Muriel Camberg (later MS ) already printed in her school magazine went on to appear in The Door of Youth, a poetry anthology by Edinburgh schoolchildren.
Rees, David. Muriel Spark, William Trevor, Ian McEwan, A Bibliography of their First Editions. Colophon Press, 1992.
22

5 October 1961

MS published her sixth and best-known novel, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, about an eccentric, inspiring, ultimately dangerous teacher at a girls' school.
Rees, David. Muriel Spark, William Trevor, Ian McEwan, A Bibliography of their First Editions. Colophon Press, 1992.
10
Oldsey, Bernard Stanley, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 15. Gale Research, 1983, 2 vols.
15: 490, 496-7

By March 2004

MS 's twenty-third and final novel, The Finishing School, revolves round the relationship that develops between two novelists: a middle-aged creative writing teacher and his star pupil.
Scurr, Ruth. “Sins against the Holy Spirit”. Times Literary Supplement, 5 Mar. 2004, pp. 21-2.
21

13 April 2006

MS died of cancer in hospital in Florence at the age of eighty-eight.
Rizzo, Alessandra. British Novelist Muriel Spark Dies at 88. 15 Apr. 2006, http://www.comcast.net/entertainment/index.jsp?cat=ENTERTAINMENT&fn=/2006/04/15/368502.html&cvqh=itn_novelist.
Stannard, Martin. Muriel Spark. The Biography. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2009.
531

Biography

Birth, Family, Influences

1 February 1918

Muriel Sarah Camberg (later MS ) was born in a small rented flat at 160 Bruntsfield Place, in the Morningside district of Edinburgh, the younger of two children.
Baldwin, Dean, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 139. Gale Research, 1994.
139: 227
Spark, Muriel. Curriculum Vitae: Autobiography. Constable, 1992.
12, 17
Stannard, Martin. Muriel Spark. The Biography. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2009.
1