This story was chosen for inclusion by Derek Stanford
in Short Stories of the 'Nineties in 1968.
Dedications
Muriel Spark
MS
published her first volume of short fiction, The Go-Away Bird with Other Stories, with a print-run of 2,500, dedicated to her former lover Derek Stanford
.
Rees, David. Muriel Spark, William Trevor, Ian McEwan, A Bibliography of their First Editions. Colophon Press, 1992.
9
Baldwin, Dean, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 139. Gale Research, 1994.
139: 226
Stannard, Martin. Muriel Spark. The Biography. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2009.
199
Family and Intimate relationships
Muriel Spark
The close of MS
's erotic relationship with Howard Sergeant
(with whom, however, her friendship continued for a while) coincided with a gradual movement towards Derek Stanford
, a fellow-member of postwar London bohemia, who...
Friends, Associates
Muriel Spark
For the next few years she lived the stimulating, bohemian, often harsh life of a modern poet in London, though she despised those literary circles which she felt to be self-serving and amateurish. Although she...
Friends, Associates
Muriel Spark
In London in early 1963 she was horrified to hear that a publisher had accepted a book about her by Derek Stanford
. The rushed and patchyMuriel Spark: A Biographical and Critical Study appeared...
Material Conditions of Writing
Muriel Spark
MS
began her career as a novelist in illness and under financial stress. In 1954, Macmillan
, who were looking for promising new writers, invited her to write a novel. Although ill and unable to...
Reception
Muriel Spark
Manuscripts of Spark's literary works and letters have been in great demand. She accused American dealer Lew D. Feldman
of trying to extort money from her in exchange for her own letters to Derek Stanford
Reception
Muriel Spark
Spark was horrified when Derek Stanford
, her former friend and collaborator, published a book about her in September 1963: Muriel Spark, a Biographical and Critical Study, which she later called packed with factual...
Textual Features
Muriel Spark
With this book Spark reverted to a shorter format, as close to novella as novel form. Critic Norman Page
, however, perceived a crucial difference between the serene and jaunty short novels which preceded The...
Textual Features
Muriel Spark
This novel is set in the years 1954-5, with an epilogue which brings the characters thirty years onwards. The narrator, Nancy Hawkins, a young war widow, lives in a boarding-house in a downmarket area of...
Textual Production
Muriel Spark
MS
and Derek Stanford
published their joint study Emily Brontë
: Her Life and Work, after she had had to wait for his part of the venture, which came in late.
The actual text...
Textual Production
Muriel Spark
MS
edited with Derek StanfordLetters of John Henry Newman
: A Selection (he dealing with Newman as an Anglican, she with Newman as a Catholic).
Rees, David. Muriel Spark, William Trevor, Ian McEwan, A Bibliography of their First Editions. Colophon Press, 1992.
Her recently discarded boyfriend, Howard Sergeant
, annoyed her by planning a simultaneous, rival Wordsworth book. Tribute to Wordsworth was published by André Deutsch
, who was then working for Allan Wingate
. MS
Textual Production
Muriel Spark
This was her last book of non-fiction. Her attempt to help Derek Stanford
by arranging with Macmillan that they publish a second book on Newman came to nothing. He suffered a nervous breakdown, and had...
Textual Production
Muriel Spark
MS
's successive jobs in journalism (life, in effect, in modern Grub Street) provided a constant opportunity, and need, to write short pieces of many different types. While working for Argentor she wrote an article...
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Spark, Muriel, and Derek Stanford. Emily Brontë: Her Life and Work. Peter Owen, 1953.
Jennings, Elizabeth et al. “Letter to the Editor: Human Image Debased”. Times, p. 13.
Spark, Muriel, and Derek Stanford, editors. Letters of John Henry Newman: A Selection. Owen, 1957.
Spark, Muriel, and Derek Stanford, editors. My Best Mary: The Selected Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Wingate, 1953.
Spark, Muriel, and Derek Stanford, editors. Tribute to Wordsworth: A Miscellany of Opinion for the Centenary of the Poet’s Death. Wingate, 1950.