About the Author

Muriel Spark was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1918. She is the author of twenty-one novels as well as collections of short stories, criticism, and poetry. Her most celebrated works include The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), The Comforters (1957), The Girls of Slender Means (1963), The Mandelbaum Gate (1965), The Driver’s Seat (1970), Memento Mori (1959), Loitering with Intent (1981), and A Far Cry from Kensington (1988). She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1993 and Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres in 1996. She died in 2006.