Muriel Spark’s “The Comforters” is the story of a Catholic convert named Caroline Rose who has recently been having auditory hallucinations. In 1933, she was made a Dame of the British Empire to add on to the honor of Honorary Member of the Commandeur de l’Ordres des Arts et des Lettres and the American Academy of Arts and Letter. The Royal Society of Edinburgh made her an Honorary Member while the Royal Society of Literature awarded her with the title Companion of Literature. During her literary career, she was the recipient of several awards and honors including honorary degrees from universities in Scotland, some from London, and others from Oxford. While she lived in Italy for much of her adult life, she traveled extensively collecting material for her novels. In 2004, she published “The Finishing School” that was to be her last novel before she died in 2006. She also wrote many short stories and children’s fiction with “The Complete Short Stories Collection” her most popular anthology published in the early 2000s. “Curriculum Vitae” her own autobiography was published in 1992. She would then pen biographies of John Masefield, Emily Bronte followed by an anthology of Bronte writings. She wrote a critical biography of Mary Shelley titled “Child of Light” in 1951 as a celebration of the centenary of her death. Spark has also been known or her satire and she was inspired by the Nixon Watergate scandal in her writing of “The Abbess of Crewe.”ĭuring her writing career, Muriel Spark studied the works and lives of John Masefield, the Bronte sisters, and Mary Shelley. She has also written about crimes of passion in “Not to Disturb,” a novel set on the shores of Lake Geneve and “The Hothouse by the East River” that she published in 1973. Some of her works such as “Territorial Rights” were written on themes of turns of fate and unusual crimes. Spark was also involved in the writing of plays such as the 1962 published “Doctors of Philosophy.” The play was produced by Ingmar Bergman in the Scandinavian countries and was also staged at the Arts Theatre in London. The 1960 published novel “The Ballad of Peckham Rye” was made into a musical for radio and was the winner of the Memento Mori and the Prix Italia in 1962, in addition to being adapted for the stage and or TV as a series. “The Girls of Slender Means” that she published in 1963 was among three of her works that were adapted into TV series. “The Abbess of Crewe” and “The Driver’s Seat” were also made into motion pictures featuring Glenda Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor respectively. Muriel Spark has published many novels over the years with her most popular being the 1961 published title “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.” The novel was later made into a film that had Maggie Smith in the lead role. She published her debut novel “The Comforters” in 1957. Her first venture into prose had been when she had entered and won a short story competition by The Observer in 1951. By 1967, she had her own collection of poems published. She started writing during this time and by the end of the War, she was the Editor of Poetry Review and General Secretary of the Poetry Society. She had always wanted to write though she was more interested in poetry rather than prose. She got employment in the British Foreign Office at the Political Intelligence department where she worked o a variety of subtle propaganda. Seven years later in 1944, her marriage had fallen apart and after a messy divorce, she was back home in England. In 1937, Muriel left England to go to Southern Rhodesia as she had met a man she wanted to marry. Upon graduating from high school, she went to Heriot-Watt College, where she was a student of precis writing even as she taught in a private school before becoming a personal secretary. Spark was best known for writing works with serious themes interspersed with wit and satire. Muriel Spark full name Dame Muriel Sarah Spark was a literary fiction author born in Edinburgh Scotland.
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