by Muriel Spark
Snyder, Jay, 1, 2
Spark, (Dame) Muriel: life early childhood: Bruntsfield Place, 1, 2; bread, 1;
Scottish speech, 1, 2, 3, 4;
Buttercup Dairy Company, 1;
tea, 1;
‘the English’, 1;
games, 1;
nicknames, 1;
dolls, 1;
theatre, 1;
visitors and visiting, 1, 2, 3;
fascination with historical characters, 1;
shopping, 1;
money, 1;
neighbours, 1;
red-heads, 1. 2, 3;
shops, 1;
piano lessons, 1;
clothes, 1, 2;
winter evenings, 1;
gaslight, 1;
Christmas, 1;
Hogmanay, 1;
Hallowe’en, 1;
parties, 1;
coal, 1;
Sundays, 1;
shyness, 1;
Royal Visit, 1;
Watford, 1;
relations, 1, 2;
Nelson’s Infant Primer, 1;
poverty, 1;
pre-school life, 1
schooldays: first year at school, 1; flowers, 1;
chum, 1;
Daphne’s death, 1;
Frances Niven, 1, 2, 3, 4;
writing, 1;
Miss Kay, 1;
poetry, 1, 2, 3, 4;
kind of religious experience, 1;
literature, 1;
theatre visits, 1;
poetry competition, 1;
Lewis Spence, 1;
senior school, 1;
music, 1;
Couling, 1;
Gordon, 1;
Greek class, 1;
golf, 1;
Miss Forgan, 1;
French teachers, 1;
mathematics, 1;
science, 1;
dancing, 1;
Miss Anderson, 1;
hockey, 1, 2;
sewing, 1;
ritual games, 1;
M’s mother, 1;
religious education, 1
home life: grandmother, 1, 2, 3; kittens, 1;
housework, 1;
at writing desk, 1;
Hallowe’en, 1;
poetry, 1;
doll, 1;
bicycle, 1;
male playmates, 1;
choice of further education, 1;
dances, 1;
boyfriends, 1;
shorthand and typing, 1;
Hill School, 1;
coaching, 1
early adulthood: job-seeking, 1; appearance, 1;
William Small & Sons, 1, 2;
salary, 1;
interests and amusements, 1;
Penguin paperbacks, 1;
The Scotsman, 1;
Edward VIII, 1;
religious feeling, 1;
engaged to Spark, 1;
and Miss Kay, 1;
leaves for Rhodesia, 1;
on the Windsor Castle from Southampton to Cape Town, 1;
seasickness, 1;
mild flirtation, 1, 2;
Madeira, 1
Southern Rhodesia: administration, 1;
marriage, 1;
Zimbabwe Ruins, 1;
life in Fort Victoria, 1;
African natives, 1;
white women, 1;
attitude to blacks, 1;
birth of her son, 1;
Victoria Falls, 1;
Zambesi River, 1, 2;
septicaemia, 1;
presents from her father, 1;
Gwelo, 1, 2;
thinks of leaving Spark, 1;
outbreak of war, 1;
divorce, 1, 2, 3;
compassion for Spark, 1;
surname, 1;
May Heygate, 1;
and Mother Superior, 1;
poetry, 1;
parties and dances, 1;
Foggo, 1;
departure from, 1;
reading, 1
Cape Town: arrival in, 1; ship sunk off, 1;
permit to visit, 1;
Greek friends, 1;
community divided into three, 1;
not the real world, 1;
troop-ship for England, 1
war-time London: incendiary bombing, 1; Helena Club, 1, 2, 3, 4;
food rationing, 1;
help from a policeman, 1;
seeks work, 1;
interview for job, 1;
fortnightly leaves, 1;
V1 and V2 robot planes, 1;
night in MacNeice’s house, 1
Foreign Office work: prestige, 1; Milton Bryan, 1, 2;
black propaganda, 1, 2;
‘Duty Secretary’, 1;
scrambler, 1;
Hell-schreiber, 1;
German prisoners-of-war, 1, 2;
Marcelle Quennell, 1;
US War Information Service, 1
editorial work: Argentor, 1, 2; Poetry Review, 1, 2
passim, 1;
living accommodation, 1, 2, 3;
Poetry Society, 1, 2, 3, 4;
poetry prize, 1;
Alice Hunt Bartlett, 1;
Armstrong, 1;
young poets, 1, 2;
Marie Stopes, 1;
Seymour, 1;
general meetings, 1;
views on dissatisfied groups, 1;
dismissal, 1;
Forum, 1;
European Affairs, 1
’fifties: archive, 1; Stanford, 1, 2, 3;
Feldman, 1;
lost notebooks of juvenilia, 1;
illness, 1, 2, 3;
Greene’s generosity, 1, 2;
becoming known, 1, 2;
love of writing, 1;
part-time work, 1, 2, 3, 4;
living accommodation, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6;
first project with Stanford, 1;
earnings, 1, 2;
writing, 1, 2;
free days, 1;
move in literature, 1;
Observer short story competition, 1;
expenditure of Observer competition winnings, 1;
poverty, 1;
food, 1;
Brontë letters, 1;
Blunden, 1;
edits Newman’s letters, 1;
Roman Catholicism, 1;
reviews The Confidential Clerk, 1;
and Eliot, 1;
hallucinations, 1;
considers process of novel-writing, 1;
Paris, 1;
writes full time, 1;
financial stability, 1
Spark, (Dame) Muriel: works critical-biography: Child of Light, 1, 2; Mary Shelley, 1, 2, 3
essay: ‘The Poet’s House’, 1
literary criticism: John Masefield, 1; (ed. with Stanford) Tribute to Wordsworth, 1
novels: A Far Cry from Kensington, 1, 2; Loitering With Intent, 1, 2;
Memento Mori, 1;
Robinson, 1, 2;
The Comforters, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6;
The Girls of Slender Means, 1;
The Hothouse by the East River, 1;
The Only Problem, 1;
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
poetry: The Fanfarlo and Other Verse, 1; ‘The Gallop’, 1;
‘The Go-Away Bird’, 1
radio-play: The Dry River Bed, 1
stories: ‘Bang-Bang You’re Dead’, 1; ‘The Curtain Blown by the Breeze’, 1;
‘The Gentile Jewesses’, 1;
‘The Go-Away Bird’, 1;
‘The House of the Famous Poet’, 1;
‘The Pawnbroker’s Wife’, 1;
‘The Portobello Road’, 1, 2;
‘The Seraph and the Zambesi’, 1, 2
Spark, Robin: family photographs, 1; great-grandmother’s gravestone, 1;
birth, 1;
Gwelo, 1, 2;
nanny, 1;
cinema, 1;
and grandparents, 1, 2;
in Edinburgh from Africa, 1;
prep school, 1;
father’s objections, 1;
and Sergeant, 1;
chooses Judaism, 1
Spark, Sydney Oswald: M becomes engaged to, 1, 2; mental problems, 1;
flowers for M, 1, 2, 3;
suggests abortion, 1;
violence, 1, 2, 3;
nervous disorder, 1;
joins Army, 1;
divorce, 1;
in hospital, 1
Spence, Lewis, 1
Stanford, Derek: M’s literary partner, 1, 2, 3; letters to M, 1, 2;
health, 1, 2;
personality, 1;
sells M’s letters, 1;
inaccuracy, 1;
writings about M, 1;
and Greene, 1, 2;
editorial work with M, 1, 2;
uses M’s address, 1;
walks with M, 1;
and Toynbee, 1;
M’s story-writing, 1
Stauffenberg, Claus, Graf von, 1
Steinbeck, John, 1
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1, 2
Stewart, Daniel, 1
Stopes, Marie, 1, 2
Strachan, Tony, 1 passim, 1
Sugarman, Rose, 1
Tate, Allen, 1
Tate, Mr (maths teacher), 1
Taylor, Mrs G.S., 1
Thatcher, Dr, 1
Todd, William, 1
Tovey, (Sir) Donald Francis, 1
Toynbee, Philip, 1
Uezzell, Adelaide: sufragette movement, 1, 2; maxims, 1;
Watford, 1;
high-spirited, 1;
keeps shop, 1;
privy, 1;
parlance, 1;
and husband, 1;
death, 1, 2;
parents, 1;
living with Cambergs, 1 passim;
clothes, 1;
and M, 1;
strokes, 1, 2;
panic, 1
Uezzell, Alex, 1
Uezzell, Bessie, 1
Uezzell, Harry, 1
Uezzell, Martin, 1
Uezzell, Nancy, 1
Uezzell, Phil, 1, 2
Uezzell, Sally, 1
Uezzell, Tom: Watford, 1; red-head, 1, 2;
clothes, 1;
and wife, 1;
M and, 1, 2;
parlance, 1;
disapproval of his marriage, 1;
fruit and vegetables, 1;
death, 1
Vance, Elizabeth, 1, 2, 3
Violet, M’s cousin, see Caro, Violet Wade, Richard, 1
Walshe, Teresa, 1
Watford: holidays, 1 passim; Uezzell corn dealers, 1;
M and her grandfather, 1;
M revisits, 1;
Uezzell great-aunts, 1;
fair, 1;
fruit-picking, 1;
fancy-dress party, 1;
suffragettes, 1
Watson, George, 1
Watt, James, 1
Waugh, Auberon, 1
Waugh, Evelyn, 1, 2
Wavell, 1st Earl, 1
Webb, Mary, 1
Whittome, Anthony, 1, 2
Wishart, Mr (singing master), 1
Wright, Billy, 1
Wright, Mary, 1
York, University of, 1
Zimbabwe, see Spark, (Dame) Muriel: life: Southern Rhodesia
Bernard Camberg, Muriel’s father
Adelaide Uezzell, Muriel’s grandmother
Watford: the shop of all sorts
Muriel’s grandfather, Tom Uezzell, her mother (Cissy) and goat
Philip Camberg, Muriel’s brother
The soprano upstairs
Charlotte Rule (née Brodie)
Part of Muriel’s juvenilia
James Gillespie’s Girls’ School, Junior Class, 1930: Muriel Camberg (Spark), 3rd row, 2nd from right; Frances Niven (Cowell), 3rd row, 3rd from right; Miss Christina Kay, centre
Muriel aged 10
The Windsor Castle
Muriel in Bulawayo
The Victoria Falls
Muriel with her son, Robin
Esther, Robin’s nanny
Marie Bonaparte (Princess George of Greece)
Muriel aged 29
Robin Spark
Sarah Camberg (Cissy), Muriel’s mother
Bernard Camberg (Barney), Muriel’s father
Christmas Humphreys (Toby)
Sefton Delmer
Dr Marie Stopes
Graham Greene
Allington Castle; a Carmelite retreat
Muriel with Tiny Lazzari
Alan Maclean
Bluebell
About the Author
MURIEL SPARK was born in Edinburgh in 1918. After some years living in Africa, she returned to England, where she edited Poetry Review from 1947 to 1949 and published her first volume of poems, The Fanfarlo, in 1952. After working for some years in London and New York, she eventually made her home in Italy. Her many novels include Memento Mori (1959), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), The Girls of Slender Means (1963), The Abbess of Crewe (1974), A Far Cry from Kensington (1988) and The Finishing School (2004). She also wrote plays, children’s books and biographies of Mary Shelley, Emily Brontë and John Masefield. Her short stories were collected in 1967, 1985 and 2001, and her Collected Poems appeared in 1967. Among many other awards, she received the Italia Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Saltire Prize, the David Cohen British Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime’s literary achievement and the Golden Pen Award from International PEN. Dame Muriel was elected an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1978, made Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres (France) in 1996 and awarded a DBE in 1993. She died in 2006.
ELAINE FEINSTEIN was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. Since 1980, when she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she has lived as a full-time writer. She has written fourteen novels, many radio plays, television dramas, and five biographies, including the critically acclaimed A Captive Lion: the Life of Marina Tsvetaeva (1987) and Pushkin (1998). Her biography Anna of all the Russias: The Life of Anna Akhmatova was published in 2005. Elaine Feinstein’s Collected Poems and Translations (Carcanet 2002) was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. Her evocation of Stalin’s Russia, The Russian Jerusalem, for which she received a major Arts Council Award, was published by Carcanet Press in 2008.
Also by Muriel Spark from Carcanet Press
All the Poems
Copyright
Every effort has been made by the publisher to reproduce the formatting of the original print edition in electronic format. However, formatting may change according to reading device and font size.
First published in Great Britain in 1992 by Constable and Company Ltd
This edition first published in paperback in 2009 by Carcanet Press Ltd, Alliance House, 30 Cross Street, Manchester M2 7AQ
This ebook edition first published in 2014 by Carcanet Press Ltd, Alliance House, 30 Cross Street, Manchester M2 7AQ
Copyright © 1992 Copyright Administration Ltd
Preface copyright © Elaine Feinstein 2009
Portions of this book originally appeared in The New Yorker
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Epub ISBN 978–1–78410–091–9
Mobi ISBN 978–1–78410–092–6
Pdf ISBN 978–1–78410–093–3
The publisher acknowledges financial assistance from Arts Council England
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