Muriel Spark's Study in Italy

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie...

...will be showing at Filmhouse on Friday 30 December (15:45) and Sunday I January (18:30) as part of a short season of films set in and around Edinburgh.    Phone 0131 228 2688 or go online for more details.  

And as the New York Times  (who quite astonishingly seem to have a direct link to what's going on in Edinburgh) says - "Maggie Smith's Oscar winning turn in the 1969 film is the perfect aperitif for a new season of the Dowager Countess's Downton Abbey quips."

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Annual Lecture at the National Library of Scotland




Just a reminder that this year's annual lecture at NLS, Tall Tales and Stilettos:  Muriel Spark's Short Stories given by Professor Willy Maley,  is on Wednesday 16 November - for information and booking details, please see previous post...

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

World Book Night 2011 and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

In Spring this year, 20,000 people gave away 1 million specially printed books - 40,000 copies of 25 wonderful titles. These 25 books were thematically, chronologically and internationally wide ranging... from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark to Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez to The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid and included collections of poetry by Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy.

The voting for books to be considered for World Book Night 2012 has closed but you can still register your favourite books on the site - www.worldbooknight.org - and it's interesting to look over the books that people have voted for this year.

Thursday, September 01, 2011

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Discuss!

Joyce Caplan will lead a discussion on The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at the Scottish Arts Club in Rutland Square from 7 - 9 pm on Tuesday 25 October 2011. If you would like to attend, please just come along - and if you could arrive precisely between 6.45 and 7 pm it would be much appreciated.

Monday, August 08, 2011

Just published!...

...by Canongate on 4 August - The Complete Short Stories by Muriel Spark which includes The Girl I Left Behind Me printed by The Telegraph last Saturday - 6 August.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Annual Muriel Spark Society Lecture

16 November 2011, 6 pm at the National Library of Scotland

Free 
Book online or phone 0131 623 3918

Tall Tales and Stilettos: Muriel Spark’s Short Stories
 
Professor Willy Maley, University of Glasgow

Known chiefly as a novelist, Muriel Spark was a gifted short story writer. She once remarked: “I treat the supernatural as if it was part of natural history. If I write a ghost story it wouldn’t come under the heading of ghost story necessarily because I treat it as if it was a natural thing”. This natural approach to the supernatural gives her most far-fetched stories a deadly sharpness.


Willy Maley is Professor of Renaissance Studies at the University of Glasgow. He is the author of Muriel Spark for Starters (Capercaillie Books, 2008), and co-editor, with Michael Gardiner, The Edinburgh Companion to Muriel Spark (Edinburgh University Press, 2010),

Friday, July 08, 2011

Out of a Book




Published under the author's real name, Muriel Camberg, this poem won the trophy presented by the Heather Club to commemorate the centenary of the death of Sir Walter Scott. Muriel Spark was fifteen years old at the time and attending the James Gillespie's High School for Girls.
(Click on poem for magnification)

With thanks to Edinburgh University Library for permission to post this image.

Members' News

A lunch to commemmorate Muriel Spark's Birthday on February 1st is held on the Sunday nearest to that date at the Bruntsfield Hotel. This is only open to members and their guests. Not only do we enjoy a delicious lunch but a fiendish quiz on one of her novels is served up to us.

The AGM is held each June. We invite well-known writers to be our guest and to engage in a question and answer session with members.

In November the annual Muriel Spark Society Lecture is given at the National Library of Scotland. These lectures always sell out weeks before the event because it is open to the public but Spark Society members have priority booking. Speakers are always prestigious writers or academics and have included Martin Stannard, Alan Taylor, Denise Mina and Toby Litt.

Three times a year we organise discussions on one of her novels. In March the book under discussion is 'The Abbess of Crewe'.

Further details of all these events are sent to our members.

NLS Archive pages www.nls.uk/murielspark