Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark - Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2025
Autor Frances Wilsonen Limba Engleză Paperback – 9 apr 2026
'Unputdownable' Financial Times
'Joyously, brilliantly intelligent. In Wilson, Spark has met her true match' Anne Enright
From one of our leading biographers and critics comes an exhilarating, landmark new look at Muriel Spark.
The word most commonly used to describe Muriel Spark is 'puzzling'. Spark was a puzzle, and so too are her books. She dealt in word games, tricks, and ciphers; her life was composed of weird accidents, strange coincidences and spooky events. Evelyn Waugh thought she was a saint, Bernard Levin said she was a witch, and she described herself as 'Muriel the Marvel with her X-ray eyes'. Following the clues, riddles, and instructions Spark planted for posterity in her biographies, fiction, autobiography and archives, Frances Wilson aims to crack her code.
Electric Spark explores not the celebrated Dame Muriel but the apprentice mage discovering her powers. We return to her early years when everything was piled on: divorce, madness, murder, espionage, poverty, skulduggery, blackmail, love affairs, revenge, and a major religious conversion. If this sounds like a novel by Muriel Spark it is because the experiences of the 1940s and 1950s became, alchemically reduced, the material of her art.
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9781526663078
ISBN-10: 1526663074
Pagini: 432
Dimensiuni: 129 x 198 mm
Editura: Bloomsbury Publishing
Colecția Bloomsbury Publishing
Locul publicării:London, United Kingdom
ISBN-10: 1526663074
Pagini: 432
Dimensiuni: 129 x 198 mm
Editura: Bloomsbury Publishing
Colecția Bloomsbury Publishing
Locul publicării:London, United Kingdom
Recenzii
Remarkable: an entirely original method of life writing which leaves conventional biographical techniques gasping in the dust
Wilson is not any old biographer. Her books are intense, eclectic and wildly diversionary, her intelligence rising from their pages like steam - and in Spark, the cleverest and the weirdest of them all, she may have found her ultimate subject
I raced through Frances Wilson's whip-smart Electric Spark
I've always enjoyed Muriel Spark's droll wit, and there is plenty on offer in Frances Wilson's biography of the author . . . Wilson expertly dissects the author's writing . . . A welcome reminder to return to a gloriously talented novelist
So original and engaging . . . The result of this blend of existing sources and fresh archival finds is an unputdownable and "electric" perspective on the extraordinary talent and life that together forged Spark's fiction . . . A fabulous achievement, in more than one sense
Admiring yet sceptical . . . A dynamic and dizzying weave of early struggles and future success
A new biography of the singular writer examines her life up until the publication of her first novel at the age of 39, shedding light on her abusive marriage, the "abandonment" of her son, and her religious conversion
In a new biography of the great 20th-century author, known best for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Frances Wilson reveals that Spark had a life almost as strange and offbeat as her novels. A woman with a brilliant, uncanny mind
Electric Spark is a darting, innovative example of the form - perhaps more Ouija board than book . . . Electric Spark illuminates a weirder, more wayward writer than I ever grasped . . . [Wilson's] own surveillance is through a magnifying glass and her book is a fire-starter
A fitting tribute to a writer who found comedy in the blackest corners . . . Frances Wilson's sly, unsentimental biography hews closely to its subject's spirit . . . Wilson triumphs in animating the bonkers world that inspired Spark's fiction - equal parts daffy and disturbing, packed with demented grandmothers and pompous poets
A multi-faceted study of the writer through her work . . . Spark adored puzzles and games, and would surely have welcomed this approach. Not only because Wilson follows the clues with such intelligence and respect, but also because she shares the novelist's scholarly knowledge of nineteenth-century literature . . . The story of Spark's remarkable life proceeds with pace and wit . . . Mysteries remain. One is about the spying, the other concerns a story Spark told in her memoir about the murder of a Scottish woman she knew in Africa while she was staying at the same hotel. Wilson can find no record of this woman ever having existed. But these puzzles only add to the mystique of the writer, who is otherwise revealed here in a startlingly original way
Biography, then - which Frances Wilson attempts in this beautifully written book - is the closest readers can get to Spark . . . "Sparkian" has not entered common parlance but, by the time you finish this brilliant book, you think it probably should
An original and engaging exploration of the making of an exceptional yet enigmatic literary figure
A canny biography of the early career of this strange, brilliant novelist
Wilson shows real perception and understanding of her subject - more than can be found in any other critical book published so far . . . Atmospheric and compelling
A deeply intelligent, captivating and passionate work that reminds us of everything a literary biography can and should be
A brilliant literary critic and chronicler turns her sharp-eyed attention to the life and works of Muriel Spark, a writer of odd and compelling genius herself. Sure to be one of the most compelling biographies of the year, if not decade
In [Electric Spark], Frances Wilson revels in her sublimely contrary subject . . . Wilson borrows Spark's own mystical whimsy about the relationship between her life and her work
Wilson's investigation into this part of Spark's career provides plenty of drama, both high and petty
Wilson takes Spark at her word here, mining several of the novels and short stories for clues about the person. The result is illuminating and diverting, though in the end the subject remains satisfyingly elusive . . . Beautifully drawn out . . . Insightful
Pitch-perfect biography
A new, rich and well-researched biography by Frances Wilson . . . Illuminating and enjoyable
Wilson is full of brilliant apercus . . . giving you the lowdown on this very grand but also moving master of creating fiction
So elegant . . . shot through with the coincidences that Spark felt defined her life . . . Wilson's triumph is to accept the idea that while the life inspired the work, the work created the life . . . Playful and sympathetic but does not sink into sentimentality . . . Muriel trips through its pages, and it is not difficult to believe she guided Wilson's hand
Awe-inspiring . . . Provides excellent accounts of Spark's episode of Dexedrine-driven mental illness, and also of her subsequent conversion to Catholicism
A brilliant, wonderfully shrewd biography, expertly illuminating the most elusive and shape-shifting subject that is Muriel Spark
Treachery, lies, fantasy, God, everlastingly unsatisfactory sexual relationships . . . This miraculous narrative unravels the creative process of a brilliant novelist
A joyously, brilliantly intelligent work of biography. In Wilson, Spark has met her true match
A pitch-perfect, electrifying symphony - reconfirming Wilson's pre-eminence as Maestra of British literary biography
A fascinating new biography, which focuses on the writer's early years in the 1940s and 1950s
The biographer of D. H. Lawrence and Thomas De Quincey returns to decode the life of the enigmatic novelist and short story writer, focusing on her turbulent 20s and 30s
Dame Muriel's life was composed of weird accidents, strange coincidences and spooky events that influenced her writing. In this biography, Wilson sets out to solve the puzzle of "Muriel the Marvel with her X-ray eyes"
A writer's writer who will no doubt inspire her own cult following
The most original voice in life-writing today
Wilson is not any old biographer. Her books are intense, eclectic and wildly diversionary, her intelligence rising from their pages like steam - and in Spark, the cleverest and the weirdest of them all, she may have found her ultimate subject
I raced through Frances Wilson's whip-smart Electric Spark
I've always enjoyed Muriel Spark's droll wit, and there is plenty on offer in Frances Wilson's biography of the author . . . Wilson expertly dissects the author's writing . . . A welcome reminder to return to a gloriously talented novelist
So original and engaging . . . The result of this blend of existing sources and fresh archival finds is an unputdownable and "electric" perspective on the extraordinary talent and life that together forged Spark's fiction . . . A fabulous achievement, in more than one sense
Admiring yet sceptical . . . A dynamic and dizzying weave of early struggles and future success
A new biography of the singular writer examines her life up until the publication of her first novel at the age of 39, shedding light on her abusive marriage, the "abandonment" of her son, and her religious conversion
In a new biography of the great 20th-century author, known best for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Frances Wilson reveals that Spark had a life almost as strange and offbeat as her novels. A woman with a brilliant, uncanny mind
Electric Spark is a darting, innovative example of the form - perhaps more Ouija board than book . . . Electric Spark illuminates a weirder, more wayward writer than I ever grasped . . . [Wilson's] own surveillance is through a magnifying glass and her book is a fire-starter
A fitting tribute to a writer who found comedy in the blackest corners . . . Frances Wilson's sly, unsentimental biography hews closely to its subject's spirit . . . Wilson triumphs in animating the bonkers world that inspired Spark's fiction - equal parts daffy and disturbing, packed with demented grandmothers and pompous poets
A multi-faceted study of the writer through her work . . . Spark adored puzzles and games, and would surely have welcomed this approach. Not only because Wilson follows the clues with such intelligence and respect, but also because she shares the novelist's scholarly knowledge of nineteenth-century literature . . . The story of Spark's remarkable life proceeds with pace and wit . . . Mysteries remain. One is about the spying, the other concerns a story Spark told in her memoir about the murder of a Scottish woman she knew in Africa while she was staying at the same hotel. Wilson can find no record of this woman ever having existed. But these puzzles only add to the mystique of the writer, who is otherwise revealed here in a startlingly original way
Biography, then - which Frances Wilson attempts in this beautifully written book - is the closest readers can get to Spark . . . "Sparkian" has not entered common parlance but, by the time you finish this brilliant book, you think it probably should
An original and engaging exploration of the making of an exceptional yet enigmatic literary figure
A canny biography of the early career of this strange, brilliant novelist
Wilson shows real perception and understanding of her subject - more than can be found in any other critical book published so far . . . Atmospheric and compelling
A deeply intelligent, captivating and passionate work that reminds us of everything a literary biography can and should be
A brilliant literary critic and chronicler turns her sharp-eyed attention to the life and works of Muriel Spark, a writer of odd and compelling genius herself. Sure to be one of the most compelling biographies of the year, if not decade
In [Electric Spark], Frances Wilson revels in her sublimely contrary subject . . . Wilson borrows Spark's own mystical whimsy about the relationship between her life and her work
Wilson's investigation into this part of Spark's career provides plenty of drama, both high and petty
Wilson takes Spark at her word here, mining several of the novels and short stories for clues about the person. The result is illuminating and diverting, though in the end the subject remains satisfyingly elusive . . . Beautifully drawn out . . . Insightful
Pitch-perfect biography
A new, rich and well-researched biography by Frances Wilson . . . Illuminating and enjoyable
Wilson is full of brilliant apercus . . . giving you the lowdown on this very grand but also moving master of creating fiction
So elegant . . . shot through with the coincidences that Spark felt defined her life . . . Wilson's triumph is to accept the idea that while the life inspired the work, the work created the life . . . Playful and sympathetic but does not sink into sentimentality . . . Muriel trips through its pages, and it is not difficult to believe she guided Wilson's hand
Awe-inspiring . . . Provides excellent accounts of Spark's episode of Dexedrine-driven mental illness, and also of her subsequent conversion to Catholicism
A brilliant, wonderfully shrewd biography, expertly illuminating the most elusive and shape-shifting subject that is Muriel Spark
Treachery, lies, fantasy, God, everlastingly unsatisfactory sexual relationships . . . This miraculous narrative unravels the creative process of a brilliant novelist
A joyously, brilliantly intelligent work of biography. In Wilson, Spark has met her true match
A pitch-perfect, electrifying symphony - reconfirming Wilson's pre-eminence as Maestra of British literary biography
A fascinating new biography, which focuses on the writer's early years in the 1940s and 1950s
The biographer of D. H. Lawrence and Thomas De Quincey returns to decode the life of the enigmatic novelist and short story writer, focusing on her turbulent 20s and 30s
Dame Muriel's life was composed of weird accidents, strange coincidences and spooky events that influenced her writing. In this biography, Wilson sets out to solve the puzzle of "Muriel the Marvel with her X-ray eyes"
A writer's writer who will no doubt inspire her own cult following
The most original voice in life-writing today