The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
- 6 Aug 2015
- 9781782117698
- £5.59
- 176 pp
- 12 Jan 2012
- 9780857863089
- £19.99
- 4 hrs 30 min
In a few words
‘Muriel Spark’s novels linger in the mind as brilliant shards, decisive as a smashed glass is decisive’ John Updike
Muriel Spark’s most famous novel, now available as an ebook
In a few words
Muriel Spark’s most famous novel newly recorded for audio
A brilliantly psychological fugue
Muriel Spark's most celebrated novel . . . This ruthlessly and destructively romantic school ma'am is one of the giants of post-war fiction
A brilliantly psychological fugue
Muriel Spark's most celebrated novel . . . This ruthlessly and destructively romantic school ma'am is one of the giants of post-war fiction
More about
the book
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is Muriel Spark’s most significant and celebrated novel, and remains as dazzling as when it was first published in 1961.
Miss Jean Brodie is a teacher unlike any other, proud and cultured, enigmatic and freethinking; a romantic, with progressive, sometimes shocking ideas and aspirations for the girls in her charge. At the Marcia Blaine Academy she takes a select group of girls under her wing. Spellbound by Miss Brodie’s unconventional teaching, these devoted pupils form the Brodie set. But as the girls enter their teenage years and they become increasingly drawn in by Miss Brodie’s personal life, her ambitions for them take a startling and dark turn with devastating consequences.
More about
the book
“You girls are my vocation . . . I am dedicated to you in my prime”
So says Miss Jean Brodie, a teacher unlike any other. She is proud and cultured. A romantic, with progressive, sometimes shocking ideas and aspirations for the girls in her charge. When she decides to transform a select group of pupils into the ‘crème de la crème’ at the Marcia Blaine School they become the Brodie set. In exchange for their undivided loyalty the girls earn a special place of honour and privilege within the school. Yet they are also introduced to a startling new world of adult games and intrigues, and as boundaries are crossed so the difficulties start to unfold.
The reader is Miriam Margolyes, one of Britain’s finest character actors and an accomplished narrator.
Spark is a natural, a paradigm of that rare sort of artist from whom work of the highest quality flows as elementally as current through a circuit: hook her to a pen and the juice purls out of her
My admiration for Spark's contribution to world literature knows no bounds. She was peerless, sparkling, inventive and intelligent - the crème de la crème
Ian Rankin
Muriel Spark's novels linger in the mind as brilliant shards, decisive as a smashed glass is decisive
John Updike
A masterpiece of novelistic technique, and my first time reading it was like a new vista opening up
Zadie Smith
Spark is a natural, a paradigm of that rare sort of artist from whom work of the highest quality flows as elementally as current through a circuit: hook her to a pen and the juice purls out of her
My admiration for Spark's contribution to world literature knows no bounds. She was peerless, sparkling, inventive and intelligent - the crème de la crème
Ian Rankin
Muriel Spark's novels linger in the mind as brilliant shards, decisive as a smashed glass is decisive
John Updike
A masterpiece of novelistic technique, and my first time reading it was like a new vista opening up
Zadie Smith
Muriel Spark
View profileMuriel Spark, DBE, C.Litt., was born in Edinburgh in 1918 and educated in Scotland. A poet and novelist, she is most well known for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. She also wrote children’s books, radio plays, the comedy Doctors of Philosophy and biographies of nineteenth-century literary figures, including Mary Shelley and Emily Brontë. Muriel Spark has garnered international praise and many awards, including the David Cohen Prize for Literature, the Ingersoll T.S. Eliot Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Boccaccio Prize for European Literature, the Gold Pen Award, the first Enlightenment Award and the Italia Prize for dramatic radio. She died in 2006.
Muriel Spark
View profileMuriel Spark, DBE, C.Litt., was born in Edinburgh in 1918 and educated in Scotland. A poet and novelist, she also wrote children’s books, radio plays, a comedy Doctors of Philosophy, (first performed in London in 1962 and published 1963) and biographies of nineteenth-century literary figures, including Mary Shelley and Emily Brontë.
For her long career of literary achievement, which began in 1951, Muriel Spark garnered international praise and many awards, which include the first Enlightenment Award and the Italia Prize for dramatic radio. She died in 2006.
