A wholly original presence in modern literature
- ANDREW MOTION,
Muriel Spark's novels linger in the mind as brilliant shards, decisive as a smashed glass is decisive
- JOHN UPDIKE, * New Yorker *
I am dazzled by <i>The Bachelors. </i>It is the cleverest and most elegant of all Mrs Spark's clever and elegant books
- EVELYN WAUGH,
She has a receptive and wholly distinctive genius
- A N WILSON, * Spectator *
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,
A profoundly serious comic writer whose wit advances, never undermines or diminishes, her ideas
* New York Times Book Review *
The care with which she uses words is matched by a gloriously carefree attitude. It's all part of her sanity, her breezy authorial self-confidence; and because of this I think that reading a blast of her prose every morning is a far more restorative way to start a day than a shot of espresso
* Daily Telegraph *
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
* New Yorker *
It's easy to see why Waugh admired <i>The Bachelors</i>. But the comedy here is serious in a way that Waugh's satanically energetic comedies of misery rarely are . . . comedies of English manners have rarely been darker
* Daily Telegraph *