Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark - Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2025

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Frances Wilson

Electric Spark

The Enigma of Muriel Spark - Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2025

Frances Wilson

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Hardback

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English

Bloomsbury
30 September 2025

Biography; Biography: arts & entertainment; Biography: literary; Literary studies: from c 1900 -

'Absolutely mesmerising. I was possessed by this book in the same way that I suspect its author was possessed by Spark. It still hasn’t put me down' Spectator '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.

By: Frances Wilson
Imprint: Bloomsbury
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 238mm, Width: 164mm, Spine: 38mm
Weight: 660g
ISBN: 9781526663030
ISBN 10: 1526663031
Pages: 432
Publication Date: 30 September 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Frances Wilson is a critic, journalist and the author of six works of non-fiction, including The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay, which won the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography; Guilty Thing: A Life of Thomas de Quincey, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize; and Burning Man: The Ascent of D.H. Lawrence, which won the Plutarch Award, was shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize and the James Tait Black Award and was longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize.

Reviews for Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark - Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2025

A brilliant, wonderfully shrewd biography, expertly illuminating the most elusive and shape-shifting subject that is Muriel Spark -- WILLIAM BOYD Treachery, lies, fantasy, God, everlastingly unsatisfactory sexual relationships . . . This miraculous narrative unravels the creative process of a brilliant novelist -- A. N. WILSON A fascinating new biography, which focuses on the writer’s early years in the 1940s and 1950s -- Lucy Thynne * Telegraph, Best Books of 2025 * 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 * Guardian, The Books to Look Forward to in 2025 * 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” * Financial Times, What to Read in 2025 * A writer’s writer who will no doubt inspire her own cult following -- AMANDA FOREMAN The most original voice in life-writing today -- LUCASTA MILLER