Authors: Muriel Spark

The Takeover (29 page)

BOOK: The Takeover

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Pages from Spark’s notebook from her science class in 1932. Her sketch of a siphon barometer is prominently featured.

Spark with her son, Robin, before she returned to Britain from Africa in 1944.

A London identity card of Spark’s from 1945–1950. The card indicates how many times Spark changed residences during the period following the war.

Spark’s curriculum vitae from 1953. She would continue to experience difficulties as she tried to stay afloat financially and continue writing.

Alan Maclean was beginning his career as a literary editor of Macmillan when he persuaded Spark to turn to novel writing. He would commission her first novel and subsequently published fourteen more.

A certificate, signed by Queen Elizabeth II, signifying Spark’s appointment as a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1993.

Spark’s desk at her home in Tuscany in 2003. The photograph was taken by her friend, Scottish journalist Alan Taylor. (Included by kind permission of Alan Taylor.)

All images copyright of the Muriel Spark estate and by kind permission of the Trustees of the National Library of Scotland.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

cover design by Andrea C. Uva

978-1-4532-4506-4

This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media

180 Varick Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com