The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Crown 8vo., sea green cloth, lettered and decorated with devices in gilt to spine; in the iconic pictorial dustwrapper with a design by Victor Reinganum (unclipped, 13s 6d net to front flap); pp. [iv], 170, [ii]; a near-fine copy, some pushing to spine tips and light toning to the text block, but with no significant defects;  the very good wrapper retaining much of its original brightness, some light shelf wear to the lower panel; nicking, chipping and rubbing to spine tips and ends of folds; with a short closed 1cm tear from foot running into spine. 

First edition of this enduringly popular work which was adapted into film in 1969 starring Maggie Smith in the title role. 

Spark first began writing seriously after the end of the Second World War, and became the editor of the Poetry Review in 1947. She had published five novels by the end of 1960; The Comforters (1957); Robinson (1958); Memento Mori (1959); The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1960) and The Bachelors (1960). It was, however, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie which was ultimately the most successful. Spark took as her inspiration the character of Christina Kay, her teacher of Spark's for two years at James Gillespie's School for Girls, who had been highly influential for her as a young girl. “What filled our minds with wonder and made Christina Kay so memorable was the personal drama and poetry within which everything in her classroom happened”, Spark later wrote. The scenes of  Renaissance paintings hanging on the wall of the classroom were further inspired from real life settings, and it was Kay who encouraged Spark to become a writer. 

The work has maintained something of a cult following for its humorous and nostalgic depictions of the unconventional schoolmistress and her gaggle of pupils, known as the ‘Brodie Set’. Now considered a classic of Scottish fiction, it was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005.

This a particularly nice copy. 

SKU: 1800195