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Image of a book cover featuring a monochrome teal‑tinted photograph of a woman occupies most of the cover, framed within a halftone dot pattern. The woman's gaze is directed slightly upward. The title “ELECTRIC SPARK” appears in bold uppercase letters across the top, with the author’s name “FRANCES WILSON” above it in black. Below the photograph, the subtitle “THE ENIGMA OF MURIEL SPARK” is printed in large white uppercase text.

ABOUT THIS BOOK

PUBLISHER: Bloomsbury Circus

ISBN: 9781526663078

RRP: £10.99

PAGES: 432

PUBLICATION DATE:
April 9, 2026

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Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark

By Frances Wilson

From one of our leading biographers and critics comes an exhilarating, landmark new look at Muriel Spark.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION

A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR: THE TIMES/SUNDAY TIMES, GUARDIAN, TELEGRAPH, TLS, FINANCIAL TIMES, ECONOMIST, NEW STATESMAN, LONDON STANDARD AND WASHINGTON POST

Muriel Spark was a puzzle, and so too were her books. She dealt in word games, tricks and ciphers; her life was composed of weird accidents, strange coincidences and spooky events. In Electric Spark, Frances Wilson aims to finally crack her code.

We return to Spark’s 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 her experiences of the 1940s and 1950s became, alchemically reduced, the material of her art.

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Frances Wilson (Author)

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.

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