The Ballad of Peckham Rye
Written by Muriel Spark / Introduction by Ronald Frame
£9.99
636 in stock
Fiction
Reviews
The novel is wickedly funny, if cruel. I prefer it to Spark’s The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie'
Daily Mail, Best Books Ever, 2020
As I entered my teens, I developed a taste for more arch, snappy writing and discovered the joys of Muriel Spark. Wisdom and wit — ideal for an impressionable youth finding his way in the world'
Daily Mail
About the Book
A bewitching comic masterpiece, The Ballad of Peckham Rye relates the tale of one Dougal Douglas, who is taken on by a small textile firm to ‘bring vision into the lives of the workers’. A devilishly charismatic force of nature who likes nothing better than to stir things up, he takes great delight in wreaking havoc with the locals. Nervous breakdowns, sexual misdemeanours, a heart attack and murder ensue . . . This is Spark at her most ingenious.
The publishers acknowledge investment from Creative Scotland towards the publication of this book.
Supported by the Muriel Spark Society.
The Authors
Muriel Spark
Muriel Spark was born in Edinburgh in 1918. A poet, essayist, biographer and novelist, she won much international praise, including being twice shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The Times placed her eighth in its list of the Fifty Greatest British Writers Since 1945. She died in Tuscany in 2006.Ronald Frame
Ronald Frame was born in Glasgow in 1953, and educated there and at Oxford. He is the author of many works of fiction, including the Booker-longlisted The Lantern Bearers, and is an award-winning television and radio scriptwriter.Alan Taylor
Alan Taylor has contributed to numerous publications, including The TLS, The New Yorker and The Melbourne Age, and edited four acclaimed anthologies – The Assassin’s Cloak (2000), The Secret Annexe (2004), The Country Diaries (2009) and most recently, Glasgow: The Autobiography (2016).Related
-
Hardback | Pub: 10 May 2018£9.99Geneva. As a ferocious thunderstorm rages outside, behind the locked doors of the library the aristocratic Klopstocks are ‘not to be disturbed’. In the attic, Baron Klopstock’s lunatic brother rants and raves. But in the staff quarters, all is...
-
Hardback | Pub: 05 Apr 2018£9.99Lise has had enough. She’s been working in the same accountancy firm for years and so she decides to take off abroad on the holiday of a lifetime. Her quest for new experiences, sex and adventure quickly becomes a dark journey of self-destruction....
-
Hardback | Pub: 16 Nov 2017£9.99Caroline Rose has a problem. She hears voices and the incessant tapping of typewriter keys, and she seems to be a character in a novel . . . A comedy of errors, a crime novel, a book about books, Spark’s debut remains as otherworldly and...
-
Hardback | Pub: 14 Dec 2017£9.99After young publishing assistant and war widow Mrs Hawkins crosses swords with writer Hector Bartlett the repercussions are swift. Set in postwar literary London, A Far Cry from Kensington is a mischievous and stylish tale of the cost of telling the...
