From beyond the grave, novelist Muriel Spark vetoes revelatory biography
In her lifetime, the novelist Dame Muriel Spark's own story was one of intrigue, punctuated with family estrangements, a bitter divorce and enigmatic relationships. In death, it seems, she has left another untold story.
A long-awaited biography of the distinguished author [by Martin Stannard of the University of Leicester] will not be published for at least another two years, it can be revealed, and may never appear at all.
Dame Muriel, probably best known for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, found fault with the biography, in particular revelations about her private life, and withheld permission for it to be published.
Now, from beyond the grave, she has made sure its publication is still not assured. Her lifelong companion, the artist Penelope Jardine, to whom Dame Muriel controversially left her £3 million estate, has right of approval and she, too, is apparently concerned that the biography does not depict the "true story" of the novelist's life...
Dame Muriel, 88, died last year in Italy where she had shared a Tuscan farmhouse with Miss Jardine for 40 years. She always denied suggestions that they had a lesbian relationship, preferring to describe her feelings for the artist as "old-fashioned friendship"...
Ion Trewin, at Stannard's publisher, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, revealed that publication had once again been postponed, claiming the biography would be available in 2009. But Stannard himself is less optimistic, merely saying that it will"probably" be published. He insists that Dame Muriel never told him that she disliked what he had written about her family or her private life."No objective biographer, however, could omit such a discussion," he said.
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A long-awaited biography of the distinguished author [by Martin Stannard of the University of Leicester] will not be published for at least another two years, it can be revealed, and may never appear at all.
Dame Muriel, probably best known for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, found fault with the biography, in particular revelations about her private life, and withheld permission for it to be published.
Now, from beyond the grave, she has made sure its publication is still not assured. Her lifelong companion, the artist Penelope Jardine, to whom Dame Muriel controversially left her £3 million estate, has right of approval and she, too, is apparently concerned that the biography does not depict the "true story" of the novelist's life...
Dame Muriel, 88, died last year in Italy where she had shared a Tuscan farmhouse with Miss Jardine for 40 years. She always denied suggestions that they had a lesbian relationship, preferring to describe her feelings for the artist as "old-fashioned friendship"...
Ion Trewin, at Stannard's publisher, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, revealed that publication had once again been postponed, claiming the biography would be available in 2009. But Stannard himself is less optimistic, merely saying that it will"probably" be published. He insists that Dame Muriel never told him that she disliked what he had written about her family or her private life."No objective biographer, however, could omit such a discussion," he said.