The first volume of the letters of Muriel Spark, one of the most fascinating and well-loved writers of the twentieth century. In 1944, on her return to England after a disastrous marriage in Southern Rhodesia, Muriel Spark was unknown as a writer except to a handful of close friends; by 1963 she was the internationally renowned author of seven critically acclaimed, bestselling novels. Her letters - witty, affectionate, acid-tongued, mercurial - reveal the turbulence of her early career in postwar London: her struggles to earn a living as a writer, her difficult relationships with Howard Sergeant and Derek Stanford, her terrifying breakdown, and her conversion to Catholicism. They also trace her development from tentative poet to acclaimed novelist, with glittering insights into the emergence of her unique literary voice, as well as her relationships with friends, lovers, writers and publishers. Selected from her extensive correspondence and insightfully edited and annotated, this is an essential read for anyone interested in Spark's work and world.