The Comforters
Macmillan, 1957.
First edition. Original blue cloth lettered in gilt in pictorial dustwrapper designed by Victor Reinganum. Author's presentation copy, inscribed on publication to fellow novelist and close friend, Tony Strachan, "For Tony Strachan with gratitude and happy greetings from Muriel Spark. April 1957." A fine copy in a near fine dustwrapper with just a trace of wear to the spine ends.
Spark's first novel inscribed to the man who encouraged her to write it, and who then found a publisher for it. Tony Strachan first met Spark in 1952 when he came to work for the Falcon Press, where Spark had been working for a year. He was to become "a lifelong friend" (Spark - Curriculum Vitae) and, having written five novels, encouraged her to do the same.
"Tony had always begged me to give up working on literary criticism and biographies... He positively nagged me about the waste of my talent, and in fact, only a few years later it was Tony Strachan who persuaded Macmillan and their editor, Alan Maclean, to commission a novel from me." (Spark - Curriculum Vitae)
In an article in The Scotsman in 2010, shortly before his death, Strachan says,
"I don't want to be presumptuous... I suppose if it hadn't been for me there wouldn't be a Muriel Spark the novelist...".
Presentation copies of Spark's early work are rather uncommon.
Stock ID: 36766
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