{"product_id":"girls-of-slender-means","title":"Girls Of Slender Means","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eBeautifully packaged reissue of one of Muriel Spark''s best loved novels, \u003ci\u003eThe Girls of Slender Means\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e''Long ago in 1945 all the nice people in England were poor, allowing for exceptions''\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the May of Teck Club - a London hostel ''three times window shattered since 1940 but never directly hit'' - the young lady residents do their best to act as if the war never happened. They practice elocution, and jostle one another over suitors and a single Schiaparelli gown. But behind the girls'' giddy literary and amorous peregrinations they hide some tragically painful secrets and wounds.\u003ci\u003e''You girls are my vocation . . . I am dedicated to you in my prime''\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''Reading the novel as a young woman was a random gift; rereading it today is to encounter the rarest of fiction and to appreciate the early and enduring genius of Muriel Spark''  Carol Shields, \u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''One of Spark''s most evocative novels''  Anne Taylor\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMuriel Spark was born and educated in Edinburgh. She was active in the field of creative writing since 1950, when she won a short-story writing competition in the Observer, and her many subsequent novels include \u003ci\u003eMemento Mori\u003c\/i\u003e (1959), \u003ci\u003eThe Ballad of Peckham Rye\u003c\/i\u003e (1960), \u003ci\u003eThe Prime of Miss Jean Brodie \u003c\/i\u003e(1961), \u003ci\u003eThe Girls of Slender Means\u003c\/i\u003e (1963) and \u003ci\u003eAiding and Abetting\u003c\/i\u003e (2000). She also wrote plays, poems, children''s books and biographies. She became Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1993, and died in 2006.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MediaPlace","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57549846839678,"sku":"NW9780241963999","price":9.65,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1379\/1261\/files\/9780241963999.jpg?v=1781533516","url":"https:\/\/mediaplace.com\/products\/girls-of-slender-means","provider":"MediaPlace","version":"1.0","type":"link"}