 First edition | |
| Author | Muriel Spark |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Susan Sluglett |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Constable (UK) Houghton Mifflin (US) |
Publication date | 1990 |
| Media type | Print & Audio |
| Pages | 192 |
| ISBN | 0-09-469660-8 |
Symposium is a novel by Scottish author Muriel Spark, published in 1990. John Mortimer, writing in The Sunday Times, regarded it as one of the best novels of that year. [1]
It is the story of a dinner party and the events leading up to it involving the lives of the five couples attending:
The story includes many flashbacks into the lives of the guests including a convent of Marxist nuns, a burglary ring preying on the guests, a mad Scottish uncle and several unexplained deaths. The dinner party itself ends with the murder of the mother of one of the guests.
A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often feature food and beverages, and often conversation, music, dancing, or other forms of entertainment.
Dinner usually refers to what is in many Western cultures the biggest and most formal meal of the day. Historically, the largest meal used to be eaten around midday, and called dinner. Especially among the elite, it gradually migrated to later in the day over the 16th to 19th centuries. The word has different meanings depending on culture, and may mean a meal of any size eaten at any time of day. In particular, it is still sometimes used for a meal at noon or in the early afternoon on special occasions, such as a Christmas dinner. In hot climates, the main meal is more likely to be eaten in the evening, after the temperature has fallen.
Cards on the Table is a detective fiction novel by the English author Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 2 November 1936 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $2.00.
Dame Muriel Sarah Spark was a Scottish novelist, short story writer, poet and essayist.
"The Dead" is the final short story in the 1914 collection Dubliners by James Joyce. It is by far the longest story in the collection and, at 15,952 words, is almost long enough to be described as a novella. The story deals with themes of love and loss, as well as raising questions about the nature of the Irish identity.
Three Act Tragedy is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1934 under the title Murder in Three Acts and in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in January 1935 under Christie's original title. The US edition retailed at $2.00 and the UK edition at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6).
Muriel Janet Gray FRSE is a Scottish author, broadcaster and journalist. She came to public notice as an interviewer on Channel 4's alternative pop-show The Tube, and then appeared as a regular presenter on BBC radio. Gray has written for Time Out, the Sunday Herald and The Guardian, among other publications, as well as publishing successful horror novels. She was the first woman to have been Rector of the University of Edinburgh and is the first female chair of the board of governors at Glasgow School of Art.
Allan Johnstone Massie is a Scottish journalist, columnist, sports writer and novelist. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He has lived in the Scottish Borders for the last 25 years, and now lives in Selkirk.
Nathan Englander is an American short story writer and novelist. His debut short story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, was published by Alfred A. Knopf, in 1999. His second collection, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, won the 2012 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
The Ballad of Peckham Rye is a novel written in 1960 by the British author Muriel Spark.
Hotel World is a novel written by Ali Smith. It won both the Scottish Arts Council Book Award (2001) and the Encore Award (2002).
Muriel is a feminine given name in the English language.
The Takeover is a novel by the Scottish author Muriel Spark. It was first published in 1976.
The Comforters is the first novel by Scottish author Muriel Spark. She drew on experiences as a recent convert to Catholicism and having suffered hallucinations due to using Dexedrine, an amphetamine then available over the counter for dieting. Although completed in late 1955, the book was not published until 1957. A mutual friend, novelist Alan Barnsley, had sent the proofs to Evelyn Waugh. At the time Waugh was writing The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold, which dealt with his own drug-induced hallucinations.
Reality and Dreams is a novel by Scottish author Muriel Spark, published in 1996. It was identified by the New York Times Book Review as one of the notable books of 1997.
The Great Impersonation is a 1942 American thriller film directed by John Rawlins and starring Ralph Bellamy, Evelyn Ankers and Aubrey Mather. It is an adaptation of the 1920 novel The Great Impersonation by Edward Phillips Oppenheim with the setting moved from the early 1910s of the novel to the Second World War. It was made by Universal Pictures and was a remake of their 1935 film of the same name.
There But For The is a 2011 novel by Scottish author Ali Smith, first published in the UK by Hamish Hamilton and in the US by Pantheon, and set in 2009 and 2010 in Greenwich, London. It was cited by both The Guardian book review and the Publishers Weekly as one of the best books of the year. and was also longlisted for the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction.
Christina Kay was a Scottish school teacher and served as an inspiration for Miss Jean Brodie, the leading character in the novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark.
The Hothouse by the East River is a novel by Scottish author Muriel Spark published in 1973. The main two settings of the novel both reflect the author's life where she lived in Manhattan and where she worked in a POW camp in Britain in World War II.
Robinson is the second novel by Muriel Spark, first published by Macmillan in 1958 and in the US by Lippincott, and is unusual within her body of work in being written in the first person. The novel is set in 1954 and begins with 29 people on a plane bound for Azores and then Lisbon that crashes on a remote island in the North Atlantic, killing all the crew and most of the passengers. The narrator, January Marlow, and two other survivors, are nursed by Robinson, a mysterious loner already in residence on the island. As the novel progresses, their physical health returns, but the mental health of the characters is tested by the extreme circumstances. For rescue, they await the coming of the boat that will collect the pomegranate crop, the first contact with civilisation since their disappearance. A young boy called Miguel and a cat called Bluebell flesh out the cast list.