The Girls of Slender Means
  • Published:
    Nov-1970 (Hardcover)
  • Formats:
    Print / eBook / Audio
  • Main Genre:
    Traditional Regency
  • Time Period:
    1940's-1950's
  • Setting:
    England
  • Pages:
    144
  • Rating:
  • Purchase:
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"Long ago in 1945 all the nice people in England were poor, allowing for exceptions," begins The Girls of Slender Means, Dame Muriel Spark's tragic and rapier-witted portrait of a London ladies' hostel just emerging from the shadow of World War II.

Like the May of Teck Club itself -- "three times window shattered since 1940 but never directly hit" -- its lady inhabitants do their best to act as if the world were back to normal: practicing elocution, and jostling over suitors and a single Schiaparelli gown. The novel's harrowing ending reveals that the girls' giddy literary and amorous peregrinations are hiding some tragically painful war wounds.


Chosen by Anthony Burgess as one of the Best Modern Novels in the Sunday Times of London, The Girls of Slender Means is a taut and eerily perfect novel by an author The New York Times has called "one of this century's finest creators of comic-metaphysical entertainment."
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EDITIONS
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    •  
    • Jun-1975
    • Penguin (UK)
    • Trade Paperback
    • ISBN: 0140024263
    • ISBN13: 9780140024265
    •  
    • Nov-1982
    • Penguin
    • Paperback
    • ISBN: 0399506594
    • ISBN13: 9780399506598
    •  
    • Mar-1990
    • Avon
    • Paperback
    • ISBN: 0380709376
    • ISBN13: 9780380709373
    •  
    • May-1998
    • New Directions Publishing Corporation
    • Trade Paperback
    • ISBN: 081121379X
    • ISBN13: 9780811213790
    •  
    • Jun-2013
    • Penguin (UK)
    • Paperback
    • ISBN: 0241963990
    • ISBN13: 9780241963999
    •  
    • Jul-2020
    • Penguin (UK)
    • Paperback
    • ISBN: 0241989124
    • ISBN13: 9780241989128
    • First Edition
    • Nov-1970
    • Knopf
    • Hardcover
    • ISBN: 0394426371
    • ISBN13: 9780394426372
    •  
    • Feb-2018
    • Birlinn General
    • Hardcover
    • ISBN: 1846974313
    • ISBN13: 9781846974311
    •  
    • Aug-2012
    • New Directions
    • eBook (Kindle)
    •  
    • Aug-2012
    • New Directions Publishing Corporation
    • eBook
    • ISBN: 0811221040
    • ISBN13: 9780811221047
    •  
    • Sep-2008
    • Blackstone Audiobooks
    • MP3 CD
    • ISBN: 1433220172
    • ISBN13: 9781433220173
    •  
    • Sep-2008
    • Blackstone Audiobooks
    • Audio Cassette
    • ISBN: 143322013X
    • ISBN13: 9781433220135
    •  
    • Sep-2008
    • Blackstone Audiobooks
    • Audio CD
    • ISBN: 1433220148
    • ISBN13: 9781433220142
    •  
    • Oct-2008
    • Blackstone Audio, Inc.
    • Audible
    •  
    • Jun-2009
    • Blackstone Audiobooks
    • Playaway
    • ISBN: 1433276798
    • ISBN13: 9781433276798
    •  
    • Sep-1986
    • ISIS Large Print Books
    • Hardcover
    • ISBN: 1850890536
    • ISBN13: 9781850890539
    • Large Print
    • Library Binding



View the Complete Muriel Spark Book List