The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie — Muriel Spark

''One of the greatest books about growing up'' James Wood, Guardian

''You girls are my vocation . . . I am dedicated to you in my prime''

Miss Jean Brodie is a schoolmistress with a difference. She is proud, cultured and romantic but her educational ideas are highly progressive and even deeply shocking. So when she decides to transform a group of ''special girls'' into the crème de la crème at Marcia Blaine School they are soon known, perhaps suspiciously, as the Brodie set.

Introduced to an unsettling world of adult games and curious intrigues, the Brodie Set know that they are privileged. Yet there is a price to pay - they must give Miss Brodie their undivided loyalty . . .

''The most gifted and innovative British novelist of her generation'' David Lodge, The New York Times

''Spark''s novels linger in the mind as brilliant shards'' John Updike, New Yorker