In an interview with an Italian newspaper in 2003, Muriel Spark observed: “It is my aim always to give pleasure.” And she did: is there anyone who isn’t captivated by her first (and best) novel, The Comforters? It bowled Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene over. But what’s apparent from this collection of her journalism, interviews, speeches and reviews edited by her longtime companion, Penelope Jardine, is that the will to give pleasure is invested in everything she did. The same fine, hard-fought yet instinctive precision of language and sentiment comes across in her incidental prose as in the poetry and novels. For those of us who love Muriel Spark – especially the novels set in Britain – this collection is a Godsend; her voice is heard again, eight years