Muriel Spark came to the novel after a variety of writing experiences. As a free-lance journalist after her intelligence work in World War II, Spark wrote for the Argentor, a jewelry trade magazine, and she had poetry published before she became general secretary of the Poetry Society in April 1947. That post led to her work as editor of the Poetry Review. In 1949, she left the Poetry Society and founded Forum (which lasted only two issues), wrote copy for a publicity agent, and edited European Affairs. At the same time, Spark began to write short stories, many of them based on her experiences in Africa, where she lived from 1936, after leaving Edinburgh, until the early war years. One such story, "The Seraph and the Zambesi," won the Observer's Christmas story competition in 1951. Shortly thereafter, Spark, whose father was a Jew and whose mother was an English Presbyterian, became...