A wholly original presence in modern literature -- ANDREW MOTION Muriel Spark's novels linger in the mind as brilliant shards, decisive as a smashed glass is decisive -- JOHN UPDIKE * * New Yorker * * I am dazzled by The Bachelors. It is the cleverest and most elegant of all Mrs Spark's clever and elegant books -- EVELYN WAUGH She has a receptive and wholly distinctive genius -- A N WILSON * * Spectator * * My admiration for Spark's contribution to world literature knows no bounds. She was peerless, sparkling, inventive and intelligent - the creme de la creme -- IAN RANKIN A profoundly serious comic writer whose wit advances, never undermines or diminishes, her ideas * * New York Times Book Review * * The care with which she uses words is matched by a gloriously carefree attitude. It's all part of her sanity, her breezy authorial self-confidence; and because of this I think that reading a blast of her prose every morning is a far more restorative way to start a day than a shot of espresso * * Daily Telegraph * * Spark is a natural, a paradigm of that rare sort of artist from whom work of the highest quality flows as elementally as current through a circuit * * New Yorker * * It's easy to see why Waugh admired The Bachelors. But the comedy here is serious in a way that Waugh's satanically energetic comedies of misery rarely are . . . comedies of English manners have rarely been darker * * Daily Telegraph * *