One's prime is elusive. You little girls, when you grow up, must be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur. You must then live it to the full.

The family lived in the Bruntsfield area of Edinburgh. In 1947 Muriel Spark became editor of the Poetry Review. She returned to the United Kingdom in early 1944 taking residence at the Helena Club in London; years later the club would be her inspiration for the fictional May of Teck Club in The Girls of Slender Means.

Dame Muriel Spark DBE (1 February 1918 – 13 April 2006) was an award-winning Scottish novelist.