In Bed with Muriel Spark: Mourning, Metonymy and Autobiography

Abstract

It is a matter of biographical fact — as far as this can be verified — to relate that one night during the summer of 1944, while unable to return to her lodgings in the countryside due to the cancellation of a train, as a result of an air raid, Muriel Spark spent the night in the house of the poet Louis MacNeice. She worked outside London for the secret services producing propaganda broadcasts for transmission to Germany. Spark had been offered a night’s accommodation by a fellow traveller, who was the nanny to MacNeice’s children, while the owners of the house were away for the weekend. At the time of the invitation to this house Spark was unaware of either the name or profession of the house owner. It was only during her stay there that she realized (from letters, book inscriptions, photographs) who owned the house. In subsequent writing Spark says that this singular experience in the house of Louis MacNeice encouraged her to start her career as a professional writer. She has treated this experience in writing on four separate occasions.1