Muriel Spark (1918– 2006) was the author of dozens of novels, including The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Memento Mori, A Far Cry from Kensington, The Girls of Slender Means, The Ballad of Peckham Rye, The Driver’ s Seat, and many more. She became Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1993.
Edward Gorey (1925– 2000) was born in Chicago. In 1953 Gorey published The Unstrung Harp, the first of his more than one hundred books. In addition to illustrating his own stories, Gorey provided drawings for many books for both children and adults. Of these, New York Review Books has published The Haunted Looking Glass, a collection of Gorey’ s favorite ghost stories; The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells; Men and Gods by Rex Warner; The Unrest-Cure and Other Stories by Saki; and Three Ladies Beside the Sea by Rhoda Levine. He cowrote the NYRB Kids book Fletcher and Zenobia with Victoria Chess.