Dame Muriel Spark, one of the greatest post-war novelists and creator of some of modern literature's most endearing and complex characters, died in Italy on 13th April at the age of 88. Championed by Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh early in her career, she is remembered for the wit, originality and effervescence of her prose and poetry. Dr Gavin Wallace of the Scottish Arts Council called her death "an ineffably sad and deep loss to our literature".

Spark was born in Edinburgh in 1918. Educated at the James Gillespie's School for Girls, she studied précis writing at Heriot Watt College while teaching in a private school, later finding employment as a personal secretary. In 1937 she went to Southern Rhodesia to marry, returning to England in 1944 after her divorce. She then worked in the Political Intelligence department of the British Foreign Office.

Her first interest was in poetry, and after World War II became General Secretary of the Poetry Society. She edited Poetry Review from 1947 to 1949 and published her first volume of poems, The Fanfarlo, in 1952. Her first novel, The Comforters, was published in 1957. Spark eventually made her home in Italy.

She published many novels, most notably The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie(1961), which was made into a film starring Maggie Smith. Two other novels, The Driver's Seat (1970) and The Abbess of Crewe (1974), were also made into films, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Glenda Jackson respectively. The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1960) was adapted for radio as a musical, winning the 1962 Prix Italia, and Memento Mori was made into a BBC TV series. Her 1962 play, Doctors of Philosophy, was staged in London and in Scandinavia, where it was produced by Ingmar Bergman.

Some of Dame Muriel Spark's novels focus on unusual crimes and turns of fate, most notably Territorial Rights (1979), about a crime of passion; The Hothouse by the East River (1973); and Not to Disturb (1971), set on the shores of Lake Geneva. Satire was also an important part of her work. The Abbess of Crewe (1974), for example, is a send up of the Nixon-Watergate scandal.

She studied the lives and works of Mary Shelley, the Brontë sisters and John Masefield. Her earliest book, Child of Light (1951), was a critical biography of Mary Shelley, written to celebrate the centenary of her death. This was followed by biographies of Emily Brontë and John Masefield, and in 1993, The Essence of the Brontës was published, an anthology of her writings on the family.

Her own autobiography, Curriculum Vitae, was published in 1992 and her novel, Aiding and Abetting, was published in 2000. Also a writer of children's books and many short stories, The Complete Short Stories was published in 2001. Her last novel was The Finishing School (2004).

Spark travelled widely, and lived in Italy until her death. She received several honorary degrees, some in Oxford and London, and many in Scotland, and was elected a Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She was also an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1993.

Carcanet published All the Poems by Muriel Spark in October 2004. Published in paperback on 1st May 2006, this title is available to purchase from www.carcanet.co.uk for £8.96.