Romantic, heroic, comic and tragic, unconventional schoolmistress Jean Brodie has become an iconic figure in post-war fiction. Her glamour, unconventional ideas and manipulative charm hold dangerous sway over her girls at the Marcia Blaine Academy – ‘the crème de la crème‘ – who become the Brodie ‘set’, introduced to a privileged world of adult games that they will never forget.

Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was adapted into a successful stage play, and later a film directed by Ronald Neame and starring Maggie Smith.

The Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Candia McWilliam.