Muriel Spark's address box.
Inside the lid of Muriel Spark's address box is an Italian news cutting with essential utility and emergency number. Clearly Spark used this box during her time in Italy.
Spark was prolific letter writer. Among her correspondents were fellow authors Iris Murdoch and Patricia Highsmith.
Miriam Margolyes, who starred in the BBC's adaptation of Spark's novel 'The Girls of Slender Means', was one of several actors and artists who gravitated towards Spark.
Following a Spark party in Rome, Margolyes wrote:
' … for me it was a particularly special occasion, infinitely glamorous, socially devastating, for I have never met all in one go such a number of distinguished people. I felt honoured and privileged'.