The Abbess of Crewe

[3] At the beginning of the novel we are introduced to Alexandra, recently elected Abbess of Crewe, circumnavigating the issue of electronic bugging in the convent, while there is a visible police presence outside the gates.

It soon becomes clear that there has been a scandal engulfing the covent and that another senior member of the convent, Felicity, formerly Alexandra's rival for the position of Abbess, has departed to live with a Jesuit priest.

Most of the humour derives from Alexandra's implacable calm in the face of chaos and her guileful and downright Machiavellian treatment of her rival, Felicity, and the rest of the convent population.

According to George Stade's October 20, 1974 review of The Abbess of Crewe in The New York Times, "theological props point to immorality in politics.

That review concluded "Muriel Spark is the first writer to demonstrate that Watergate and its attendant immoralities are materials not of tragedy, but of farce".

It is funny, stylish, wicked, and delightful, and represents her return to the buoyant and witty precisions of Memento Mori and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

[4] "Groups of females have always been a congenial subject for her, and the nuns...excite her prose to its pristine piquance...[and] pleasing rigor - stylized, sinister, and soothing."