7 /10 1 Votes7
Country United Kingdom Publication date 1960 Dewey Decimal 823/.914 21 Genre Fiction | 3.5/5 Goodreads Language English OCLC 41211640 Originally published 1960 Preceded by The Ballad of Peckham Rye | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Similar Muriel Spark books, Other books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Bachelors is a novel written in 1960 by the Scottish author Muriel Spark, referred to by The New York Times as "the most gifted and innovative British novelist". It follows a group of British bachelors whose misogynistic world is shattered when they suddenly find themselves the target of blackmail and fraud.
Contents
Story
The main characters, the bachelors, are: a barrister, a "priest", a detective, a love-seeking Irishman, a handwriting expert, and a mastermind of a spiritual medium. In this story they arc from complete contentment, sitting cozily about in their London clubs and shopping on Oxford Street, to be troubled by various causes, ranging from fraud to blackmail. They all end up involved in a court case, a criminal prosecution for forgery and fraud, with the trial being the climax of the action. In the centre of the story stands the main character, the pale Patrick Seton, the medium, while the other bachelors are tormented by every cause — epileptic fits, forgeries, malignant spiritualism and, last but not least, murder.