The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

First published in 1961, this novel is set at a girls' school in 1930s Edinburgh. Jean Brodie, a teacher in her prime, gathers a small set of pupils - including Sandy, Rose, Mary, Jenny, and Monica - and instructs them in her own tastes in art, love, and politics, including her admiration for authoritarian leaders on the Continent. The narrative moves forward and back in time, showing how the girls later remember her and how one of them betrays the set to the headmistress. The conflict is between Brodie's claim on the girls and the school's, and their, resistance. The book is a short school novel of influence and loyalty, not a treatise on education.

Bound in full blue cloth cover blocked with a repeating motif in silver and gilt by Peter Forster. Dark blue slipcase and endpapers.