Britannica AI Icon
Adding us as a Preferred Source tells Google you trust our content, so our articles show up more often in your Google Search, Discover feed, and AI Overviews.
verifiedCite
While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.
Select Citation Style
Feedback
Corrections? Updates? Omissions? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login).
Thank you for your feedback

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

External Websites

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, novel by Muriel Spark, published in 1961 and adapted for the stage in 1966. The story of an eccentric Edinburgh teacher who inspires cultlike reverence in her young students, the novel was Spark’s best-known work. It explores themes of innocence, betrayal, and cold rationality opposed to unchecked emotionalism. The story of Miss Brodie’s ultimate downfall is told from the unsympathetic perspective of one of her students, though in the third person.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.