Public Image Ltd. & Muriel Spark?! Cue that silent head exploding poof gesture to express the moment your head explodes at an improbable convergences like Public Image Ltd. & Muriel Spark. Found rabbit-holing at Fodderstompf, the complete online PiL chronology,
New Musical Express, July 22nd 1978: John Lydon officially announces to the press that the new group will be called ‘Public Image’ (Limited will follow). He also announces that they will manage themselves, and that they have signed an eight album deal with Virgin Records; no doubt influenced by the support Lydon was receiving from Virgin in his legal battle. The name ‘Public Image’ was inspired from the title of a 1968 Muriel Spark novel.
John later commented in Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, “I got the name Public Image from a book by that Scottish woman, Muriel Spark, who wrote ‘Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’. When I was in Italy, somebody introduced her writings to me. I checked out some of her other books when I got home. One of them was called ‘The Public Image’. It was all about this actress who was unbearably egotistical. I though, Ha! The Public Image. Limited. Not as a company, but to be limited – not being as ‘out there’ as I was with the Sex Pistols.”