Iris Murdoch

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Standard Name: Murdoch, Iris
Birth Name: Jean Iris Murdoch
Married Name: Jean Iris Bailey
IM , active from the second world war till almost the end of the twentieth century, was best known as a philosophical novelist with a wild sense of comedy. Her twenty-six novels foreground philosophic issues similar to those discussed in her well-regarded academic publications. She contributed to many periodicals, and wrote plays for stage and radio, an opera libretto, and poetry.
Black-and-white photo of Iris Murdoch in May 1963. Looking intently, off-camera, she is wearing a black blazer with a striped shirt underneath and has short hair.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Reception Kathleen Raine
KR declined the invitation of the Royal Society of Literature to become a Companion of Literature, saying the companionship had been cheapened by its award to the journalistsIris Murdoch and Anthony Burgess .
Watts, Janet. “Kathleen Raine”. The Guardian, p. 25.
25
Reception Kathleen Raine
Iris Murdoch bought this book as a present for her mentor Donald MacKinnon .
Conradi, Peter J. Iris Murdoch. A Life. HarperCollins.
258
Reception Enid Bagnold
EB was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1970, and awarded a CBE in 1976, at the same time as Iris Murdoch .
Berney, Kathryn A., editor. Contemporary Women Dramatists. St. James Press.
10
Reception Mary Wesley
James Hale , who had liked her first novel, said that this one stepped forward, in literary terns, roughly a mile from there. I haven't enjoyed reading a novel so much in years. Its line...
Publishing Shena Mackay
Before Babies in Rhinestones appeared, SM completed a novel entitled A Bowl of Cherries, which reuses some parts of her unpublished The Firefly Motel. She submitted this, her first novel for over a...
politics Marghanita Laski
On 30 October 1958 ML was one of the signatories to a letter to the editor of theTimes urging the government to cease testing nuclear weapons; others who signed included Peggy Ashcroft , Storm Jameson
Performance of text T. S. Eliot
Before this female roles were taken by faculty wives or professional actresses. Iris Murdoch played the Leader of the Chorus in this production.
Occupation Elizabeth Jane Howard
In winter 1953 EJH , aged about thirty, became an editor at Chatto and Windus , which was then run by Norah Smallwood and Ian Parsons . She read submitted manuscripts, wrote reports on them...
Occupation Rebecca West
The prize went to P. H. Newby 's Something to Answer For, which according to Kermode years later was a compromise decision. Dame Rebecca didn't dislike it as much as nearly all the others...
Literary responses Sara Maitland
Several recent feminist critics have linked SM with other well-known literary names of the twentieth century: Caroline Guerin considered her alongside Iris Murdoch in Literature and Theology: An International Journal of Theory, Criticism and Culture...
Literary responses Margaret Forster
In a National Women's Register poll of members to determine the best woman writer of the twentieth century, MF came third with twenty-one votes, just behind Margaret Atwood with twenty-five and just ahead of Enid Blyton
Literary responses Brigid Brophy
Murdoch thought it a lovely handsome clever book, with excellence on every page . . . . You must be the first person who has described sexual intercourse beautifully and well in a book. I...
Literary responses Brigid Brophy
In her journal (where literary praise is rare) Iris Murdoch recorded her enjoyment of The Finishing Touch. Murdoch reviewed The Snow Ball, calling it very beautiful and praising its sheer artistic insolence.
Conradi, Peter J. Iris Murdoch. A Life. HarperCollins.
487
Literary responses Brigid Brophy
Seven years after its publication Iris Murdoch named this novel to the Times Literary Supplement as deserving to be better known.
Conradi, Peter J. Iris Murdoch. A Life. HarperCollins.
487n64
Literary responses Elizabeth Jane Howard
EJH 's stepson and fellow novelist Martin Amis has written that Howard (with Iris Murdoch ) was the most interesting woman writer of her generation.
Amis, Martin. Experience. Jonathan Cape.
215

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

Murdoch, Iris. The Italian Girl. Chatto and Windus, 1964.
Murdoch, Iris. The Message to the Planet. Chatto and Windus, 1989.
Murdoch, Iris. The Nice and the Good. Chatto and Windus, 1968.
Murdoch, Iris. The One Alone. Colophon Press with Old Town Books, 1995.
Murdoch, Iris. The Philosopher’s Pupil. Chatto and Windus, 1983.
Murdoch, Iris. The Red and the Green. Chatto and Windus, 1965.
Murdoch, Iris. The Sacred and Profane Love Machine. Chatto and Windus, 1974.
Murdoch, Iris. The Sandcastle. Chatto and Windus, 1957.
Murdoch, Iris. The Sea, The Sea. Chatto and Windus, 1978.
Murdoch, Iris. The Sovereignty of Good. Cambridge University Press, 1967.
Murdoch, Iris. “The Sublime and the Beautiful Revisited”. Yale Review, pp. 247-71.
Murdoch, Iris. The Time of the Angels. Chatto and Windus, 1966.
Murdoch, Iris. The Unicorn. Chatto and Windus, 1963.
Murdoch, Iris. Under the Net. Chatto and Windus, 1954.