Iris Murdoch

15 July 1919 - 08 February 1999

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.

Full profile

Connections

Connections	Author name Sort ascending	Excerpt
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...
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...
Friends, Associates	Harriet Shaw Weaver	Working in the left-wing bookshop early in her time at Oxford, HSW became acquainted with Iris Murdoch , who was then an undergraduate at Somerville College and who frequented the shop. Weaver was finishing...
Intertextuality and Influence	Sarah Waters	SW puts in puts in something like a regular work day when writing, but keeps going to all hours when re-writing. Despite her success, she still finds the process largely torture. And yet [s]tarting...
Literary responses	Marina Warner	Critics admired the novel for its skilled use of plot, characterisation, and lyrical descriptions. Some compared MW to Iris Murdoch . Moseley, Merritt, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 194. Gale Research. 194: 284
Theme or Topic Treated in Text	Alison Uttley	Among later literary judgements, she pronounced Iris Murdoch 's The Bell (published in November 1958) brilliant . . . the characterisation, presentation, perfectation. But too much homosexuality. Judd, Denis. Alison Uttley. Michael Joseph. 212
Literary responses	Muriel Spark	The London theatre critics were scathing, with only two exceptions (though one of these, Harold Hobson , carried a lot of weight). Pamela Hansford Johnson trounced the play on the BBC 's radio programme The...
Family and Intimate relationships	Bernice Rubens	Peter Conradi (biographer of Iris Murdoch ) writes that BR had an affair with an American, Allan Forbes (partly influenced by the philosopher and family friend Elias Canetti , who arranged for her and Forbes...
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
Friends, Associates	Barbara Pym	In Oxford, BP made the acquaintance of Iris Murdoch , whose writing she admired greatly. Pym, Barbara. A Very Private Eye. Editors Holt, Hazel and Hilary Pym, Macmillan. 308
Reception	Barbara Pym	Pym is not one of those women writers whose stock has risen through feminist re-evaluation. Five years after the influential Times Literary Supplement article was published, Penelope Lively wrote, I am always surprised that the...
Friends, Associates	Flannery O'Connor	In 1955 the publication of A Good Man is Hard to Find made a new friend for FOC . Betty Hester worked as a clerk and was like her in being a brainy, independent-minded, unmarried...
Friends, Associates	Olivia Manning	OM 's friends included a number of fellow-writers: William Gerhardi , Ivy Compton-Burnett (whom she had first met before the war, at a party given by Rose Macaulay , and whose work she deeply admired),...
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...

Timeline

1826

The Royal Society of Literature received its charter; it had been founded several years previously.

26 July 1945

The postwar general election put the Labour Party in power with a landslide victory. Clement Attlee became Prime Minister; prominent in his Cabinet were Herbert Morrison , Ernest Bevin , Hugh Dalton , and Sir...

Texts

Murdoch, Iris. A Fairly Honourable Defeat. Chatto and Windus, 1970.

Murdoch, Iris. A Severed Head. Chatto and Windus, 1961.

Murdoch, Iris, and J. B. Priestley. A Severed Head. Chatto and Windus, 1963.

Murdoch, Iris. A Word Child. Chatto and Windus, 1975.

Murdoch, Iris, and Reynolds Stone. A Year Of Birds. Compton Press, 1978.

Murdoch, Iris. “Against Dryness: A Polemical Sketch”. Encounter, pp. 16-20.

Murdoch, Iris. An Accidental Man. Chatto and Windus, 1971.

Murdoch, Iris. An Unofficial Rose. Chatto and Windus, 1962.

Murdoch, Iris. Bruno’s Dream. Chatto and Windus, 1969.

Murdoch, Iris. “Existentialists and Mystics”. Essays and Poems Presented to Lord David Cecil, edited by William Wallace Robson, Constable, 1970.

Murdoch, Iris. Existentialists and Mystics. Delos Press, 1993.

Murdoch, Iris. Existentialists and Mystics. Editor Conradi, Peter J., Chatto and Windus, 1997.

Murdoch, Iris. Henry and Cato. Chatto and Windus, 1976.

Murdoch, Iris. Jackson’s Dilemma. Chatto and Windus, 1995.

Murdoch, Iris. Living on Paper. Editors Horner, Avril and Ann Rowe, Chatto and Windus, 2015.

Murdoch, Iris. Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals. Chatto and Windus, 1992.

Murdoch, Iris. Nuns and Soldiers. Chatto and Windus, 1980.

Murdoch, Iris. Sartre: Romantic Rationalist. Bowes and Bowes, 1953.

Murdoch, Iris. The Bell. Chatto and Windus, 1958.

Murdoch, Iris. The Black Prince. Chatto and Windus, 1973.

Murdoch, Iris. The Book and the Brotherhood. Chatto and Windus, 1987.

Murdoch, Iris. The Fire and the Sun: Why Plato Banished the Artists. Clarendon Press, 1977.

Murdoch, Iris. The Flight From the Enchanter. Chatto and Windus, 1956.

Murdoch, Iris. The Good Apprentice. Chatto and Windus, 1985.

Murdoch, Iris. The Green Knight. Chatto and Windus, 1993.