Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Iris Murdoch
-
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.
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completed a novel entitled A Bowl of Cherries, which reuses some parts of her unpublished The Firefly Motel.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...
Friends, Associates
Penelope Lively
PL
's Oxford circle included the young, still unmarried John Bayley
and Iris Murdoch
.
Intertextuality and Influence
Penelope Lively
As controversy has been Henry's domain, reading has been Charlotte's. For ever, reading has been central, the necessary fix, the support system. Her life has been informed by reading. Reading has taught her how sex...
Literary responses
Ada Leverson
The reviewer for British Book News felt that the appeal of AL
's works lay in the grace of their prose, the wit of their dialogue, and the rich elegance of their period [Edwardian] setting...
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
Intertextuality and Influence
Julian of Norwich
T. S. Eliot
used Julian's words and concepts for the final lines of Little Gidding. Iris Murdoch
claimed her as an influence. She is the subject of a video by Films for the Humanities and Sciences
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Muriel Jaeger
This book is sometimes called a memoir, but its autobiographical moments are only incidental. MJ
's attention is mostly directed towards books and reading; her own experiences of writing, publishing, and having her works performed...
Wealth and Poverty
Elspeth Huxley
In 1970 EH
and her husband decided to sell the house, Woodfolds, as well, and move into Green End, the cottage at the end of the drive.
Nicholls, C. S. Elspeth Huxley. HarperCollins.
357, 375
Meanwhile in the year of selling...
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
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...
Textual Production
Susan Hill
SH
edited People: Essays & Poems, issued to benefit Oxfam
. Contributors (including Iris Murdoch
, Margaret Drabble
, Anne Ridler
, and Elizabeth Longford
) were invited to write about someone influential in their life.
Hill, Susan, editor. People: Essays & Poems. Chatto and Windus.
prelims
Textual Production
Monica Furlong
MF
returned to the controversy surrounding the issue of women's ordination in A Dangerous Delight: Women and Power in the Church. The first three words of her title come from Iris Murdoch
's The...
Textual Production
Monica Furlong
It is the exercise of power which Murdoch
calls a dangerous delight. Furlong quotes this passage as epigraph along with a remark by Daphne Hampson
: that religion is the most potent ideology the world...
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
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.
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.
