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.
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
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...
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
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...
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...
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
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
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...
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...
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...
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...
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),...
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
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.
