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.

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Connections

Connections	Author name Sort descending	Excerpt
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...
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, 8 July 2003, 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, 2002. 258
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...
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...
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. qtd. in Judd, Denis. Alison Uttley. Michael Joseph, 1986. 212
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, 1998. 194: 284
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...
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...
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...
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...

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