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
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...
Intertextuality and Influence Simone de Beauvoir
SB 's many honours during her lifetime included the Sonning Prize for European Culture in 1983, and an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University . There is a Simone de Beauvoir Institute at Concordia University in...
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...
Intertextuality and Influence Samuel Beckett
Dylan Thomas called this novel Freud ian blarney: Sodom and Begorrah.
Parker, Peter, editor. The Reader’s Companion to Twentieth-Century Writers. Fourth Estate and Helicon, 1995.
59
Iris Murdoch recorded the lasting impression which it made on her when she first read it.
Federman, Raymond, and John, 1937 - Fletcher. Samuel Beckett. University of California Press, 1970.
21
Harold Pinter —who while trying to...
Leisure and Society Ivy Compton-Burnett
ICB was scathing about the work of some younger novelists, like Iris Murdoch and Muriel Spark (though she took Murdoch more seriously than Spark).
Liddell, Robert, and Francis King. Elizabeth and Ivy. Peter Owen, 1986.
86, 93-4
In her years alone she became very fond of...
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 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, 2000.
215
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.
qtd. in
Conradi, Peter J. Iris Murdoch. A Life. HarperCollins, 2002.
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, 2002.
487n64
Literary responses Brigid Brophy
Reviewers were hard on this book (it made them nervous, wrote Iris Murdoch ). Murdoch responded by drafting a blurb: Miss Brophy has written an ambitious serious disturbing book. It is rich, original and witty...
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...
Literary responses Brigid Brophy
One review was headed And Then There Were Fifty-One. Iris Murdoch 's low opinion caused a temporary rift in her friendship with the author.
Conradi, Peter J. Iris Murdoch. A Life. HarperCollins, 2002.
488
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
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...

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.