Dame Jean Iris Murdoch was an Irish and British novelist and philosopher. Murdoch is best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. Her first published novel, Under the Net (1954), was selected in 1998 as one of Modern Library's 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Her 1978 novel The Sea, The Sea won the Booker Prize. In 1987, she was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II for services to literature. In 2008, The Times ranked Murdoch twelfth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
John Oliver Bayley, CBE, FBA, FRSL was a British academic, literary critic and writer. He was the Warton Professor of English at the University of Oxford from 1974 to 1992. His first marriage was to the novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch.
Herbert Ernest Bates was an English writer, known for his gritty realistic short stories and novels set in the early to mid 20th century of England mainly. He was from the countryside and adored flowers and gardening, so much of his writing is informed by this. The semi-autobiographical "Love for Lydia" has detailed descriptions of nature in winter, and of the big grounds of Aspen Hall where he meets Lydia. His best-known works include Love for Lydia, Fair Stood the Wind for France, The Darling Buds of May, as well as My Uncle Silas. Many of his short stories were turned into tv series by British television in the 1970s.
Dame Antonia Susan Duffy, known professionally by her former married name, A. S. Byatt, was an English critic, novelist, poet and short-story writer. Her books have been translated into more than thirty languages.
The Sea, The Sea is a novel by Iris Murdoch. Published in 1978, it was her nineteenth novel. It won the 1978 Booker Prize.
Paul Magrs is an English writer and lecturer. He was born in Jarrow, England, and now lives in Manchester with his partner, author and lecturer Jeremy Hoad.
The Red and the Green is a novel by Iris Murdoch. Published in 1965, it was her ninth novel. It is set in Dublin during the week leading up to the Easter Rising of 1916, and is her only historical novel. Its characters are members of a complexly inter-related Anglo-Irish family who differ in their religious affiliations and in their views on the relations between England and Ireland.
Jealousy in art deals with the way in which writers, musicians and graphic artists have approached the topic of jealousy in their works.
A Fairly Honourable Defeat is a novel by the British writer and philosopher Iris Murdoch. Published in 1970, it was her thirteenth novel.
The Green Knight is the 25th novel by Irish writer and philosopher Iris Murdoch, first published in 1993.
The Bell is a novel by Iris Murdoch. Published in 1958, it was her fourth novel. It is set in a lay religious community situated next to an enclosed community of Benedictine nuns in Gloucestershire.
Jackson's Dilemma is a novel by Iris Murdoch, published in 1995. It was Murdoch's last novel; she died four years later, on 8 February 1999.
The Message to the Planet is a novel by Iris Murdoch. Published in 1989, it was her twenty-fourth novel.
The Nice and the Good is a novel by Iris Murdoch. Published in 1968, it was her eleventh novel. The Nice and the Good was shortlisted for the 1969 Booker Prize.
An Unofficial Rose is a novel by Iris Murdoch. Published in 1962, it was her sixth novel.
The Sovereignty of Good is a book of moral philosophy by Iris Murdoch. First published in 1970, it comprises three previously published papers, all of which were originally delivered as lectures. Murdoch argued against the prevailing consensus in moral philosophy, proposing instead a Platonist approach. The Sovereignty of Good is Murdoch's best known philosophy book.
Henry and Cato is a novel by Iris Murdoch. Published in 1976, it was her eighteenth novel.
An Accidental Man is a novel by Iris Murdoch, which was published in 1971. It was her fourteenth novel.
The Time of the Angels is a philosophical novel by British novelist Iris Murdoch. First published in 1966, it was her tenth novel. The novel centres on Carel Fisher, an eccentric Anglican priest who is the rector of a London church which was destroyed by bombing during World War II. Fisher denies the existence of God and the possibility of human goodness in a post-theistic world. The novel, which has elements of Gothic fiction, received mixed reviews on its publication.
Sartre: Romantic Rationalist is a book by Iris Murdoch. Published in 1953 by Bowes & Bowes of Cambridge, it was Murdoch's first book and the first book about Jean-Paul Sartre's work to be published in English.
