For The New York Times, Mary Gordon wrote that Bayley's narrative is "a continuing act of heroic love, but the heroism plays itself out in a register that is unfamiliar to contemporary audiences, particularly American ones. Its dominant notes are humility, modesty, patience and humor. The heroism is all the more admirable for its reluctance to acknowledge that heroism might be defined in such terms.[1]"
The 2001 film Iris is inspired by Elegy for Iris, focusing on the beginning and ending of Bayley and Murdoch's lives together[2].
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.
Iris is a 2001 biographical drama film about novelist Iris Murdoch and her relationship with her husband John Bayley. Directed by Richard Eyre from a screenplay he co-wrote with Charles Wood, the film is based on Bayley's 1999 memoir Elegy for Iris. Judi Dench and Jim Broadbent portray Murdoch and Bayley during the later stages of their marriage, while Kate Winslet and Hugh Bonneville appear as the couple in their younger years. The film contrasts the start of their relationship, when Murdoch was an outgoing, dominant individual compared to the timid and scholarly Bayley, and their later life, when Murdoch was suffering from Alzheimer's disease and tended to by a frustrated Bayley in their North Oxford home in Charlbury Road. The beach scenes were filmed at Southwold in Suffolk, one of Murdoch's favourite haunts.
Jerry Faye Hall is an American model and actress. She began modelling in the 1970s and became one of the most sought after models in the world. She transitioned into acting, appearing in the 1989 film Batman. Hall was the long-term partner of Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, with whom she has four children. She subsequently married media mogul Rupert Murdoch, from whom she is now divorced.
Dame Antonia Susan Duffy, known professionally by her former marriage name as A. S. Byatt, is an English critic, novelist, poet and short story writer. Her books have been widely 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.
Peter J. Conradi is a British author and academic, best known for his studies of writer and philosopher, Iris Murdoch, who was a close friend. He is a Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Kingston and has been visiting fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford, and research fellow at University College London.
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.
Nuns and Soldiers is a 1980 novel by Iris Murdoch. The setting is England and two of the main characters are Gertrude, a widow, and Anne, an ex-nun.
The Book and the Brotherhood is the 23rd novel of Iris Murdoch, first published in 1987. Considered by some critics to be among her best novels, it is the story of a circle of Oxford University graduates in 1980s England. The eponymous book is a theoretical work on Marxism which is to be written by a member of the group. After graduating from university the friends had agreed to finance the writing of this book as 'brotherhood' but grow uneasy as no written work is in sight and the stipend continues to be paid.
North Oxford is a suburban part of the city of Oxford in England. It was owned for many centuries largely by St John's College, Oxford and many of the area's Victorian houses were initially sold on leasehold by the College.
Iris Bannochie was a Barbadian horticulturalist who was the leading expert on horticulture on the island of Barbados.
Charlbury Road is a road in North Oxford, England, running to the east of and parallel with the Banbury Road.
A Fairly Honourable Defeat is a novel by the British writer and philosopher Iris Murdoch. Published in 1970, it was her thirteenth novel.
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.
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.
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.
Janet Stone born Janet Clemence Woods was an English photographer and hostess. She had a 30-year relationship with Kenneth Clark and she expected to be his second wife. Her photos are in the National Portrait Gallery.
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