Dame Jean Iris Murdoch DBE (July 15, 1919 – February 8, 1999) was an Irish-born British writer and philosopher, best known for her novels, which combine rich characterization and compelling plotlines, usually involving ethical or sexual themes. Her first published novel, Under the Net, was selected in 2001 by the editorial board of the American Modern Library as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 1987, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Commanders Badge of the Order of the British Empire (Military division) The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions; in decreasing order of seniority... July 15 is the 196th day (197th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 169 days remaining. ... Year 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ... February 8 is the 39th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... This article is 58 kilobytes or more in size. ... A novel (from French nouvelle Italian novella, new) is an extended, generally fictional narrative, typically in prose. ... Ethics (from the Ancient Greek Ä“thikos, the adjective of Ä“thos custom, habit), a major branch of philosophy, is the study of values and customs of a person or group and covers the analysis and employment of concepts such as right and wrong, good and evil, and responsibility. ... Categories: Literature stubs | 1954 books | Modern Library 100 best novels ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999... Commanders Badge of the Order of the British Empire (Military division) The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions; in decreasing order of seniority...

Biography

Murdoch was born at 59 Blessington Street, Dublin, Ireland, on 15 July, 1919. Her father, Wills John Hughes Murdoch came from a mainly Presbyterian sheep farming family from Hillhall, County Down (near Belfast), and her mother, Irene Alice Richardson, who had trained as a singer until her birth, was from a middle class Anglican Church of Ireland family from Dublin. At a young age, Murdoch's parents moved her to London where her father worked in the Civil Service. Murdoch was educated in progressive schools, firstly, at the Froebel Demonstration School, and then as a boarder at the Badminton School in Bristol in 1932. She went on to read classics, ancient history, and philosophy at Somerville College, Oxford, and philosophy as a postgraduate at Newnham College, Cambridge, where she studied under Ludwig Wittgenstein. In 1948, she became a fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. This article is about the city in Ireland. ... Presbyterianism is part of the Reformed churches family of denominations of Christian Protestantism based on the teachings of John Calvin which traces its institutional roots to the Scottish Reformation, especially as led by John Knox. ... Statistics Province: Ulster County Town: Downpatrick Area: 2,448 km² Population (est. ... WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 54. ... The middle class (or middle classes) comprises a social group once defined by exception as an intermediate social class between the nobility and the peasantry. ... The term Anglican (from Medieval Latin ecclesia anglicana, meaning the English Church) is used to describe how the people, institutions and churches as well as the liturgical traditions and theological concepts developed by the state established Church of England, the Anglican Communion. ... Church of Ireland The Church of Ireland (Irish: Eaglais na hÉireann) is an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion, operating seamlessly across the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. ... WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 53. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... Badminton School is an independent girls school situated in Bristol, United Kingdom. ... View from Cumberland Basin of the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the Avon Gorge Bristol (IPA: ) is a city, unitary authority and ceremonial county in South West England, 115 miles (185 km) west of London and between the cities of Bath, Gloucester and Newport. ... Year 1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will take you to a full 1932 calendar). ... Classics, particularly within the Western University tradition, when used as a singular noun, means the study of the language, literature, history, art, and other aspects of Greek and Roman culture during the time frame known as classical antiquity. ... Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of human history until the Early Middle Ages. ... Full name Somerville College Motto Donec rursus impleat orbem Named after Mary Somerville Previous Names Somerville Hall Established 1879 Sister College Girton College Principal Dame Fiona Caldicott JCR President Simon Bruegger MCR President Allen Middlebro Location Woodstock Road, Oxford Undergraduates 396 Graduates 88 Homepage Boat Club Somerville College is one... Full name Newnham College Motto - Named after Its location in the village of Newnham Previous names Newnham Hall Established 1871 Sister College(s) Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford Principal Dame Patricia Hodgson Location Sidgwick Avenue Undergraduates 396 Postgraduates 120 Homepage N/A A view of the Clough and Kennedy buildings of... Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (IPA: ) (April 26, 1889 – April 29, 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who contributed several ground-breaking ideas to philosophy, primarily in the foundations of logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of mind. ... St Annes College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. ...

She wrote her first novel, Under the Net in 1954, having previously published essays on philosophy, including the first study in English of Jean-Paul Sartre. It was at Oxford in 1956 that she met and married John Bayley, a professor of English literature and also a novelist. She went on to produce 25 more novels and other works of philosophy and drama until 1995, when she began to suffer the early effects of Alzheimer's disease, which she at first attributed to writer's block. She died at 79 in 1999. Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (June 21, 1905 – April 15, 1980), normally known simply as Jean-Paul Sartre (pronounced: ), was a French existentialist philosopher and pioneer, dramatist and screenwriter, novelist and critic. ... The University of Oxford (usually abbreviated as Oxon. ... John Bayley (CBE 1999) was born in 1925 in Lahore, Pakistan (then known as Lahore, British India. ... Writers block is a phenomenon involving temporary loss of ability to continue writing, usually due to lack of inspiration or creativity. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...

Novels

Murdoch's novels are by turns intense and bizarre, filled with dark humor and unpredictable plot twists, undercutting the civilized surface of the usually upper-class milieu in which her characters are observed. Above all they deal with issues of morality, and the conflicts between good and evil are often presented in mundane scenes that gain mythic and tragic force through the subtlety with which they are depicted. Though intellectually sophisticated, her novels are often melodramatic and comedic, rooted, she famously said, in the desire to tell a "jolly good yarn." She was strongly influenced by philosophers like Plato, Freud, Simone Weil and Sartre, and by the 19th century English and Russian novelists. Her novels often include gay characters, empathetic pets, and sometimes a powerful and almost demonic male "enchanter" who imposes his will on the other characters — a type of man Murdoch is said to have modeled on her lover, the Nobel laureate, Elias Canetti. For other uses, see Plato (disambiguation). ... Sigmund Freud (born Sigismund Freud) May 6, 1856 – September 23, 1939; (IPA: ) was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who co-founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Jean Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Sartre (June 21, 1905–April 15, 1980) was a French existentialist philosopher, dramatist, novelist and critic. ... St. ... The Nobel Prizes (Swedish: ) are awards in physics, chemistry, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine. ... Elias Canetti, Nobel Laureate in Literature Elias Canetti (25 July 1905, Ruse, Bulgaria – 13 August 1994, Zurich) was a Bulgaria-born British-Austrian novelist, who wrote in German and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981. ...

Although she wrote primarily in a realistic manner, on occasion Murdoch would introduce ambiguity into her work through a sometimes misleading use of symbolism, and by mixing elements of fantasy within her precisely described scenes. The Unicorn (1963) can be read and enjoyed as a sophisticated Gothic romance, or as a novel with Gothic trappings, or perhaps as a parody of the Gothic mode of writing. The Black Prince (1973) is a remarkable study of erotic obsession, and the text becomes more complicated, suggesting multiple interpretations, when subordinate characters contradict the narrator and the mysterious "editor" of the book in a series of afterwords. Look up ambiguity in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Fantasy is a genre of art that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. ... Strawberry Hill, an English villa in the Gothic revival style, built by seminal Gothic writer Horace Walpole The gothic novel was a literary genre that belonged to Romanticism and began in the United Kingdom with The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole. ... As a literary genre, romance or chivalric romance refers to a style of heroic prose and verse narrative current in Europe from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. ... Hypersexuality is a desire for human sexual behavior at levels high enough to be considered clinically significant. ...

Murdoch was awarded the Booker Prize in 1978 for The Sea, the Sea, a finely detailed novel about the power of love and loss, featuring a retired stage director who is overwhelmed by jealousy when he meets his erstwhile lover after several decades apart. The Man Booker Prize for Fiction, also known as the Man Booker Prize, or simply the Man Booker, is one of the worlds most important literary prizes, and awarded each year for the best original novel written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland in... Categories: Literature stubs | 1977 books | Novels ... Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection or profound oneness. ... Jealousy typically refers to the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that occur when a person believes a valued relationship is being threatened by a rival. ...

Several of her works have been adapted for the screen, including the British television series of her novels An Unofficial Rose and The Bell. J. B. Priestley dramatized her 1961 novel, A Severed Head, which was directed by Richard Attenborough in 1971, and starred Ian Holm. Richard Eyre's film, Iris (2001), based on her husband's memoir of his wife as she developed Alzheimer's disease, starred Dame Judi Dench and Kate Winslet respectively as the older and younger versions of Dame Iris Murdoch. Both Dench and Winslet received Oscar nominations for their roles. John Bradshaw Priestley, OM (13 September 1894, Bradford - 14 August 1984, Yorkshire) was an English writer and broadcaster . ... Severed Head cover A Severed Head (1961) is a satirical, in places almost farcical novel by Iris Murdoch about marriage, adultery and incest amongst a group of civilized and educated people who, the author implies, really should know better. ... Sir Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough, CBE (born August 29, 1923) is a prolific English film and stage actor, and Academy Award, BAFTA and three-time Golden Globe winning director, producer and entrepreneur. ... Sir Ian Holm Sir Ian Holm CBE (born 12 September 1931), born as Ian Holm Cuthbert, is an English actor. ... Sir Richard Eyre, (born 28 March 1943), is a British film and theatre director. ... Iris is a 2001 film that tells the story of British novelist Iris Murdoch and her relationship with John Bayley. ... Dame Judith Olivia Dench, CH, DBE (born 9 December 1934), usually known as Dame Judi Dench, is an Oscar, Golden Globe, Tony, three-time BAFTA, and six-time Laurence Olivier Award-winning English actress. ... Kate Elizabeth Winslet (born October 5, 1975) is an English actress. ...

Controversial biography

A controversial account of Murdoch's life was given by the British writer A.N. Wilson in his 2003 book Iris Murdoch as I Knew Her. The work was described by The Guardian as "mischievously revelatory" and "quite spectacularly rude," and labeled by Wilson himself as an "anti-biography" (see [1]). Though he was careful to stress his current and past affection for his subject, Wilson did not flinch from writing of her disloyalty and promiscuity. He observed that she "thrived on acts of betrayal", was cruel, and was "prepared to go to bed with almost anyone" (Wilson 2003). Andrew Norman Wilson (born 1950) is an English writer, known for his biographies, novels and works of popular and cultural history. ... The Guardian is a British newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. ...

Bibliography

Fiction

• Under the Net (1954)
• The Flight from the Enchanter (1956)
• The Sandcastle (1957)
• The Bell (1958)
• A Severed Head (1961)
• An Unofficial Rose (1962)
• The Unicorn (1963)
• The Italian Girl (1964)
• The Red and the Green (1965)
• The Time of the Angels (1966)
• The Nice and the Good (1968)
• Bruno's Dream (1969)
• A Fairly Honourable Defeat (1970)
• An Accidental Man (1971)
• The Black Prince (1973)
• The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (1974)
• A Word Child (1975)
• Henry and Cato (1976)
• The Sea, the Sea (1978), winner of the Booker Prize
• Nuns and Soldiers (1980)
• The Philosopher's Pupil (1983)
• The Good Apprentice (1985)
• The Book and the Brotherhood (1987)
• The Message to the Planet (1989)
• The Green Knight (1993)
• Jackson's Dilemma (1995)
• Something Special (Short story reprint, 1999; originally published 1957)

Categories: Literature stubs | 1954 books | Modern Library 100 best novels ... The Flight from the Enchanter is a novel written by Iris Murdoch and published in 1956. ... The Sandcastle is a novel by Iris Murdoch and published in 1957. ... Severed Head cover A Severed Head (1961) is a satirical, in places almost farcical novel by Iris Murdoch about marriage, adultery and incest amongst a group of civilized and educated people who, the author implies, really should know better. ... The Italian Girl is a novel written by Iris Murdoch and published in 1964. ... The Red and the Green cover The Red and the Green is a novel by Iris Murdoch that covers the events leading up to and during the Easter Rebellion in Ireland during World War I. It is written in a different style than Murdochs other fiction, but like the... A Fairly Honourable Defeatis a novel by the British writer and philosopher Iris Murdoch. ... The Black Prince is Iris Murdochs 15th novel, first published in 1973. ... A Word Child is a novel by Iris Murdoch. ... Categories: Literature stubs | 1977 books | Novels ... The Man Booker Prize for Fiction, also known as the Man Booker Prize, or simply the Man Booker, is one of the worlds most important literary prizes, and awarded each year for the best original novel written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland in... This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ... This article needs to be wikified. ... The Book and the Brotherhood (1983), considered by some critics to be among Iris Murdochs best novels, is the story of a group of close friends living in England in the 1980s. ...

Philosophy

• Sartre: Romantic Rationalist (1953)
• The Sovereignty of Good (1970)
• The Fire and the Sun (1977)
• Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (1992)
• Existentialists and Mystics (1997)

Plays

• A Severed Head (with J.B. Priestley, 1964)
• The Italian Girl (with James Saunders, 1969)
• The Three Arrows & The Servants and the Snow (1973)
• The Servants (1980)
• Acastos: Two Platonic Dialogues (1986)
• The Black Prince (1987)

Severed Head cover A Severed Head (1961) is a satirical, in places almost farcical novel by Iris Murdoch about marriage, adultery and incest amongst a group of civilized and educated people who, the author implies, really should know better. ... The Italian Girl is a novel written by Iris Murdoch and published in 1964. ... Edward the Black Prince - illustration from Cassells History of England circa 1902 Effigy on the Black Princes tomb in Canterbury Cathedral Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales, known as the Black Prince (June 15, 1330 – June 8, 1376) was the eldest son of King Edward III of...

Poetry

• A Year of Birds (1978; revised edition, 1984)
• Poems by Iris Murdoch (1997)

References

• Conradi, P.J. Iris Murdoch: A Life, 2001
• "Telling tales" by AN Wilson, The Guardian, September 6, 2003
• "I'm Mr. Evil" by Matt Seaton, The Guardian, September 3, 2003

Peter J. Conradi is an author and journalist who should not be confused with Peter Conradi, another author with a similar name. ... The Guardian is a British newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. ...

Further reading

• Bayley, J. Elegy for Iris, 1999
• _________. Iris: A Memoir, 1998
• _________. Iris and Her Friends, 1999
• Wilson, A.N. Iris Murdoch as I Knew Her, 2003

External links

• The Iris Murdoch Building at the Dementia Services Development Centre, University of Stirling
• A Review of Something Special
• The Iris Murdoch Society
• The Centre for Iris Murdoch Studies
• Extract of Conradi biography at Guardian Unlimited
• Collated reviews of Conradi biography
• Collated reviews of AN Wilson biography
• A series of Iris Murdoch walks in London