Iris Murdoch 1919 -1999

1919 Iris Murdoch was born on 15 July to Irene Alice Richardson and wills John Hughes Murdoch. Her motherwas Anglican (Church of England) and had trained as a singer. Her father came from Presbyterian sheep farming family in County Down.

The Murdoch's moved to London where her father found a job in the Civil Service.

She was educated in progressive schools: the Froebel Demonstration School, and then as a boarder at the Badminton School in Bristol in 1932.

She attended Somerville College, Oxord where she read classics, ancient history, and philosophy

1938 to 1942 She worked at the Treasury as an assistant principal.

1944 - 46 She worked a United Nations relief organization UNNRA in Austria and Belgium.

1946 She joined the Communist Party of Britain but later resigned.

1947 She returned to London but was unemployed.

As a postgraduate she attended Newnham College, Cambridge where she read philosophy. Ludwig Wittgenstein wasin residence at the time and Iris Murdoch attended a number of his lectures.

1948 - 1963 She became a fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford.

1954 She wrote her first novel, Under the Net in 1954, having previously published philosophical essays including the first study in English of Jean-Paul Sartre.

1956 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.

1963 and 1967 She also lectured at the Royal College of Art.

1995 She began to suffer the early effects of Alzheimer's disease.

1999 She died, aged 79. Her ashes were scattered in the garden at the Oxford Crematorium.

Bibliography

• 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)

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)

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)

Poetry

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

Useful Secondary sources:

Iris Murdoch Papers at the Universityof Iowa, USA.

A list of articles with links to texts can be found at Iris Murdoch Society