Remembering Iris Murdoch

Remembering Iris Murdoch
Author: J. Meyers
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 131
Release: 2013-05-03
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1137347902

This annotated edition of the unpublished letters that Iris Murdoch wrote to Jeffrey Meyers includes her discussion of writers from Conrad to Updike; her quarrel with Rebecca West; and her difficulty with Alzheimer's. With both scholarly insight and personal reflection, this volume will deepen our understanding of Murdoch's complex life and work.

Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch
Author: Peter J. Conradi
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 782
Release: 2001
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780393048759

Conradi assesses the intellectual and cultural legacy of the celebrated philosopher and writer. In addition to details of her personal life, he details her philosophical works and 26 novels. 50 photos.

Elegy for Iris

Elegy for Iris
Author: John Bayley
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2013-10-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1466854243

"I was living in a fairy story--the kind with sinister overtones and not always a happy ending--in which a young man loves a beautiful maiden who returns his love but is always disappearing into some unknown and mysterious world, about which she will reveal nothing." So John Bayley describes his life with his wife, Iris Murdoch, one of the greatest contemporary writers in the English-speaking world, revered for her works of philosophy and beloved for her incandescent novels. In Elegy for Iris, Bayley attempts to uncover the real Iris, whose mysterious world took on darker shades as she descended into Alzheimer's disease. Elegy for Iris is a luminous memoir about the beauty of youth and aging, and a celebration of a brilliant life and an undying love.

The Flight from the Enchanter

The Flight from the Enchanter
Author: Iris Murdoch
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2010-07-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1453200975

A charismatic businessman casts a dark spell over others in this psychologically suspenseful novel by the Man Booker Prize–winning author of The Black Prince. Mischa Fox’s name is known throughout London, though he himself is rarely seen. Enigmatic and desired, vicious yet sympathetic, he is a model of success, wealth, and charisma. When Fox turns his entrepreneurial gaze on a small feminist magazine known as the Artemis, his intoxicating influence quickly begins to affect the lives of those involved with the paper: the fragile editor, Hunter; generous Rosa, who splits her time and affections between her brother and two other men; innocent Annette, whose journey from school to the real world ends up being more fraught than she could have foreseen; and their circle of friends and acquaintances, all of whom find themselves both drawn to and repulsed by Fox. Told with dark humor, keen wit, and intense insight into the seductive nature of power, The Flight from the Enchanter is an intricate and dazzling work of fiction from the author of The Sea, The Sea and Under the Net, “one of the most significant novelists of her generation” (The Guardian).

The Good Apprentice

The Good Apprentice
Author: Iris Murdoch
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 532
Release: 2001-12-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780141186689

Edward Baltram is overwhelmed with guilt. His nasty little prank has gone horribly wrong: He has fed his closest friend a sandwich laced with a hallucinogenic drug and the young man has fallen out of a window to his death. Edward searches for redemption through a reunion with his famous father, the reclusive painter Jesse Baltram. Funny and compelling, The Good Apprentice is at once a supremely sophisticated entertainment and an inquiry into the spiritual crises that afflict the modern world. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals

Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals
Author: Iris Murdoch
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 529
Release: 1994-03-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1101495790

The decline of religion and ever increasing influence of science pose acute ethical issues for us all. Can we reject the literal truth of the Gospels yet still retain a Christian morality? Can we defend any 'moral values' against the constant encroachments of technology? Indeed, are we in danger of losing most of the qualities which make us truly human? Here, drawing on a novelist's insight into art, literature and abnormal psychology, Iris Murdoch conducts an ongoing debate with major writers, thinkers and theologians—from Augustine to Wittgenstein, Shakespeare to Sartre, Plato to Derrida—to provide fresh and compelling answers to these crucial questions.

Living on Paper

Living on Paper
Author: Iris Murdoch
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 688
Release: 2018-05-15
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 069118092X

For the first time, novelist Iris Murdoch's life in her own words, from girlhood to her last years Iris Murdoch was an acclaimed novelist and groundbreaking philosopher whose life reflected her unconventional beliefs and values. But what has been missing from biographical accounts has been Murdoch's own voice—her life in her own words. Living on Paper—the first major collection of Murdoch's most compelling and interesting personal letters—gives, for the first time, a rounded self-portrait of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers and thinkers. With more than 760 letters, fewer than forty of which have been published before, the book provides a unique chronicle of Murdoch's life from her days as a schoolgirl to her last years. The result is the most important book about Murdoch in more than a decade. The letters show a great mind at work—struggling with philosophical problems, trying to bring a difficult novel together, exploring spirituality, and responding pointedly to world events. They also reveal her personal life, the subject of much speculation, in all its complexity, especially in letters to lovers or close friends, such as the writers Brigid Brophy, Elias Canetti, and Raymond Queneau, philosophers Michael Oakeshott and Philippa Foot, and mathematician Georg Kreisel. We witness Murdoch's emotional hunger, her tendency to live on the edge of what was socially acceptable, and her irreverence and sharp sense of humor. We also learn how her private life fed into the plots and characters of her novels, despite her claims that they were not drawn from reality. Direct and intimate, these letters bring us closer than ever before to Iris Murdoch as a person, making for an extraordinary reading experience.

A Word Child

A Word Child
Author: Iris Murdoch
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2010-07-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1453201122

Guilt, secrets, and lies haunt two men whose lives are bound by a long-ago tragedy in this “riveting” novel by the author of The Sea, The Sea (Los Angeles Times). Twenty years ago, Hilary Burde’s story was one of remarkable success and enviable courage. Having brought himself out of a troubled childhood with only his intellect and wit, he was one of the most promising scholars at Oxford, a student with a rare talent for linguistics and an unquenchable drive. Until the accident. Now, forty-one and a decidedly ordinary failure, Hilary finds his quietly angry routine shattered when his old professor reappears in his life—a man whose own demons are tied to Hilary’s and the tragedy from years ago. As the two men begin to circle each other once again, digging up old wrongs and seeking forgiveness for long-buried ills, they find themselves on a path that will either grant them both redemption or destroy them both forever. Haunting and emotional, A Word Child is an intimate look at the madness of regret by the Man Booker Prize–winning author of Under the Net and A Severed Head.

The Sea, the Sea

The Sea, the Sea
Author: Iris Murdoch
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 530
Release: 2001-03-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1101495650

Winner of the Booker Prize—a tale of the strange obsessions that haunt a playwright as he composes his memoirs Charles Arrowby, leading light of England's theatrical set, retires from glittering London to an isolated home by the sea. He plans to write a memoir about his great love affair with Clement Makin, his mentor, both professionally and personally, and amuse himself with Lizzie, an actress he has strung along for many years. None of his plans work out, and his memoir evolves into a riveting chronicle of the strange events and unexpected visitors-some real, some spectral-that disrupt his world and shake his oversized ego to its very core. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Fire and the Sun

The Fire and the Sun
Author: Iris Murdoch
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2008
Genre: Aesthetics
ISBN:

This book is an introduction to the philosophy of Plato; his attitude to art and his theory of beauty. The author broadens the discussion to discuss the nature of art. She includes the opinions of other writers and philosophers, including Kant, Tolstoy, Freud and Kierkegaard.