Iris Murdoch Books

Best known as the author of twenty-six novels, Iris Murdoch also made significant contributions to the fields of ethics and aesthetics. Collected here for the first time in one volume are her most influential literary and philosophical essays. Tracing Murdoch's journey to a modern Platonism, this volume includes incisive evaluations of the thought and writings of T. S. Eliot, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvior, and Elias Canetti, as well as key texts on the continuing importance of the sublime, on the concept of love, and the role great literature can play in curing the ills of philosophy. Existentialists and Mystics not only illuminates the mysticism and intellectual underpinnings of Murdoch's novels, but confirms her major contributions to twentieth-century thought.

'Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real' This selection of Iris Murdoch's most interesting and important letters gives us a living portrait of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers and thinkers. Here for the first time is Murdoch in her own words, from her schoolgirl days to her last years. The letters show a great mind at work - we watch the young Murdoch struggling with philosophical issues, often unsure of herself; witness her anguish when a novel won't come together; observe her involved in world events and exploring sensuality. They are full of sharp humour and irreverence. They also reveal her personal life, the subject of much speculation, in all its intriguing complexity: her emotional hunger and her tendency to live on the edge of what was socially acceptable. Gradually, we see how this fed into her novels' plots and characters, despite her claims that her fiction was not drawn from reality. Quite apart from giving these valuable insights, her letters bring us closer than ever before to Iris Murdoch as a person. They make for an extraordinary and intimate reading experience: she is wonderful company.

Iris Murdoch once observed: 'philosophy is often a matter of finding occasions on which to say the obvious'. What was obvious to Murdoch, and to all those who read her work, is that Good transcends everything - even God. Throughout her distinguished and prolific writing career, she explored questions of Good and Bad, myth and morality. The framework for Murdoch's questions - and her own conclusions - can be found here.

Hilda Foster is alone in an isolated cottage when she receives an important telephone call.Hilda's troubles began when she trusts a slippery intellectual called Julius King who decides to demonstrate how he can persuade easily loving couples, caring friends, and devoted siblings to betray their loyalties to one another.

Iris Murdoch's 24th novel, a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, explores the meaning of life in a story of love and betrayal, faith and doubt. "Murdoch works with an intellectual daring most writers only dream of."--The Philadelphia Inquirer

A sparklingly profound novel about the conflict between love and loyalty The quiet life of schoolmaster Bill Mor and his wife Nan is disturbed when a young woman, Rain Carter, arrives at the school to paint the portrait of the headmaster. Mor, hoping to enter politics, becomes aware of new desires. A complex battle develops, involving love, guilt, magic, art, and political ambition. Mor’s teenage children and their mother fight discreetly and ruthlessly against the invader. The Head, himself disenchanted, advises Mor to seize the girl and run. The final decision rests with Rain. Can a “great love” be purchased at too high a price?

It's the midsummer ball at Oxford, and a group of men and women - friends since university days - have gathered under the stars. Included in this group is David Crimond, a genius and fervent Marxist. Years earlier the friends had persuaded David to write a philosophical and political book on their behalf. schovat popis

A novel in which an elderly writer with a block, surrounded by predatory friends and relations, seeks to escape, but his failure to do so and its aftermath lead to a violent climax. From the author of THE SEA, THE SEA and THE BELL.

Charles Arrowby, a well-known theatre director, has come to live in a lonely house beside the sea. However, his longed for life of simplicity and solitude is shortlived: the house appears haunted, a strange creature emerges from the sea, women from whom he intended to escape, reappear. The Sea, The Sea is a remarkable book, distinguished by the power and depth of Miss Murdoch's imaginative vision, a novel which has deservedly received high critical and popular acclaim.

Swinging between his wife and his mistress in the sacred and profane love machine and between the charms of morality and the excitements of sin, the psychotherapist, Blaise Gavender, sometimes wishes he could divide himself in two. Instead, he lets loose misery and confusion and—for the spectators at any rate—a morality play, rich in reflections upon the paradoxes of human life and the nature of the battle between sacred and profane love.