Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin in 1919 to English and Irish parents. She attended school in Bristol and studied classical philology at Oxford. During the war, she worked for the UNRRA in London, Belgium, and Austria. She earned a philosophy scholarship at Cambridge and returned to Oxford in 1948, where she began teaching philosophy at St. Anne's College. In 1956, she married professor and literary critic John Bayley, with whom she lived until her death in February 1999. Perhaps the greatest author of post-war English literature, she left behind a rich body of work. Following her debut with "Under the Net" (1954), she published twenty-six novels, including "A Severed Head" (1961), "A Fairly Honourable Defeat" (1970), "The Philosopher's Pupil" (1980), "The Green Knight" (1993), and "Jackson's Dilemma" (1995). She was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1973 for "The Black Prince," the Whitbread Prize in 1974 for "The Sacred and Profane Love Machine," and the Booker Prize in 1978 for "The Sea, The Sea." Her philosophical works include "Sartre: Romantic Rationalist," "Acastos: Two Platonic Dialogues," "Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals," and "Existentialists and Mystics" (1997). She wrote several plays, including "The Italian Girl" and "The Black Prince" (an adaptation of her novel of the same name). In 1978, a volume of poems titled "A Year of Birds" was published. Iris Murdoch was honored with the titles CBE (1976) and DBE (1987) for her contributions to British literature, as well as the PEN Gold Medal for her overall contribution to literature. After her death, her husband John Bayley published the books "Iris: A Memoir" and "Elegy for Iris" (which were adapted into the film "Iris" by Richard Eyre), and her friend, literary critic Peter J. Conradi, author of the essay collection "Iris Murdoch: The Saint and the Artist" (1986), published her complete biography titled "Iris Murdoch: A Life" (2001).