Iris Murdoch

`This is a comprehensive and accessible study, a first-class resource for students, researchers and readers interested in Iris Murdoch's work and literary life.'---Bran Nicol, Reader in English, University of Portsmouth, UK

This largely chronological study of Iris Murdoch's literary life begins by identifying the youthful idealism of her fledgling publications at Badminton and Oxford as precursors of the intelligence and exuberance of her early novels. After an appraisal of her debt to her Irish heritage, all the novels from the late 1950s to the mid-1990s are explored. Attention is given to biographical background; social, political and cultural influences; thematic preoccupations and experiments with form, in particular her engagement with the visual arts. The study concludes by assessing not only the serious critical analysis given Murdoch's work since her death in 1999, but also the damage done to her reputation by the more sensational media exploitation of her private life.