Marian Taylor, who has come as a 'companion' to a lonely woman in a remote castle, becomes aware that her employer is a prisoner, not only of her own obsessions, but of an unforgiving husband. Hannah, the Unicorn, seeminly an image of persecuted virtue, fascinates those who surround her, some of whom plan to rescue her from her dream of redemptive suffering. But is she an innocent victim, a guilty woman, a mad woman, or a witch?
About the Author
Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin in 1919 of Anglo-Irish parents. She went to Badminton School, Bristol, and read classics at Somerville College, Oxford. During the war she was an Assistant Principal at the Treasury, and then worked with UNRRA in London, Belgium and Austria. She held a studentship in Philosophy at Newnham College, Cambridge, and then in 1948 she returned to Oxford where she became a Fellow of St Anne's College. Until her death in February 1999, she lived with her husband, and teacher and critic John Bayley, in Oxford. Awarded the CBE in 1976, Iris Murdoch was made a DBE in the 1987 New Year's Honours List. In the 1997 PEN Awards she received the Gold Pen for Distinguished Service to Literature. Since her writing debut in 1954 with Under the Net, Iris Murdoch has written twenty-six novels, including the Booker Prize-winning The Sea, The Sea (1978) and most recently The Green Knight (1993) and Jackson's Dilemma 91995). Other literary awards include the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (1974). Her works of philosophy include Sartre: Romantic Rationalist, Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (1992) and Existentialists and Mystics (1997). She has written several plays including The Italian Girl (with James Saunders) and The Black Prince, adapted from her novel of the same name. Her volume of poetry, A Year of Birds, which appeared in 1978, has been set to music by Malcolm Williamson.
Industry Reviews
"The Unicorn explores Murdoch's theme that life is - or should be - a spiritual quest or pilgrimage" * Guardian * "A writer of wonderful, and sometimes rather alarming idiosyncrasy; from her first novels, she explored a parish which was uniquely and unmistakably hers. But, somehow, by pursuing her desire only to be herself, she made it possible for generations of novelists after her to be more themselves." * Independent * "Every novel is imprinted with the same distinctive, magical and wonderfully inventive imagination... A humour and humanity marked her fictional writing and made it a rich, wonderful and varied discourse. She filled it with strong emotions, powerful passions, very human experiences, humour" * Guardian *
