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Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin in 1919. She read Classics at Somerville College, Oxford, and after working in the Treasury and abroad, was awarded a research studentship in Philosophy at Newnham College, Cambridge. In 1948 she returned to Oxford as fellow and tutor at St Anne's College and later taught at the Royal College of Art. Until her death in 1999, she lived in Oxford with her husband, the academic and critic, John Bayley. She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1987 and in the 1997 PEN Awards received the Gold Pen for Distinguished Service to Literature.
She believes in everything: true love, veridical visions, magic, monsters, pagan spirits. Her world is ignited by belief -- Martin Amis Iris Murdoch is incapable of writing without fascinating and beautiful colour * The Times * Her characters are described with loving exactitude and in such depth that their struggles to define what it means to live a good life take on dramatic force. * New York Times * One of her most haunting works... She is spectacularly enigmatic -- Philippa Gregory How bloody good her novels are - how intelligent, how lucent, how divinely crazy. They're fun - I'd forgotten that. -- Sarah Waters * Guardian *
