Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin in 1919 and studied Classics at Sommerville College, Oxford (1937-42). During the war, she worked for the treasury in London and lived with Philippa Food. Afterwards she went to Austria for UNRRA, working in a camp for Displaced Persons. In 1946 she was awarded a fellowship to study at Vassar College, New York but was denied a visa due to her former membership of the Communist Party. She held a studentship at Newnham College, Cambridge (1947) before becoming a fellow of St. Anne’s College, Oxford (1948-63). From 1963 she lectured at the RCA. She was married to John Bailey from 1956 until her death in 1999.
Murdoch is best known for The Sovereignty of Good (1970), a collection of three lectures which includes the famous ‘M and D’ example in which a mother-in-law comes to see her daughter-in-law justly. Her philosophy combines analytic method with ideas from Plato, Sartre and Freud. It has given rise to moral particularism and sparked interest in the ethical role of literature. She had great success as a novelist, winning the Booker Prize (1978) for The Sea, the Sea.
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Jean Iris Murdoch (1919-1999)
1919
(15 July) Born in Phibsborough, Ireland, to Irene Alice and Wills John Hughes Murdoch
1925
Entered the Froebel Demonstration School, Roehampton
1932
Joined Badminton School, Bristol, where she boarded until 1938
1938
Attended university at Somerville College, Oxford, where she studied Classics She graduated in 1942 with first-class honours.
Joined the Communist Party of Great Britain, but left in 1942
1943
Publication: ‘Midnight Hour’, Adelphi, pp. 60-1
Publication: ‘Rebirth of Christianity’, Adelphi, pp.134-5
1944
(June) Began work for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA)
Publication: ‘Worship and Common Life,’ Adelphi, pp. 134-5
1946
– Left UNRRA.
1947
Began studying philosophy as a postgraduate at Newnham College, Cambridge. She was awarded the Sarah Smithson Studentship in Philosophy
1948
Became a fellow of St. Anne’s College, Oxford, where she taught philosophy until 1963
1950
Publication: ‘The Novelist as Metaphysician’, Listener, 43, pp. 473-6
Publication: ‘The Existentialist Hero,’ Listener,43, pp. 523-4
Publication: review of Simone de Beauvoir,The Ethics of Ambiguity, Mind, 59, pp. 127-8
Publication: review of Jean-Paul Sartre, The Emotions: The Outline of a Theory, Mind, 59, pp. 268-71
1951
Publication: ‘Symposium: Thinking and Language’ (with A. C. Lloyd and Gilbert Ryle), Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, 25(1), pp. 25-82
1952
Publication: ‘The Existential Political Myth’, Socratic Digest, 5
Publication: ‘Nostalgia for the Particular’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 52, pp. 243-60
1953
Publication: Sartre: Romantic Rationalist(Cambridge: Bowes and Bowes)
1954
Publication: Under The Net(London: Chatto & Windus). Wins the runner-up prize at the Cheltenham Literature Festival
1955
Publication: ‘Philosophy and Beliefs: A Discussion between four Oxford Philosophers’ (with Isaiah Berlin, Stuart Hampshire and Anthony Quinton), Twentieth Century, 157, pp. 495-521
1956
Marries John Bayley, a literary critic and novelist
Publication: ‘Symposium: Vision and Choice in Morality’ (with R. W. Hepburn), Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, 30, pp. 14-58
Publication: The Flight from the Enchanter: A Story of Love and Power(London: Chatto & Windus)
Publication: ‘Knowing the Void’, review of Simone Weil’s The Notebooks. Spectator, 197, pp. 613-4
Publication: ‘Let Them Philosophise’. Review of S. T. Coleridge, Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit. Spectator
1957
Publication: ‘Something Special’ (short story) in Winter’s Tales 3 (London: MacMillan)
Publication: ‘Metaphysics and Ethics’, in D. F. Pears (ed.), The Nature of Metaphysics, (London: MacMillan), pp. 99-123
Publication: ‘Important Things’. Review of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Mandarins. The Sunday Times
Publication: The Sandcastle (London: Chatto & Windus)
Publication: ‘Hegel in Modern Dress’. Review of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. New Statesman, 53, pp. 675-6
Publication: ‘Existentialist Bite’. Review of E. Knight, Literature Considered as Philosophy: The French Example. Spectator
Publication: ‘Concepts or Blood’. Review of Colin Wilson, Religion and the Rebel. Manchester Guardian
1958
Publication: ‘A Woman’s Don Delight’. In Cyril Ray (ed.), The Compleat Imbiber: An Entertainment(London: Putnam), pp. 193-6
Publication: ‘T. S. Eliot as a Moralist’. In Neville Braybrooke (ed.), T.S. Eliot: A Symposium for His Seventieth Birthday, (London: Rupert Hart-Davis)
Publication: ‘A House of Theory’. In Norman Mackenzie (ed.), Conviction (London: MacGibbon and Kee), pp. 158-62.
Publication: The Bell (London: Chatto & Windus)
Publication: Review of Boris Pasternak, Dr Zhivago.The New Reasoner: A Quarterly Journal of Socialist Humanism, 7, pp. 140-2
1959
Publication: ‘Simone, Antoine and Anne’. A review of Simone de Beauvoir’s Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter. The Sunday Times
Publication: ‘The Sublime and the Good’. Chicago Review, 13(3), pp. 42-55
Publication: ‘The Sublime and the Beautiful Revisited’. Yale Review, 49, pp. 247-71
1960
Publication: ‘Negative Capability’. Adam International Review, pp. 172-3
Publication: ‘Words and Ideas’. A review of Ernest Gellner,Words and Things. The Partisan Review
1961
Publication: ‘Against Dryness: A Polemical Sketch,’ Encounter, 16(1), pp. 16-20
Publication: A Severed Head (London: Chatto & Windus)
1962
Publication: An Unofficial Rose (London: Chatto & Windus)
Publication: ‘Mass, Might and Myth’. A review of Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power. The Spectator, pp. 337-9
1963
Begins teaching one day a week in the General Studies department of the Royal College of Art
Publication: The Unicorn (London: Chatto & Windus)
The play of A Severed Head, adapted by J.B Priestley, opens in Bristol
1964
Becomes the first woman to address the Philosophical Society at Trinity College Dublin
Publication: ‘The Moral Decision about Homosexuality’, Man and Society, 7, pp. 3-6
Publication: ‘The Idea of Perfection’, The Yale Review, 53(3), pp. 342-80
Publication: The Italian Girl (London: Chatto & Windus)
1965
Publication: The Red and The Green (London: Chatto & Windus)
1966
Publication: ‘The Darkness of Practical Reason’. Review of Stuart Hampshire, The Freedom of the Individual. Encounter, pp. 46-9
Publication: The Time of the Angels (London: Chatto & Windus)
1967
The play of The Italian Girl, adapted by James Saunders, opens in Bristol
Publication: ‘Political Morality’, Listener, pp. 353-4
1968
Publication: The Nice and the Good (London: Chatto & Windus)
1969
Publication: Bruno’s Dream (London: Chatto & Windus)
1970
Publication: A Fairly Honourable Defeat (London: Chatto & Windus)
Publication: The Sovereignty of Good (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul)
Publication: ‘Existentialists and Mystics’ in Essays and Poems Presented to Lord David Cecil (London: Constable)
A Severed Headis released as a film
1971
Publication: An Accidental Man (London: Chatto & Windus)
1972
The play, The Three Arrows, opens in Cambridge, starring Sir Ian McKellan
Publication: ‘Salvation by Words’, New York Review of Books
1973
Publication: The Black Prince (London: Chatto & Windus). Winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize
Publication: The Three Arrows & The Servants and the Snow (London: Chatto & Windus)
1974
Publication: The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (London: Chatto & Windus). Winner of the Whitbread Literary Award for Fiction
1975
Publication: ‘Socialism and Selection’ in C. B. Cox and Rhodes Boyson (eds), Black Paper 1975: The Fight for Education
Publication: A Word Child (London: Chatto & Windus)
1976
Publication: Henry and Cato (London: Chatto & Windus)
1977
Made an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford
Publication: The Fire and the Sun: Why Plato Banished the Artists (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
1978
Publication: A Year of Birds (Compton Press)
Publication: The Sea, The Sea (London: Chatto & Windus). Winner of the Booker Prize
1980
An opera, The Servants, written by the composer William Matthias, and based on Murdoch’s play, The Servants in the Snow, opens at the New Theatre, Cardiff
Publication: Nuns and Soldiers (London: Chatto & Windus)
1982
The Bell is adapted for television
Made a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
1983
Awarded an honorary D. Litt. by the University of Bath
Publication: The Philosopher’s Pupil (London: Chatto & Windus)
1985
Publication: The Good Apprentice (London: Chatto & Windus). Nominated for a Booker Prize
1986
Made an Honorary Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge
Publication: Acastos: Two Platonic Dialogues (London: Chatto & Windus)
Publication: ‘Ethics and the Imagination’, The Irish Theological Quarterly, 52, pp. 81-95
1987
Named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Her play, The One Alone, is broadcast on BBC Radio 3
Publication: The Book and the Brotherhood (London: Chatto & Windus)
1989
The play of The Black Prince opens at the Aldwych Theatre, London
Publication: The Message to the Planet (London: Chatto & Windus)
1990
Receives the National Arts Club Medal of Honour for Literature
1992
Publication: Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (London: Chatto & Windus)
1993
Awarded an honorary D. Litt. by the University of Cambridge
Publication: The Green Knight (London: Chatto & Windus)
1994
Publication of Joanna, Joanna (London: Colophon Press with Old Town Books)
Awarded an honorary D. Litt. by Kingston University
1995
Publication: Jackson’s Dilemma (London: Chatto & Windus)
1997
Publication: Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature (London: Chatto & Windus)
Publication: Poems by Iris Murdoch, Yozo Moroya and Paul Hullah (Okayama: University Education Press). This is a limited edition book, with only 500 copies published
Awarded the Golden PEN by English PEN for a ‘Lifetime’s Distinguished Service to Literature’
1999
(8 February) Died in Oxford.
Sarah Lewin (25/10/16)