Iris Murdoch

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  • Bibliography:
    32 Books
  • First Book:
    January 1954
  • Latest Book:
    March 2016
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Book List in Order: 32 titles

  • Under the Net

    Iris Murdoch's debut -- a comic novel about work and love, wealth and fameJake Donaghue, garrulous artist, meets Hugo Bellfounder, silent philosopher.Jake, hack writer and sponger, now penniless flat-hunter, seeks out an old girlfriend, Anna Quentin,...

  • The Sandcastle

    The quiet life of schoolmaster Bill Mor and his wife Nan is disturbed when a young woman, Rain Carter, arrives at the school to paint the portrait of the headmaster. Mor, hoping to enter politics, becomes aware of new desires. A complex battle develo...

  • The Bell

    A motley assortment of characters seek peace and salvation in this early masterpiece by the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea, The Sea A lay community of thoroughly mixed-up people is encamped outside Imber Abbey, home of an order of seques...

  • A Severed Head

    Martin Lynch-Gibson believes he can possess both a beautiful wife and a delightful lover. But when his wife, Antonia, suddenly leaves him for her psychoanalyst, Martin is plunged into an intensive emotional reeducation. He attempts to behave beautifu...

  • An Unofficial Rose

    “A Shakespearean comedy of misaligned lovers” set in the modern English countryside by a Man Booker Prize winner (Publishers Weekly).   Hugh Peronett’s life is tinged with regret: the regret of never following his passions and...

  • The Unicorn

    A brilliant mythical drama about well-meaning people trapped in a war of spiritual forcesMarian Taylor, who has come as a “companion” to a lovely woman in a remote castle, becomes aware that her employer is a prisoner, not only of her obsessions,...

  • The Italian Girl

    Edmund has escaped from his family into a lonely life.Returning for his mother's funeral he finds himself involved in the old, awful problems together with some new ones. He also rediscovers the eternal family servant, the ever-changing Italian girl,...

  • The Flight from the Enchanter

    A group of people have elected ambiguous and fascinating Mischa Fox to be their god. But his alter ego, Calvin Blick, is inspiring fear, and Rosa Keepe is swept into the battle between sturdy common sense and dangerous enchantment....

  • The Red and the Green

    As the Easter Rebellion looms, tension mounts in the rain-soaked streets of Dublin. Tension is also ratcheting up at home. Pat Dumay is a Catholic and an Irish patriot. His relentlessly pious mother pursues her own private war with his stepfather, a ...



  • The Time of the Angels

    In a crumbling London rectory after the Second World War, a priest descends into madness in this tale of good and evil by a Man Booker Prize winner.   Carel Fisher was once a bastion of faith, a shining example of Anglican goodness and Christian...

  • Bruno's Dream

    An old man struggles to make one last connection with his estranged son, before it’s too late The elderly Bruno knows he is not far from death. One of his last wishes is to contact his estranged son, Miles, whose marriage to an Indian woman d...

  • The Nice and the Good

    John Ducane, a respected Whitehall civil servant, is asked to investigate the suicide of a colleague. As he pursues his inquiry he uncovers a shabby, evil world of murder, blackmail, and black magic. In contrast to stagnant summer London, Octavian...

  • A Fairly Honourable Defeat

    An exploration of love and its excesses, missteps, and modest triumphs, from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea, The SeaIn a dark comedy of errors, Iris Murdoch portrays the mischief wrought by Julius, a cynical intellectual who decides to de...

  • An Accidental Man

    A scintillating novel of fate, accidents, and moral dilemmasSet in the time of the Vietnam War, this story concerns the plight of a young American, happily installed in a perfect job in England, engaged to a wonderful girl, who is suddenly drafted to...

  • The Black Prince

    Bradley Pearson, an unsuccessful novelist in his late fifties, has finally left his dull office job as an Inspector of Taxes. Bradley hopes to retire to the country, but predatory friends and relations dash his hopes of a peaceful retirement. He is...

  • The Three Arrows and the Servants and the Snow

  • The Sacred and Profane Love Machine

    Swinging between his wife and his mistress in the sacred and profane love machine and between the charms of morality and the excitements of sin, the psychotherapist, Blaise Gavender, sometimes wishes he could divide himself in two. Instead, he lets l...

  • A Word Child

    Hilary Burde, saved by education from a delinquent childhood, cheated of Oxford by a tragic love tangle, cherishes his obsessive guilt and disappointment in a dull, orderly civil service job. When the man whom he has harmed and betrayed reappears ...

  • Henry and Cato

    As children growing up in the English countryside, Henry Marshalson and Cato Forbes were inseparable. But, as time went on, their lives took different paths. For Henry, whose older brother would inherit his father’s estate, the United States called...



  • The Sea, the Sea

    After a brilliant and fulfilling career, Charles Arrowby revels in his perfect refuge, an isolated home by the sea, but soon his isolation is broken as the world intrudes and figures from his complex past make unbidden visits...

  • Nuns and Soldiers

    A dazzling meditation on love and honor, greed and generosity, passion and death, from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea, The SeaSet in London and in the South of France, this brilliantly structured novel centers on two women: Gertrude Opens...

  • The Philosopher's Pupil

    In the English town of Ennistone, hot springs bubble up from deep beneath the earth. In these healing waters the townspeople seek health and regeneration, rightousness and ritual cleansing. To this town steeped in ancient lore and subterranean inspir...

  • The Good Apprentice

    Edward Baltram is overwhelmed with guilt. His nasty little prank has gone horribly wrong: He has fed his closest friend a sandwich laced with a hallucinogenic drug and the young man has fallen out of a window to his death. Edward searches for redemp...

  • The Book and the Brotherhood

    A story about love and friendship and MarxismMany years ago Gerard Hernshaw and his friends “commissioned” one of their number to write a political book.Time passes and opinions change. “Why should we go on supporting a book which we detest?”...

  • Acastos

    In two Platonic diaglogues, "Art and Eros" and "Above the Gods," "Acastos, Plato's friend and a sturdy, able thinker, explains the meaning of goodness and the role of faith as they pertain to the modern world...

  • The Message to the Planet

  • The Fire and the Sun

  • The Green Knight

    Full of suspense, humor, and symbolism, this magnificently crafted and magical novel replays biblical and medieval themes in contemporary London. An attempt by the sharp, feral, and uncommonly intelligent Lucas Graffe to murder his sensual and charis...

  • Jackson's Dilemma

    On the eve of their wedding, Edward Lannion and Marian Berran are led away onto dark and strange paths, while their friends and lovers are forced to make new and surprising choices. Watching over all of them is Jackson, a mysterious and charismatic m...



  • Something Special

    A heartrending tale of love and repression, recently discovered.

    An unforgettable tale of love and repression, appearing in book form for the first time. Beautifully produced and hauntingly illustrated, this unknown work by Iris Murdoch (191...

  • The Sea, The Sea & A Severed Head

    First published in 1961, The Severed Head is regarded is one of Iris Murdoch's most entertaining works. A dark and ferocious comic masterpiece, the novel traces the turbulent emotional journey of Martin Lynch-Gibbon, a smug, well-to-do London wine me...

  • A Fairly Honorable Defeat

    • / Romantic Suspense
    • Buy Buy

Award-Winning Books by Iris Murdoch

The Sea, the Sea
1978 Man Booker Prize -- Novel


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Iris Murdoch has published 32 books.

Iris Murdoch does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, The Sea, The Sea & A Severed Head, was published in March 2016.

The first book by Iris Murdoch, Under the Net, was published in January 1954.

No. Iris Murdoch does not write books in series.
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