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 merchant and unfaithful husband, whose life is turned inside out when his wife leaves him for her psychoanalyst.
In The Sea, the Sea the landscape shifts to the seclusion of an isolated house on the edge of England's North Sea, where Charles Arrowby, a big name in London's glittering theatrical world, has retired to write his memoirs. Arrowby's plans begin to unravel when he meets his first love and becomes haunted by the idea of rekindling his adolescent passion.
The Severed Head and...
Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin in 1919. After working in the Treasury and in the UN, she discovered philosophy, eventually becoming Fellow at St Anne’s College, Oxford. Her philosophical concerns are at the heart of the 25 novels for which she became famous, gaining the Whitbread Prize for The Sacred and Profane Love Machine and the Booker Prize for The Sea, The Sea. Until her death in 1999, she lived in Oxford with her husband, the academic and critic, John Bayley. She wrote poetry all her life.
Rachel Hirschler is the lead transcriber with the Iris Murdoch Collections at Kingston University Archives. Miles Leeson, Anne Rowe and Frances White are leading academics and editors who have published widely on Iris Murdoch’s life, philosophy and novels. Together they administer and contribute to the work of the Iris Murdoch Research Centre, the Iris Murdoch Society and the Iris Murdoch Review.
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