Iris Murdoch

Novelist

Birthday July 15, 1919

Birth Sign Cancer

Birthplace Dublin, Ireland

DEATH DATE Feb 8, 1999 (79)

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About

A twentieth-century Irish-born novelist who wrote about timeless themes such as good vs. evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the unconscious, her best known works include Under the Net (1954), An Unofficial Rose (1962), An Accidental Man (1971), The Unicorn (1963), and The Black Prince (1973).

Before Fame

She studied philosophy at Oxford and Cambridge. She published her debut novel, Under the Net, in 1954.

Trivia

Her 1974 novel, The Sacred and Profane Love Machine, won the Whitbread Literary Award. In addition to fiction, she wrote plays, philosophical works, and poetry.

Family Life

She was born in Dublin to a civil servant father and a singer mother. She married John Bayley in 1956.

Associated With

She, like George Orwell, is considered one of the greatest United Kingdom-born writers of the 20th century.