Message To The Planet

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 was a brilliantly clever woman" -- Dame Judi Dench "There is no doubt in my mind that Iris Murdoch is one of the most important novelists now writing in English...The power of her imaginative vision, her intelligence and her awareness and revelation of human truth are quite remarkable" The Times "I love the novels of Iris Murdoch" -- Philippa Gregory "Miss Murdoch is blessedly clever without any of the aridity which, for some reason, that word is supposed to imply" -- Philip Toynbee "Iris Murdoch has imposed her alternative world on us as surely as Christopher Columbus or Graham Greene" Sunday Times