The Unicorn
The Unicorn

Author: Iris Murdoch

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 1987-01-06

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1101494247

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A brilliant mythical drama about well-meaning people trapped in a war of spiritual forces Marian 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, but of an unforgiving husband. Hannah, the Unicorn, seemingly an image of persecuted virtue, fascinates those who surround her, some of whom plan to rescue her from her dream of redemptive suffering. But is she an innocent victim, a guilty woman, a mad woman, or a witch? Is her spiritual life really some evil enchantment? If she is forcibly liberated will she die? The ordinary, sensible people survive, and are never sure whether they have understood.

A Fairly Honourable Defeat
A Fairly Honourable Defeat

Author: Iris Murdoch

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2001-03-01

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 9780141186177

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An exploration of love and its excesses, missteps, and modest triumphs, from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea, The Sea In a dark comedy of errors, Iris Murdoch portrays the mischief wrought by Julius, a cynical intellectual who decides to demonstrate through a Machiavellian experiment how easily loving couples, caring friends, and devoted siblings can betray their loyalties. As puppet master, Julius artfully plays on the human tendency to embrace drama and intrigue and to prefer the distraction of confrontations to the difficult effort of communicating openly and honestly. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Italian Girl
The Italian Girl

Author: Iris Murdoch

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2010-07-20

Total Pages: 133

ISBN-13: 145320072X

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A family struggles for redemption after a funeral brings dark secrets to the surface in this novel from the Booker Prize–winning author of The Sea, The Sea. For the first time in years, Edmund Narraway has returned to his childhood home—for the funeral of his mother. The visit rekindles feelings of affection and nostalgia—but also triggers a resurgence of the tensions that caused him to leave in the first place. As Edmund once again becomes entangled in his family’s web of corrosive secrets, his homecoming tips a precariously balanced dynamic into sudden chaos, in this compelling story of reunion and coming apart from Iris Murdoch, “one of the most significant novelists of her generation” (The Guardian).

The Good Apprentice
The Good Apprentice

Author: Iris Murdoch

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2001-12-01

Total Pages: 532

ISBN-13: 9780141186689

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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 redemption through a reunion with his famous father, the reclusive painter Jesse Baltram. Funny and compelling, The Good Apprentice is at once a supremely sophisticated entertainment and an inquiry into the spiritual crises that afflict the modern world. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Black Prince
The Black Prince

Author: Iris Murdoch

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2003-03-25

Total Pages: 391

ISBN-13: 1101495685

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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 tormented by his melancholic sister, who has decided to come live with him; his ex-wife, who has infuriating hopes of redeeming the past; her delinquent brother, who wants money and emotional confrontations; and Bradley's friend and rival, Arnold Baffin, a younger, deplorably more successful author of commercial fiction. The ever-mounting action includes marital cross-purposes, seduction, suicide, abduction, romantic idylls, murder, and due process of law. Bradley tries to escape from it all but fails, leading to a violent climax and a coda that casts shifting perspectives on all that has preceded.

A Severed Head
A Severed Head

Author: Iris Murdoch

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 1976-11-18

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 1101495839

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A novel about the frightfulness and ruthlessness of being in love, from the author of the Booker Prize-winning novel The Sea, The Sea 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 beautifully and sensibly. Then he meets a woman whose demonic splendor at first repels him and later arouses a consuming and monstrous passion. As his Medusa informs him, “this is nothing to do with happiness.” A Severed Head was adapted for a successful stage production in 1963 and was later made into a film starring Claire Bloom, Lee Remick, Richard Attenborough, and Ian Holm.

The Sea, the Sea
The Sea, the Sea

Author: Iris Murdoch

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2001-03-01

Total Pages: 530

ISBN-13: 1101495650

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Winner of the Booker Prize—a tale of the strange obsessions that haunt a playwright as he composes his memoirs Charles Arrowby, leading light of England's theatrical set, retires from glittering London to an isolated home by the sea. He plans to write a memoir about his great love affair with Clement Makin, his mentor, both professionally and personally, and amuse himself with Lizzie, an actress he has strung along for many years. None of his plans work out, and his memoir evolves into a riveting chronicle of the strange events and unexpected visitors-some real, some spectral-that disrupt his world and shake his oversized ego to its very core. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

An Unofficial Rose
An Unofficial Rose

Author: Iris Murdoch

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2010-07-20

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1453201076

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“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 losing the one woman he loved. Twenty-five years ago, he ended an affair with Emma Sands, a detective novelist who had stolen his heart, to be with his wife, Fanny. Now, Fanny is gone, and both Hugh and his grown son, Randall, find themselves at a crossroads of passion and righteousness. As Hugh, Emma, Randall, Randall’s wife, Randall’s mistress, and several others are caught in a dance of romance and rejection in bucolic rural England, they will discover the true meanings of love, companionship, and desire. From the acclaimed author of The Sea, The Sea, An Unofficial Rose is a novel of wit, sorrow and an unparalleled psychological insight.

Jackson's Dilemma
Jackson's Dilemma

Author: Iris Murdoch

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 1997-03-01

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 1101174129

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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 manservant who, in guiding all the young lovers into the light, has to make his own agonizing decisions.

The Time of the Angels
The Time of the Angels

Author: Iris Murdoch

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0099429098

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Carel Fisher is a priest who is experiencing doubt and beginning to feel hate for God. The novel explores the forces of good and evil, and studies a religious man transferring his faith from one force to the other.