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The Bell

byIris Murdoch, A. S. Byatt (Introducer), Miriam Margoyles (Read by)

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VINTAGE CLASSICS MURDOCH: Funny, subversive, fearless and fiercely intelligent, Iris Murdoch was one of the great writers of the twentieth century. To celebrate her centenary Vintage Classics presents special editions of her greatest and most timeless novels

A lay community of thoroughly mixed-up people is encamped outside Imber Abbey, home of an enclosed order of nuns. A new bell, legendary symbol of religion and magic, is rediscovered. Dora Greenfield, erring wife, returns to her husband. Michael Mead, leader of the community, is confronted by Nick Fawley, with whom he had disastrous homosexual relations, while the wise old Abbess watches and prays and exercises discreet authority. And everyone, or almost everyone, hopes to be saved whatever that may mean... Iris Murdoch's funny and sad novel is about religion, the fight between good and evil and the terrible accidents of human frailty.

(C) Iris Murdoch 1958 (P) Penguin Audio 2011

About Iris Murdoch

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.
Details
  • Imprint: RH AudioGo
  • ISBN: 9781446471555
  • Length: 763 minutes
  • Price: £12.00
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