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A Fairly Honourable Defeat

  • Imprint: Vintage Classics

  • ISBN: 9780099285335

  • Length: 464  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 27mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 319g

  • RRP: £9.99

A Fairly Honourable Defeat

In this 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.

  • Imprint: Vintage Classics

  • ISBN: 9780099285335

  • Length: 464  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 27mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 319g

  • RRP: £9.99

Reviews

  • The most important novelist writing in my time

    A.S. Byatt

  • A distinguished novelist of a very rare kind

    Kingsley Amis

  • Of all the novelists that have made their bow since the war she seems to me to be the most remarkable-behind her books one feels a power of intellect quite exceptional in a novelist

    Sunday Times

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About the Author

Iris Murdoch

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.

Iris Murdoch

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Where to start reading Iris Murdoch's books

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Extracts

Living on Paper by Iris Murdoch

It is hard for us to imagine Iris Murdoch submitting her first novel – and not even having a title for it – but here, you can read the letter that accompanied the manuscript of Under The Net

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