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The Bell (Vintage Classics Murdoch Series)

  • Imprint: Vintage Classics

  • ISBN: 9781784875206

  • Length: 368  Pages

  • Dimensions: 178mm x 22mm x 128mm

  • Weight: 263g

  • RRP: £9.99

The Bell (Vintage Classics Murdoch Series)

'In this holy community she would play the witch.'

Imber Court is a quiet haven for lost souls, a utopia for those who can neither live in the world, nor out of it. But beneath the gentle daily routines of this community run currents of supressed desire, religious yearning and a legend of disastrous love. Charming, indolent Dora arrives in their midst, and half-unwittingly conjures these submerged things to the surface.

'A tragi-comic masterpiece... a magnificent novel.' Susan Hill, The Lady

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SARAH PERRY

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.

  • Imprint: Vintage Classics

  • ISBN: 9781784875206

  • Length: 368  Pages

  • Dimensions: 178mm x 22mm x 128mm

  • Weight: 263g

  • RRP: £9.99

Reviews

  • She's writing about the only things that matter – love, goodness and how to be happy

    Patrick Gale, Independent

  • The plot is both comical and moving, and it’s a book that everyone who’s ever been tempted to throw in the towel and become a hermit should read....despite the grand subjects at issue, the novel’s tone is not at all dry or didactic – it is, on the contrary, wonderfully lively and poignant at the same time, tender with a sprightly social comedy reminiscent of PG Wodehouse and Barbara Pym

    Guardian

  • Her characters are described with loving exactitude and in such depth that their struggles to define what it means to live a good life take on dramatic force

    New York Times

  • How bloody good her novels are – how intelligent, how lucent, how divinely crazy. They’re fun – I’d forgotten that

    Sarah Waters, Guardian

  • Above all, she was a consummate story-teller, prodigiously inventive and generous, in the realist tradition of Dickens, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Henry James, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky

    Independent

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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

Funny, subversive, fearless and fiercely intelligent, Iris Murdoch was one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. To celebrate the centenary of her birth, here's our guide to help you pick which Murdoch book to read first – or last!
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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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