Book description
A work of coruscating moral brilliance,
The Nice and the Good
revolves around a happily married couple, Kate and Octavian, and the
friends of all ages attached to their house in Dorset. The novel deals
with love in its many aspects, as embodied in a fascinating array of
characters. The resonant sub plot involves murder and black magic in
Whitehall, as the novel leads us through stress and terror to a
profoundly joyous conclusion.
Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin in
1919 of Anglo-Irish parents. She went to Badminton School, Bristol,
and read classics at Somerville College, Oxford. During the war she
was an Assistant Principal at the Treasury, and then worked with UNRRA
in London, Belgium and Austria. She held a studentship in philosophy
at Newnham College, Cambridge, and then in 1948 she returned to
Oxford, where she became a Fellow of St Anne's College. Until her
death in February 1999, she lived with her husband, the teacher and
critic John Bayley, in Oxford. Awarded the CBE in 1976, Iris Murdoch
was made a DBE in the 1987 New Year's Honours List. In the 1997 PEN
Awards she received the Gold Pen for Distinguished Service to
Literature.
Iris Murdoch made her writing debut in 1954 with Under the
Net, and went on to write twenty-six novels, including the Booker
prize-winning The Sea, The Sea (1978). Other literary awards
include the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Black
Prince (1973) and the Whitbread Prize (now the Costa Book Award)
for The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (1974). Her works of
philosophy include Sartre: Romantic Rationalist, Metaphysics
as a Guide to Morals (1992) and Existentialists and
Mystics (1997) She wrote several plays including The Italian
Girl (with James Saunders) and The Black Prince, adapted
from her novels of the same name. She died in February 1999.
