Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) was an Irish-born British novelist and philosopher. Born in Dublin and raised in London, she studied at Somerville College, Oxford, and later taught philosophy at St Anne’s College, Oxford. Murdoch published her first novel, *Under the Net*, in 1954 and went on to write a large body of fiction noted for its moral and psychological complexity. Her novel *The Sea, the Sea* won the Booker Prize in 1978. She also wrote influential philosophical works, including *The Sovereignty of Good* (1970). Murdoch was married to the literary critic John Bayley.