Letters from Iris Murdoch to Raymond Queneau
TitleLetters from Iris Murdoch to Raymond Queneau
ReferenceKUAS70
Date
28 Feb 1946-27 Nov 1975
Creator Iris Murdoch, 1919-1999, author
Production date 1946-02-28 - 1975-11-27
Scope and ContentLetters sent from Iris Murdoch to novelist and poet Raymond Queneau. Murdoch met Queneau while working with the UNRRA and they enjoyed a regular correspondence from 1946-1975. Murdoch claimed that she owed much of her writing to her friendship with him.
Some articles collected by Queneau on the work of Iris Murdoch are also included in the collection.
Some articles collected by Queneau on the work of Iris Murdoch are also included in the collection.
Extent1 box
Archival historyPurchased with the help of grants from: MLA/ V&A Purchase Grant Fund, the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Breslauer Foundation, the Friends of the National Libraries and donations from members of the Iris Murdoch Society and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Kingston University
SubjectCorrespondence
Admin. history/BiographyIris Murdoch was born in Dublin, Ireland on 15 Jul 1919. When she was very young Iris and her parents moved to London, where Iris attended the Froebel Institute in Roehampton and Badminton School in Bristol. She followed this with studies in classics, ancient history and philosophy at Oxford, and further study at Cambridge. During the Second World War Murdoch worked for HM Treasury in London and then joined the UNRRA, providing relief in formerly occupied countries in Europe. In 1948 she became a fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford, where she taught and researched philosophy.
Iris Murdoch wrote a number of tracts on philosophy, however it is for her novels that she is best known. She wrote 26 novels in total, her first being 'Under the Net' published in 1954. Other notable works include 'The Bell' and 'The Sea, the Sea', for which she won the Booker Prize in 1978. Her final novel, 'Jackson's Dilemma', was published in 1995.
Iris Murdoch had romantic relationships with a number of individuals. She met author and scholar John Bayley while at Oxford and they married in 1956.
Later in life Murdoch was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, the first effects of which she had attributed to writer's block. Iris Murdoch died in 1999.
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