Scott Dunbar Archive
TitleScott Dunbar Archive
ReferenceKUAS49
Date
c. 1960s- c. 1990s
Production date 1960-01-01 - 1999-12-31
Scope and ContentScott Dunbar was a teacher, philosopher and friend of Iris Murdoch. The Collection contains approx 120 letters from Iris Murdoch to Scott Dunbar, plus publications and other documents relating to Scott Dunbar's life.
Extent2 boxes
Admin. history/BiographyScott Dunbar was a Canadian teacher, philosopher and theologian. Dunbar led a difficult life, with a near death experience due to an alcohol overdose, later ending up an Alcoholics Anonymous member in 1975; he then became a bio-ethicist via the Cleveland Clinic and wrote on many aspects of bio-ethics; and later moving to Toronto, 1997, before returning to Montreal. He then worked teaching English as a second language. He met Iris Murdoch in 1966; and they maintained a friendship and correspondence afterwards.Iris 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.
Levelfonds
