The Bell (Vintage Classics Murdoch Series)
Play sample
  • Published: 15 February 2004
  • ISBN: 9780099470489
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $22.99

The Bell (Vintage Classics Murdoch Series)

Formats & editions
EBook
1 Sep 2010
Audiobook
7 Jul 2011
Paperback
15 Feb 2004
Buy from…
Amazon Booktopia Dymocks QBD Readings Your Bookstore Abbeys Boomerang Find local retailers Find local retailers Collins Fishpond Gleebooks Harry Hartog Kinokuniya Robinsons The Nile Mighty Ape

Iris Murdoch's funny and sad novel is about religion, the fight between good and evil and the terrible accidents of human frailty.

Imber Court is a quiet haven for lost souls.

It offers a sanctuary for those who can neither live in the world, nor out of it. But beneath the gentle daily routines of the community run currents of supressed desire, religious yearning and a legend of disastrous love. Charming, indolent Dora arrives in the midst of all this, and half-unwittingly conjures these submerged things to the surface.

‘She’s writing about the only things that matter – love, goodness and how to be happy’
Independent

‘A book that everyone who’s ever been tempted to throw in the towel and become a hermit should read’
Guardian

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SARAH PERRY
  • Published: 15 February 2004
  • ISBN: 9780099470489
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $22.99
Categories:

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 made her writing debut in 1954 with Under the Net. Her twenty-six novels include the Booker prize-winning The Sea, The Sea (1978), the James Tait Black Memorial prize-winning The Black Prince (1973) and the Whitbread prize-winning The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (1974). Her philosophy includes Sartre: Romantic Rationalist (1953) and Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (1992); other philosophical writings, including 'The Sovereignty of Good' (1970), are collected in Existentialists and Mystics (1997).

portrait photo of Iris Murdoch

Also by Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch: The Sea, The Sea, A Severed Head & Something Special
The Sea, The Sea & A Severed Head
Living on Paper
The Black Prince (Vintage Classics Murdoch Series)
An Accidental Man
A Word Child
The Time Of The Angels
See all

Praise for The Bell (Vintage Classics Murdoch Series)

A tragi-comic masterpiece... A magnificent novel

Susan Hill, The Lady

A distinguished novelist of a rare kind

Kingsley Amis

Of all the novelists that have made their bow since the war she seems to me to be the most remarkable-behind her books one feels a power of intellect quite exceptional in a novelist

Sunday Times

Iris Murdoch really knows how to write, can tell a story, delineate a character, catch an atmosphere with deadly accuracy

John Betjeman

Her novels evoked beautifully the atmosphere of the country gardens (The Bell, 1958) or the mysterious London streets (The Time of the Angels, 1968) in which they were set, with their characters engaged in intriguing love relationships, from the totally innocent to the wholly weird.

The Times