The Sea, The Sea (Vintage Classics Murdoch Series)

Dazzlingly entertaining and inventive

The Times

One of the most ambitious tours de force in many years... There are pages one races through to see what happens. She is a virtuoso at description

Daily Mail

There is no doubt in my mind that Iris Murdoch is one of the most important novelists now writing in English...The power of her imaginative vision, her intelligence and her awareness and revelation of human truth are quite remarkable

The Times

A fantastic feat of imagination as well as a marvellous sustained piece of writing

Vogue

It isn't all brainy fantasising in Murdochland; there's wild swimming, appalling sandwiches, death, madness and sex.

Guardian

How bloody good her novels are – how intelligent, how lucent, how divinely crazy. They’re fun – I’d forgotten that

Sarah Waters, Guardian

It was the first book I read by this brilliant author, and encouraged me to go on and read almost all her others. It is at times incredibly funny, moving and mysterious. Murdoch creates drama in the real world with flawed humans and yet there is also a spiritual layer that creeps up on you

Jude Law

Just like the sea, this novel ebbs and flows, at times fast-paced and full of action, at others reflective… a mesmerising and addictive read

Woman's Weekly

The Sea, The Sea is both a novel entirely about the era in which it was written and one that reflects – at an angle – the place and time we are living in… it is a joy to read: a rollicking story that seems endlessly to be building towards some awful, hilarious, frightening conclusion

Daisy Johnson, Harper's Bazaar

A fabulous novel...funny and poignant and is arguably Murdoch's finest hour

Gary Kemp, Daily Express

A fantastic feat of imagination as well as a marvellous sustained piece of writing

Vogue

Absolutely exquisite

Scarlett Strallen, Daily Express

An enjoyable, thought-provoking and unforgettable novel

Val Hennessey, Daily Mail

Dazzlingly entertaining and inventive

The Times

I love the novels of Iris Murdoch

Philippa Gregory

My favourite novel

David Yelland, The Week

One of the most ambitious tours de force in many years... There are pages one races through to see what happens. She is a virtuoso at description

Daily Mail

She was a brilliantly clever woman

Dame Judi Dench

There is no doubt in my mind that Iris Murdoch is one of the most important novelists now writing in English...The power of her imaginative vision, her intelligence and her awareness and revelation of human truth are quite remarkable

The Times