Under The Net (Vintage Classics Murdoch Series)
Play sample
  • Published: 3 September 2019
  • ISBN: 9781784875213
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $22.99

Under The Net (Vintage Classics Murdoch Series)

Formats & editions
Paperback
3 Sep 2019
Paperback
5 Apr 2002
EBook
1 Sep 2010
Audiobook
7 Jul 2011
Buy from…
Amazon Booktopia Dymocks QBD Readings Find local retailers Find local retailers Abbeys Angus & Robertson Boomerang Collins Fishpond Gleebooks Harry Hartog Kinokuniya Robinsons The Nile Your Bookstore

The novel that launched Iris Murdoch's career – now republished as part of the Vintage Classics Murdoch Series – six gorgeous editions of her best, funniest and most subversive novels published to mark her centenary.

'This is real life, Jake,' she said. 'You'd better wake up.'

Jake is clever, lazy and scraping by in London as a hack translator. Jake loves Anna. Anna is an elusive and lovely singer. Anna loves Hugo. Hugo is a fireworks manufacturer turned movie producer and majestic philosopher. Hugo loves Sadie. Sadie is a glossy and dazzling film starlet. Of course, Sadie loves Jake. Then there's Marvellous Mister Mars, the famous hound, who might or might not be Jake's ticket up and out of this mess.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CHARLOTTE MENDELSON

VINTAGE CLASSICS MURDOCH: Funny, subversive, fearless and fiercely intelligent, Iris Murdoch was one of the great writers of the twentieth century. To celebrate her centenary Vintage Classics presents special editions of her greatest and most timeless novels.
  • Published: 3 September 2019
  • ISBN: 9781784875213
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $22.99
Categories:
Share…

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

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

Praise for Under The Net (Vintage Classics Murdoch Series)

Under the Net announces the emergence of a brilliant talent

Times Literary Supplement

A dazzling story, light and comic in touch

The Times

Iris Murdoch has imposed her alternative world on us as surely as Christopher Columbus or Graham Greene

Sunday Times

This is a comedy with that touch of ferocity about it which makes for excitement

Elizabeth Jane Howard

I was drawn to the intellectual speculation and psychological depth of Murdoch’s writing, and the experience of reading her brought the realisation that, for me, thinking would always be the greater part of reading

Aminatta Forna