Dame Jean Iris Murdoch (July 15, 1919 - February 8, 1999) was an Irish/British novelist and philosopher.
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Murdoch was born in 1919 in Dublin but is thought of more as a British author. She studied at Somerville College, Oxford.
In 1948 she became a fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. She wrote her first novel, Under The Net, in 1954, having previously published works on philosophy, including a study of Jean-Paul Sartre. It was at Oxford that she met and married (in 1956) John Bayley, a professor of English literature and also a novelist. She went on to produce twenty-five more novels (plus other works of philosophy and drama) until 1995 when she became afflicted with Alzheimer's disease.
The movie Iris stars Kate Winslet as the young Iris Murdoch and Dame Judi Dench as the older Iris descending into dementia.
Iris Murdoch's novels are by turns intense and bizarre, and yet very civilized and carefully observed at the same time. Before it was generally accepted, she often included non-stereotypical homosexual characters in her fiction. (In particular, her 1970 novel A Fairly Honourable Defeat contains a realistic portrayal of a gay relationship.) Another recurring character type is the powerful and almost demonic male enchanter who imposes his will on the other characters -- a type which Murdoch is said to have modelled after her one-time lover Elias Canetti.