Iris murdoch short biography

Prominent 20th-century English moral philosopher, as well as a gifted, prolific, and widely acclaimed novelist. Name variations: Dame Iris Murdoch.

Pronunciation: MER-dock. Born Jean Iris Murdoch on July 15, 1919, in Dublin, Ireland; died in Oxford, England, on February 8, 1999; daughter of Irene Alice (Richardson) Murdoch (a singer) and Wills John Hughes Murdoch (a civil servant); mother's family from Dublin, father's family of Country Down sheepfarming stock; received early education at the Froebel Educational Institute, London, and the progressive Badminton School, Bristol; read ancient history, classics, philosophy at Somerville College, Oxford University, 1938–42; married John Bayley (a literary critic and Oxford professor), in 1956; no children.

Worked as temporary wartime civil servant (assistant principal) in the Treasury (1942–44, 1944–46); worked with refugees, first in Belgium, then in Austria, where she was assigned to a camp for displac