Drawn mostly from notebooks discovered in the attic of the late novelist and philosopher’s Oxford home, a new collection spans 60 years and touches on deeply personal themes
A previously unpublished series of poems by the late novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch is to be printed, shedding new light on her life and relationships, and marking the first time the writer’s bisexuality has been explored in her published works of fiction or poetry.
Poems from an Attic: Selected Poems, 1936–1995, to be published on 6 November, brings together decades of work that Murdoch largely kept private, stored for years in a chest in her Oxford home.
Murdoch wrote poetry throughout her life, until her death in 1999. Though she is celebrated as one of the 20th century’s foremost novelists – winning the Booker prize with her 1978 novel The Sea, The Sea – her poetry has remained largely unknown.
The volume includes an introduction by Booker-shortlisted author Sarah Hall. Vintage, the book’s publisher, describes the work as being for “anyone who has at one time or another gone soul-searching in the midst of heartbreak”.
