Poems from an Attic: Selected Poems, 1936-95

’...Without surprise
I see him now in evil company.
A wicked face - but oh those eyes could charm -
Heart, sudden heart, don’t beat me to my knees.’

Long hidden in an attic, vivid and revelatory poems shine a new light on the life and loves of Iris Murdoch.

*With an introduction by Booker-shortlisted author Sarah Hall, and an essay from the editors.*

In the dusty attic of Iris Murdoch’s Oxford home lay a battered, black chest. In 2016, when the chest was finally opened, Murdoch’s life in poems was revealed.

Renowned for her fiercely intelligent novels and groundbreaking philosophy, Murdoch was one of the great writers of the twentieth century. Yet she is also known for her equally radical life - intense friendships, relationships with both men and women, and an open marriage - about which much has, often controversially, been written. Now, her tightly wrought and vivid poems reveal a new, deeply personal account in Murdoch’s own voice. They range over the preoccupations closest to her heart, from the state of Ireland to memories of a first love lost in the Second World War.

Murdoch kept her poems private or addressed them to specific individuals. This did not affect the attention she paid to her craft. Always ’obsessed’ with poetry, her technical skill is clear even in the musicality of the early pieces, maturing in the extraordinary, impassioned cycle ’Conversations with a Prince’ and in the liberation of free verse.

Above all, these are masterful poems about love; there is no writer who reveals its secrets quite like Iris Murdoch. These are essential poems for those who, like her, think deeply about romance and friendship, jealousy and commitment, and about all the shades of love in our lives.

Praise for Iris Murdoch:

’I’ve always been a big Iris Murdoch fan ... [She] lived her life with an incredibly open heart’ Sarah Waters

’More than almost any other writer, she understands the currents beneath the surface’ Charlotte Mendelson

’She is particularly good on what might be seen as our uglier feelings ... Murdoch writes so well about what it is to experience those twinges of envy and the cognate emotions, vanity and desire’ TLS

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.

Rachel Hirschler, Miles Leeson, Anne Rowe and Frances White are the editors of Poems from an Attic.