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Poems from an Attic: Newly discovered, an astonishing collection from the Booker prizewinner
'...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.
*As seen in the Guardian*
**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
'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
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.
*As seen in the Guardian*
**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
'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
- GenresPoetry
165 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 6, 2025
2 people are currently reading
23 people want to read
About the author
Iris Murdoch
141 books2,548 followersDame Jean Iris Murdoch
Irish-born British writer, university lecturer and prolific and highly professional novelist, Iris Murdoch dealt with everyday ethical or moral issues, sometimes in the light of myths. As a writer, she was a perfectionist who did not allow editors to change her text. Murdoch produced 26 novels in 40 years, the last written while she was suffering from Alzheimer disease.
"She wanted, through her novels, to reach all possible readers, in different ways and by different means: by the excitement of her story, its pace and its comedy, through its ideas and its philosophical implications, through the numinous atmosphere of her own original and created world--the world she must have glimpsed as she considered and planned her first steps in the art of fiction." (John Bayley in Elegy for Iris, 1998)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Mur...
Irish-born British writer, university lecturer and prolific and highly professional novelist, Iris Murdoch dealt with everyday ethical or moral issues, sometimes in the light of myths. As a writer, she was a perfectionist who did not allow editors to change her text. Murdoch produced 26 novels in 40 years, the last written while she was suffering from Alzheimer disease.
"She wanted, through her novels, to reach all possible readers, in different ways and by different means: by the excitement of her story, its pace and its comedy, through its ideas and its philosophical implications, through the numinous atmosphere of her own original and created world--the world she must have glimpsed as she considered and planned her first steps in the art of fiction." (John Bayley in Elegy for Iris, 1998)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Mur...
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