The Black Prince

Shortlisted for The Booker Prize in 1973, Iris Murdoch’s 15th novel The Black Prince is part meta fictional is part thriller, part-love story: a book that explores the intricacies & inconsistencies of human relationships.  

“The most self-revelatory... of all her dark comedies” (The Guardian)

Bradley Pearson, narrator & hero, is an elderly writer with a ‘block’. Adding & contributing to his torment are a host of predatory friends & relations - his melancholic sister, his ex-wife & her delinquent brother, & a younger, deplorably successful writer, Arnold Baffin. Not to mention Baffin’s restless wife & disturbingly engaging daughter. Bradley attempts to escape. His failure to do so, & its aftermath, lead to a violent climax & a most unexpected conclusion.

"The book is so great, I almost feel it has magic powers. It’s tragic, comic, mysterious, thought-provoking and so much more than the sum of its parts. It manages to be both a great detective story & a great love story at the same time. It’s the only book I’ve ever read that feels as if it encapsulates all of life & the human experience." — Sophie Hannan, The New York Times

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Iris Murdoch read Classics at Somerville College, Oxford, & was awarded a research studentship in Philosophy at Newnham College, Cambridge. In 1948 she returned to Oxford as fellow & tutor at St Anne’s College & later taught at the Royal College of Art.

She made her writing debut with Under the Net in 1954. She wrote 26 novels & several books of philosophy that include the Booker prize-winning The Sea, The Sea (1978), the James Tait Black Memorial prize-winning The Black Prince (1973) & the Whitbread prize-winning The Sacred & Profane Love Machine (1974). Iris Murdoch had a number of other novels on the long & shortlists for the Booker Prize over the years, including A Fairly Honourable Defeat which was longlisted for The Lost Man Booker Prize.