A Fairly Honourable Defeat - Softcover

Murdoch, Iris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140033327 ISBN 13: 9780140033328

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd, 1972

Synopsis

In a dark comedy of errors, Iris Murdoch portrays the mischief wrought by Julius, a cynical intellectual who decides to demonstrate through a Machiavellian experiment how easily loving couples, caring friends, and devoted siblings can betray their loyalties. As puppet master, Julius artfully plays on the human tendency to embrace drama and intrigue and to prefer the distraction of confrontations to the difficult effort of communicating openly and honestly.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About this title

Review:

"The most important novelist writing in my time" (A.S. Byatt)

"A distinguished novelist of a very rare kind" (Kingsley Amis)

"Of all the novelists that have made their bow since the war she seems to me to be the most remarkable-behind her books one feels a power of intellect quite exceptional in a novelist" (Sunday Times)

From the Author:

Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin in 1919 of Anglo-Irish parents. She went to Badminton School, Bristol, and read classics at Somerville College, Oxford. In 1948 she returned to Oxford where she became a fellow of St Anne’s college. Awarded the CBE in 1976, Iris Murdoch was made a DBE in the 1987 New Year’s Honours List. She died in February 1999.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Publication date: 1972
• ISBN 10: 0140033327
• ISBN 13: 9780140033328
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448