Iris Murdoch is incapable of writing without fascinating and beautiful colour The Times Iris Murdoch was one of the best and most influential writers of the twentieth century -- Peter Conradi Guardian A thoroughly gripping, stimulating and challenging fiction The Times When the intellectual map of our time comes to be sketched out, Irish Murdoch will occupy a position analogous to Tolstoy and Dostoevsky... Her vision of the world is heart-rending, but ultimately celebratory -- A. N. Wilson Guardian