She was always in the front rank of unpredictable, original, serious writers exploring the deeper themes of ancient as well as contemporary experience
Guardian
Iris Murdoch really knows how to write - she can tell a story, delineate a character, catch an atmosphere with deadly accuracy
- John Betjeman,
I suspect that when the intellectual map of our own times comes to be sketched out, Iris Murdoch will occupy a position analogous to Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky... Murdoch writes better than anyone about the condition of being love: both the ecstatic joys of it and its capacity to turn otherwise decent individuals into monsters of selfishness and cruelty... Her vision of the world is heart-rending, but ultimately celebratory
- A.N. Wilson,