Iris Murdoch’s 15th novel is part-thriller, part-love story: a book that explores the intricacies and inconsistencies of human relationships.

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

Shortlisted
The Booker Prize 1973
Published by
Chatto & Windus
Publication date

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Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch

About the Author

Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin and made her writing debut with Under the Net in 1954. She wrote 26 novels and several books of philosophy.
More about Iris Murdoch

Revisiting The Black Prince

Having read and re-read Murdoch’s works for 20 years this novel is, I think, her very best. It shows us both the confident artist at the height of her powers, and yet undercuts that with a metafictional work that displays both the artifice of fiction and the conflict that lies at the heart of any writer. This is why this novel, and indeed all her fiction, continues to endure; as Bradley tells us, ‘the rag bag of human consciousness is only unified by the experience of great art or of intense love’. 

Read Miles Leeson’s essay on The Black Prince here

Other nominated books by Iris Murdoch

The Book and the Brotherhood
The Good Apprentice
The Sea The Sea
Prize winner
The Nice and the Good
Bruno's Dream