Announcements
Iris Murdoch Special Collections notice
The following two books from the Murdoch Oxford Library are currently at a conservator for necessary attention and therefore not available for issue. Apologies to any researchers who wish to use these volumes - their return will be announced in due course.
- IML 1120: The annotated copy of Crowds and Power by Elias Canetti
- IML 764: The Zen Poems of Ryokan
Call for papers
The call for papers has been issued for the Sixth International Iris Murdoch Conference, taking place in September 2012.
Queneau letters in Granta Magazine
Granta Magazine has published a small selection of the letters from Iris Murdoch to Raymond Queneau in issue 111.
Summer closure of archives
During the summer of 2010 a major building project will take place at the Penrhyn Road campus, involving a widening of the main corridor and also significant changes to the ground floor of the Learning Resource Centre. The Kingston University Archive will close on 14 May 2010 as a result, before re-opening in October 2010 at a new location within the LRC.
If you had planned to visit the archives during the summer, please email the team at archives@kingston.ac.uk and they will explore with you whether they can accommodate your visit.
Those attending the Iris Murdoch Conference on or around 10-11 September should order any materials they would like to consult from the archivist, Katie Giles, by 1 May 2010. Every effort will be made to accommodate requests. A selection of the recently acquired letters from Iris Murdoch to Raymond Queneau will be on display at the conference and Katie Giles will be giving a talk on recent acquisitions.
We apologise for any disappointment and inconvenience this may cause but we look forward to welcoming you to our new archive reading room later in the year.
Call for papers
The call for papers has been issued for the Fifth International Iris Murdoch Conference, taking place in September 2010.
The Centre for Iris Murdoch Studies has acquired the library from Iris Murdoch's London home
Kingston University and the Iris Murdoch Society have bought the contents of Iris Murdoch's library from her London flat at Cornwall Gardens in Kensington. Murdoch kept a base in London until she died in 1999, and although this library is much smaller than her Oxford library which was acquired by Kingston University in 2004, it has several annotated texts that complement the existing one hundred annotated texts in the Oxford library. The annotations in the London library are written in books on education and politics, and will be invaluable to future researchers on Murdoch's work.
The London library also contains some items of intense personal significance to Murdoch. These include the leather-bound inscribed copy of The Sea, The Sea presented to her on winning the Booker Prize in 1978; the inscribed first editions of her novels that she had given to her mother; inscribed books from lovers, teachers and friends; her Book of Common Prayer, and the bible inscribed "with love from Grannie" given to Murdoch when she was ten years old (and with many underlinings in ink).
Now that Kingston University holds Murdoch's Oxford Library, her London Library, Peter Conradi's working archive amassed during the writing of Murdoch's official biography, and many important letter-runs, manuscripts, and other documents, the Centre for Iris Murdoch Studies has become an unparalleled, world-class source of information for researchers on the life and work of Iris Murdoch.
