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Poems from an Attic
Iris Murdoch (1919-1999)
You ask a hundred sonnets of me – you
That put pain not poetry upon my soul.
Iris Murdoch is hugely respected as a novelist and a philosopher. She also wrote a lot of poetry throughout her life, very little of which has been published; most of it completely unknown. Some 17 years after her death, ten poetry notebooks were discovered in the attic of her home in Oxford. These were published for the first time in 2025 as Poems from an Attic: Selected Poems 1936-95.
It is very exciting to see a different side of Murdoch’s writing and thinking in her poetry. In this lecture, Miles Leeson will explore the connections in Murdoch’s poetry to the major events of her life and her fiction. Drawing on her unpublished journals, letters, philosophy and novels Miles will highlight the centrality of the new collection to reenvisioning Murdoch as a restless, protean writer; never one to stand still, but mining her past for inspiration.
With Miles Leeson is Director of the Iris Murdoch Research Center and co-editor of Poems from an Attic: The Selected Poems of Iris Murdoch (2025). Available from Bookshop.org.
Sunday 31 May 2026
18.00-20.00 British Summer Time
19.00-21.00 Central European Summer Time
Morning or lunchtime in the Americas
Lecture fee
£33.00 full price
£30.00 CAMcard holders
£30.00 students on a low income
Poems from an Attic
Iris Murdoch (1919-1999)
You ask a hundred sonnets of me – you
That put pain not poetry upon my soul.
Iris Murdoch is hugely respected as a novelist and a philosopher. She also wrote a lot of poetry throughout her life, very little of which has been published; most of it completely unknown. Some 17 years after her death, ten poetry notebooks were discovered in the attic of her home in Oxford. These were published for the first time in 2025 as Poems from an Attic: Selected Poems 1936-95.
It is very exciting to see a different side of Murdoch’s writing and thinking in her poetry. In this lecture, Miles Leeson will explore the connections in Murdoch’s poetry to the major events of her life and her fiction. Drawing on her unpublished journals, letters, philosophy and novels Miles will highlight the centrality of the new collection to reenvisioning Murdoch as a restless, protean writer; never one to stand still, but mining her past for inspiration.
With Miles Leeson is Director of the Iris Murdoch Research Center and co-editor of Poems from an Attic: The Selected Poems of Iris Murdoch (2025). Available from Bookshop.org.
Sunday 31 May 2026
18.00-20.00 British Summer Time
19.00-21.00 Central European Summer Time
Morning or lunchtime in the Americas
Lecture fee
£33.00 full price
£30.00 CAMcard holders
£30.00 students on a low income