The Bell

First edition. 8vo. Pp. 319, [1]. Publisher's green cloth, lettered in gilt to spine. Jacket design by Charles Mozley (priced 15s net to front flap).

Light offsetting to the endpapers, mild tanning to verso of d/w bar spine panel, else Fine.

Author's fourth novel. A Burgess 99 title. The installation of a new bell at a Gloucestershire Abbey is the springboard for an exploration of the ceaseless struggle between sex and religion. Inspired by Murdoch's occasional retreats to Malling Abbey in Kent, whose lay community and enclosed religious order of Benedictine nuns are here "recreated wholesale". Dramatised for the BBC in a four-part serialisation in 1982 with Ian Holm and Tessa Peake-Jones in the main roles. "[A] masterpiece of direct narrative." –Elizabeth Bowen

[Fletcher & Bove A0028; Conradi, Peter J. (2001). The Saint and the Artist: a Study of the Fiction of Iris Murdoch (3rd ed.). London: Harper Collins]