A Word Child

A Word Child is the 17th novel by Iris Murdoch.

First published in 1975 by Chatto and Windus, A Word Child charts the trials and tribulations of the title character, the "word child", Hilary Burde as he attempts to recover his soul from the misery of his troubled past. Filled in the usual Murdoch style with an array of colourful, fully rounded characters who people Hilary's world, the novel is a complex and thoughtful exploration of the possibility and meaning of redemption, the nature of human memory, and the possibility of love for the tarnished soul. By turns stirring, witty, painful and joyous, the novel was received to great critical acclaim on its release.

Works by Iris Murdoch
Novels
  • Under the Net (1954)
  • The Flight from the Enchanter (1956)
  • The Sandcastle (1957)
  • The Bell (1958)
  • A Severed Head (1961)
  • An Unofficial Rose (1962)
  • The Unicorn (1963)
  • The Italian Girl (1964)
  • The Red and the Green (1965)
  • The Time of the Angels (1966)
  • The Nice and the Good (1968)
  • Bruno's Dream (1969)
  • A Fairly Honourable Defeat (1970)
  • An Accidental Man (1971)
  • The Black Prince (1973)
  • The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (1974)
  • A Word Child (1975)
  • Henry and Cato (1976)
  • The Sea, the Sea (1978)
  • Nuns and Soldiers (1980)
  • The Philosopher's Pupil (1983)
  • The Good Apprentice (1985)
  • The Book and the Brotherhood (1987)
  • The Message to the Planet (1989)
  • The Green Knight (1993)
  • Jackson's Dilemma (1995)
Short stories
  • "Something Special" (1957)
Plays
  • A Severed Head (with J. B. Priestley, 1964)
  • The Italian Girl (with James Saunders, 1969)
  • The Three Arrows & the Servants and the Snow (1973)
  • The Servants (1980)
  • Acastos: Two Platonic Dialogues (1986)
  • The Black Prince (1987)
Poetry
  • A Year of Birds (1978, rev. 1984)
  • Poems by Iris Murdoch (1997)
Philosophy
  • Sartre: Romantic Rationalist (1953)
  • The Sovereignty of Good (1970)
  • The Fire and the Sun (1977)
  • Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (1992)
  • Existentialists and Mystics (1997)

Famous quotes containing the words word and/or child:

    “I have been maintaining that the meaning of the word ‘ought’ and other moral words is such that a person who uses them commits himself thereby to a universal rule. This is the thesis of universalizability.”
    —Richard M. Hare (b. 1919)

    “Let your child be the teenager he or she wants to be, not the adolescent you were or wish you had been.”
    —Laurence Steinberg (20th century)