Nuns and Soldiers
London: Chatto & Windus, 1980. 1st Edition. Octavo, publisher's dove cloth, spine gilt, original illustrated dust jacket.
"As we live our precarious lives on the brink of the void, constantly coming closer to a state of nonbeing, we are all too often aware of our fragility." First edition of prolific Anglo-Irish novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch’s twentieth novel. A master of the psychological, Murdoch is best known for her darkly comic fiction exploring virtue, morality, evil, sexuality, and the power of the unconscious, influenced by her education in classics and philosophy. Written while Murdoch was philosophically preoccupied with reconciling morality and religion, Nuns and Soldiers centers on the long and complex friendship between Gertrude Openshaw, a widow, and Ann Cavidge, an ex-nun. Many of the book's themes were recapitulated in Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (1992), an expanded version of Murdoch's 1982 Gifford Lectures and her final major work. Dust jacket designed by Will Carter. Faint stain to upper board; light creasing and soiling to unclipped dust jacket. Item #6368
$40.00