death_date death_place birth_place influences name birth_date period spouse image article_title birth_name occupation
8 february 1999 oxfordshire , england dublin , ireland plato sartre , raymond queneau , fyodor dostoevsky , marcel proust , , arthur schopenhauer , william shakespeare sigmund freud , simone weil , jean-paul iris murdoch 15 july 1919 1953 -- 97 john bayley -lrb- 1956 -- 99 -rrb- iris murdoch.jpg iris murdoch
 jean iris murdoch novelist philosopher
iris murdoch

dame jean iris murdoch -lrb- ; 15 july 1919 -- 8 february 1999 -rrb- was an irish-born british author and philosopher , best known for her novels about good and evil , sexual relationships , morality , and the power of the unconscious .
her first published novel , `` under the net '' , was selected in 1998 as one of modern library 's 100 best english-language novels of the 20th century .
in 1987 , she was made a dame commander of the order of the british empire .
in 2008 , `` the times '' ranked murdoch twelfth on a list of `` the 50 greatest british writers since 1945 '' .
