THE BOOK AND THE BROTHERHOOD.
London: Chatto & Windus, [1987]. Octavo. Pale grey gilt cloth. About fine, in a fine highly pictorial, unclipped dust jacket designed by Tom Phillips whose remarkable portrait of Dame Jean Iris Murdoch hangs in London's National Portrait Gallery.
First edition, first impression. Murdoch's twenty-third novel, and considered to be one of her best, concerns a group of Oxford University friends who, in middle-age, gather at a summer ball. An ancient love affair is rekindled, everyone is aghast. Several years earlier the group formed a "brotherhood” to finance one of the two lover's effort to write a theoretical book, presumably about Marxism, but the book has yet to be published. Each member of the brotherhood pays their annual dues but demands nothing from him; in fact, they are reluctant even to approach him about his progress. Fine. / Fine. Item #325
Price: $75.00