Pages are bright and clean except for some offsetting to the free end papers and the odd spot to the fore edge and first and last few pages. Externally, cloth is in lovely condition. In publisher's original cloth binding, with original unclipped dust wrapper. It was a harbinger of the sexual revolution that was to hit Britain in the 1960s and 1970s. Themes include marriage, adultery, and incest. It is a satirical, sometimes farcical, depiction of a power struggle between middle-class adults. A Severed Head is Murdoch's fifth published novel. Ink inscription to the front free end paper, dated 1961. The first edition, fourth impression of this novel in the publisher's original cloth binding, with the original unclipped dust wrapper. A fourth impression of this acclaimed novel by Iris Murdoch, with its original unclipped dust wrapper. It is superbly done- and genuinely horrifying.Cloth. In scene after shocking scene, the players are stripped of their illusions, altered, and finally go off to resume their lives elsewhere, on other terms, and with other, different members of the group.

Strong, ugly, appearing only in critical moments to force the others into uglier truths, she soon acquires, for Martin, the terrible appeal of a goddess- of Medusa's severed head. The only person who stays aloof is Honor Klein.

And the shifting emotions and love affairs, the relentlessly ''understanding little talks'', take on the queer, fascinating quality of group incest.

Soon Georgie, Martin's brother Alexander, and Palmer's sister, Honor Klein, are drawn into the situation. When Antonia announces she wishes to marry their analyst-friend Palmer, Martin- with gruesome passivity (''the gentleman'') allows them to analyse him and their new relations, baby him, and re-arrange his new life. He is also completely, terrifyingly spineless. Martin is rich- a dilettante wine merchant and historian. Middle-aged Martin Lynch-Gibbon has a lovely, older wife, Antonia, and a young mistress, Georgie, an economics lecturer. Witty and sophisticated, this novel is set among London fogs, and drawing rooms filled with too many objects d'art, and conversations, where six characters spin an over-civilized danse macabre of love and manners.

A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch