First published in 1961, The Severed Head is regarded is one of Iris Murdoch's
most entertaining works. A dark and ferocious comic masterpiece, the novel
traces the turbulent emotional journey of Martin Lynch-Gibbon, a smug,
well-to-do London wine merchant and unfaithful husband, whose life is turned
inside out when his wife leaves him for her psychoanalyst. In The Sea, the Sea
the landscape shifts to the seclusion of an isolated house on the edge of
England's North Sea, where Charles Arrowby, a big name in London's glittering
theatrical world, has retired to write his memoirs. Arrowby's plans begin to
unravel when he meets his first love and