The Sea, the Sea; A Severed Head: Introduction by Sarah Churchwell

These two major novels—by one of the most influential British writers of the twentieth century—are ferociously dark comedies that combine playfulness with profundity.

A Severed Head (1961) is one of Iris Murdoch’s most entertaining works, tracing the turbulent emotional journey of Martin Lynch-Gibbon, a smug, prosperous London wine merchant and unfaithful husband, whose life is turned inside out when his wife leaves him for her psychoanalyst. The story takes bedroom farce to a new level of s...