Named in memory of Jean Iris Murdoch (1919–1999), prolific novelist and philosopher, whose 26 moralist-existentialist fictional works in 41 years earned her a place among the leading twentieth-century writers in the English language. Already suffering from Alzheimer’ disease when her last novel was published in 1995, Murdoch was lovingly cared for by her husband, the critic John Bayley, whose recent Elegy for Iris is a penetrating study of conflicting emotions. (M 34350) _ _.