Degrees of Freedom: The Novels of Iris Murdoch

London: Chatto & Windus, 1970 0701116951. Second hardback impression of this rare early book by Antonia Byatt. (Her second, published after her first novel. Non-fiction following fiction being a recurrent pattern in her oeuvre.) Ex-university library but most of the usual stamps and marks on the front endpage have been covered by two blank labels. Otherwise VG/VG apart from some creased pages. Three very small reinforcements to the intact DW but this is in remarkably good and bright condition for a book of this age. Not price clipped. No inscriptions. 224 pages including bibliography and notes. 5.5" by 8.5". A remarkably scholarly work of literary criticism which for once really illuminates the works of one of the leading novelists of the twentieth century when the latter was at the height of her powers. The book analyses the first seven novels by Iris Murdoch who read this book in typescript and made "many helpful suggestions for further reading and thought." Ultimately, however, we learn a great deal from this book of what Byatt herself values in novel writing. .