The midday call to the Angelus therefore is somewhat disconcerting for passers by who nervously check their watches. The sound of the bell does indeed create a definite atmosphere in the place as also does its timing since it rings, like its larger fellow at Christ Church College, according to solar time - about six minutes behind GMT. A few years ago Blackfriars acquired a bell to call the friars to prayer. The theme music for the Ninety-Nine Novels podcast is Anthony Burgess’s Concerto for Flute, Strings and Piano in D Minor, performed by No Dice Collective.I work as tutor and librarian at Blackfriars Hall Oxford, the smallest and most medieval of the University of Oxford colleges and also a Dominican priory. Listen to this podcast below or on your audio platform of choice ( Apple Podcasts / Soundcloud / Spotify / YouTube), or use the streaming links below. If you have enjoyed this episode, why not leave us a review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

You can join the conversation and tell us which 100th book you would add to Burgess’s list by using the hashtag #99Novels on Twitter. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry (2016).The Skin Chairs by Barbara Comyns (1962).Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns (1954).The Need for Roots by Simone Weil (1952).She is currently working, with Sue Zlosnik on the book Comic Gothic, which will be released by Edinburgh University Press in 2023. Her latest book is Living on Paper: Letters from Iris Murdoch 1934-1995, which she edited with Anne Rowe, with whom she has also edited books on Iris Murdoch and morality and the texts and contexts of Iris Murdoch.

She specialises in women’s writing and gothic literature and has published widely on authors such as Daphne du Maurier, Edith Wharton, and Iris Murdoch. There, she discovers an old bell at the bottom of a lake, and sets in motion events that will expose secret desires and lead to tragic consequences.Īvril Horner is Emeritus Professor of English at Kingston University, London. In this episode, Graham Foster of the Burgess Foundation talks to Avril Horner about The Bell by Iris Murdoch, a novel Burgess calls ‘intensely poetic’ and ‘beautifully organised’.įirst published in 1958, The Bell tells the story of Dora Greenfield, an impulsive young woman, who moves with her husband to a lay religious community in the grounds of Imber Abbey. This podcast, by the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, explores the novels on Burgess’s list with the help of writers, critics and other special guests. The list is typically idiosyncratic, and shows the breadth of Burgess’s interest in fiction. In 1984, Anthony Burgess published Ninety-Nine Novels, a selection of his favourite novels in English since 1939.

The bell iris