He privately vows never to confess or seek to realise this love, but he cannot contain himself. Only Francis remains a constant annoyance the former psychoanalyst is implicitly in love with Bradley.ĭuring this time, however, Bradley cannot escape falling in love with Julian. Yet Bradley fails to give proper attention to Priscilla, who pathetically alternates between despair and hysterical optimism. Indeed, Arnold informs Bradley that he intends to leave Rachel for Christian. Christian meanwhile starts an affair with Arnold, drawing her attentions away from Bradley. She agrees, much to Bradley's satisfaction, to be no more than his friend. His inability to reciprocate Rachel's affections ultimately defuses their affair. Even Christian, Bradley's ex-wife, invades his life by seeking to repair their long-defunct relationship.īradley attempts to navigate these complications with mixed success. The Baffins' young daughter, Julian, declares her admiration for Bradley and begs him to tutor her. His depressed sister, Priscilla, leaves her abusive husband, demanding that her brother shelter her. His intervention in the Baffins' marriage, for instance, prompts Rachel to fall in love with him. Together they calm the injured Rachel and restore peace to the Baffins' household.īradley begins to get trapped in a growing dynamic of family, friends, and associates who collectively seem to thwart his attempts at achieving the isolation he feels necessary to create his 'masterpiece'. Bradley attends with his former brother-in-law, Francis Marloe, in tow. Their closeness is made apparent from the start of the book, however, as Arnold telephones Bradley, worried that he has killed his wife, Rachel, in a domestic row. The tension is ostensibly over Bradley's distaste for Arnold's lack of proper literary credentials, though later the other characters claim this to be a matter of jealousy or the product of an Oedipus complex. For years Bradley has had a tense but strong relationship with Arnold, regarding himself as having 'discovered' the younger writer. It largely consists of the description of a period in the later life of the main character, ageing London author Bradley Pearson, during which time he falls in love with the daughter of a friend and literary rival, Arnold Baffin. The Black Prince is remarkable for the structure of its narrative, consisting of a central story bookended by forewords and post-scripts by characters within it.

The name of the novel alludes mainly to Hamlet. The Black Prince is Iris Murdoch's 15th novel, first published in 1973.

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