George's Lair

First edition. 8vo. 208pp. Grey cloth boards, lettered in silver to spine. Jacket design by Ian Beck.

Signed by Author to title page.

The third novel in a loose trilogy, following on from Alice (1994), and The Queer Captain (1995). A domestic thriller focusing upon an unlikely pair of age-mismatched lovers who must keep their clandestine affair secret.

From 1974 to 1992, Bayley served as Warton Professor of English at Oxford and was the lifelong partner of novelist-philosopher, Dame Iris Murdoch. Having been diagnosed with Alzheimer's in the mid-1990s, Bayley served as her sole caregiver until her death in 1999.

A trilogy of memoirs he subsequently penned about their life together, which the Observer called "the greatest love story of our age", became the basis for Richard Eyre's 2001 film Iris. Starring Kate Winslet and Dame Judi Dench respectively as a young and aged Iris Murdoch, with Hugh Bonneville and Jim Broadbent portraying the author, the latter won Best Supporting Actor at both the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes.