John Bayley

"I was living in a fairy story--the kind with sinister overtones and not always a happy ending--in which a young man loves a beautiful maiden who returns his love but is always disappearing into some unknown and mysterious world, about which she will reveal nothing." So John Bayley describes his life with his wife, Iris Murdoch, one of the greatest contemporary writers in the English-speaking world, revered for her works of philosophy and beloved...

"In the madness of World War II, a dutiful Russian soldier is wrongfully convicted of treason and sentenced to ten years in a Siberian labor camp. So begins this masterpiece of modern Russian fiction, the harrowing account of a man who has conceded to all things evil with dignity and strength. First published in 1962, it is considered one of the most significant works ever to emerge from Soviet Russia. Illuminating a dark chapter in Russian history,...

Olenin, a wealthy, disaffected Muscovite, joins the Russian army and travels to the untamed frontier of the Caucasus in search of a more authentic life. Quartered with his regiment in a Cossack village, Olenin revels in the glories of nature and the rough strength of the Cossacks and Chechens. Smitten by his unrequited love for a local girl, Maryanka, Olenin has a profound but ultimately short-lived spiritual awakening. Try as he might to assimilate,...

"John Bayley swept to international fame with the publication of his memoirs about his late wife, the novelist Iris Murdoch, and the subsequent film of them, but for decades he has been known to readers the world over as perhaps the shrewdest and subtlest literary critic now writing. The Power of Delight gathers together for the first time the cream of a lifetime's work."--Jacket.

Adapted from the memoirs of literary critic John Bayley, the film recounts his courtship of and long marriage to British novelist Iris Murdoch. The scenario tacks back and forth from the young Iris--ready to seduce one and all with her coy command of words and sex appeal--to the elder Iris--slowly giving way to the cruel erasure of Alzheimer's.

Mrs. Brown: Queen Victoria was the world's most powerful woman. Rugged Scotsman John Brown was a lowly servant who looked after her horses. Yet circumstances brought them together. The result was a passionate friendship that scandalized a nation! Victoria & Abdul: "The extraordinary true story of an unexpected friendship in the later years of Queen Victoria's remarkable rule. When Abdul Karim, a young clerk, travels from India to participate in the...