Peter Webster

The new book has arrived! Very pleased to add this to the 'Iris Murdoch Today' collection from @springernature.com, all eight of which were published in the past three years.

Full details here: link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

A little blog post introducing some of the themes of this chapter: peterwebster.me/2025/07/30/c...

Walking barefoot with Aidan, Bede and Cuthbert to Lindisfarne lukemckernan.com/2025/07/31/w...

I've never seen it, but it's a kind of sibling of the Madonna made for Walter Hussey at St Matthew, Northampton.

A. S. Byatt – Webstory On religious aspects of the novels of A.S. Byatt, and in particular her clergy.

One novelist who wrote with particular interest in the clergy was A.S. Byatt. I've written about some of them in this set of three posts, and still haven't finished. peterwebster.me/tag/a-s-byatt/

I was talking to a second-hand record shop owner just this morning, who told me that business was just great for vinyl, but CDs? He can't even give them away, but has a good sideline in plastic recycling.

Fired up with new energy for this little project, with lots of new characters to write about. It's a way of re-energising my writing. Right now, I don't have the time for big projects, but I can (for the time being) work by a series of vignettes; it's a kind of collage.

Iris Murdoch and the clergy of the Church of England Though it appeared last year, I realise that I did not post here about an article looking at Iris Murdoch’s treatment of the Anglican clergy in her novels. As always, Studies is themed, this …

I realised that I didn't put out an OA version of another article on Iris Murdoch, from last year.

'Vocation, Hypocrisy and Secularization: Iris Murdoch and the Clergy of the Church of England'
Studies in Church History 60 (2024)

Summary post and free PDF at: peterwebster.me/2025/07/31/i...

Thanks Anna, yes, it is, and that's a very convincing data point. There's a village rector and two missionaries in India.

I'm about to go out on a limb and say that few people now read the fiction of Alice Perrin. Does anyone want to contest that, before I commit it to paper?

Evelyn Waugh’s modern churchman Mr Prendergast, the hapless protagonist of Evely Waugh’s Decline and Fall (1928), is one of the more unusual clerical characters in this series. The majority of the men we have met so far are…

I've had a lot of fun rereading this series, so here are a few of my favourites.

First up, Mr Prendergast, who had Doubts (Evelyn Waugh)

peterwebster.me/2017/05/27/e...

Iris Murdoch and the clergy of the Church of England Though it appeared last year, I realise that I did not post here about an article looking at Iris Murdoch’s treatment of the Anglican clergy in her novels. As always, Studies is themed, this …

I realised that I didn't put out an OA version of another article on Iris Murdoch, from last year.

'Vocation, Hypocrisy and Secularization: Iris Murdoch and the Clergy of the Church of England'
Studies in Church History 60 (2024)

Summary post and free PDF at: peterwebster.me/2025/07/31/i...

Remembers... - Martin Scorsese Remembers… Powell and Pressburger Acclaimed director Martin Scorsese introduces a season of films on the BBC by the legendary team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, with an overview of why they resonate so strongly with him.

Surprising but most illuminating: Scorsese on his debt to the films of Powell and Pressburger.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

Some work still to do, but here's a new way into my series of posts on clergy in modern English fiction. There are some new ones coming up, but suggestions of others I've missed are very welcome.

peterwebster.me/the-clergy-i...

A little blog post introducing some of the themes of this chapter: peterwebster.me/2025/07/30/c...

Some work still to do, but here's a new way into my series of posts on clergy in modern English fiction. There are some new ones coming up, but suggestions of others I've missed are very welcome.

peterwebster.me/the-clergy-i...

I now have the PDF of this, so do get in touch if your library doesn't have the book.

As it's a Murdoch day, I'll plug once more this article, on her treatment of religious themes in her fiction. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Christian Readers in England and the Philosophy of Iris Murdoch, 1948-c.1982 What did Christians in England make of Murdoch’s philosophical work in the years before the Gifford lectures of 1982 that were to become Metaphysics as a guide to morals? This chapter considers ...

My own chapter is at link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...

"Christian Readers in England and the Philosophy of Iris Murdoch, 1948-c.1982"

It isn't Open Access, and is jolly expensive: ping me if you'd like the PDF by email.

Great to see this: congratulations to the editors on bringing it to fruition.

So, I think I might have the trump card on this. Last weekend, a game on the green next to the village hall, in which a couple of morris dancers were having their wedding reception. Bride and groom's first dance on the third man boundary, band, sticks and all.

Anglican clergy in twentieth century British fiction: an open notebook Regular readers may have seen a series of occasional posts on clergy in fiction. I thought it worth noting what this series is, and is not designed to achieve. Firstly, and importantly, I am no lit…

Some time to myself today, and I'm thinking through ways to refresh this long-term project of mine: thinking about the (many) Christian ministers in English fiction. It started here: peterwebster.me/2014/01/16/a...

While I'm on the subject of my team, we had our regular open house last week, showing off current projects to colleagues from other teams. A real proud manager moment for me.

SED Exhibition Landing Page View the interactive image by digital

The resource she refers to is this, our digital representation of an exhibition in the library's gallery last summer: www.thinglink.com/scene/192022...

Nice write-up from my colleague Katie Green on the past and future of gallery spaces, and what my team have been up to at Southampton
library.soton.ac.uk/digital-scho...

YouTube video by The National Youth Orchestra To the Beat tour highlights | The National Youth Orchestra

I don't usually do the proud parent thing, but here's our eldest living his best life with the National Youth Orchestra. He's the one talking at the end.

youtu.be/Kpipj4dBG3g?...

That's a bit far west for me, but it sounds.... stimulating.
I see you, and raise you the ground with trees, two benches and a waste bin inside the boundary.

Playing T20 on Thursday evening, the sun was so low over midwicket the batter (me) couldn't see the fielders and so didn't know whether I'd been caught or should be running.

Hi Victoria: no, I haven't been anywhere near X for some months; is there a link to follow?

Indeed; my own memory of it is still pin-sharp.