Something Special (short story)

"Something Special" is the only published short story by Iris Murdoch. It first appeared in 1957 in a collection entitled Winter's Tales 3, and after inclusion in anthologies in Japan (1971, 1972), England (1979) and Finland (1990) it was republished separately by Chatto & Windus in 1999.

Yvonne Geary, the 24-year-old daughter of a Dublin shopkeeper, is courted by a young Jewish man, Sam Goldman, who takes her out for the night. After an unpleasant scene at a rowdy public house Sam decides to take Yvonne into his confidence.

Publication history

• 1957: Winter's Tales 3, pp175-204. Macmillan, London. St Martin's Press, New York.
• 1971: Murdoch, Spark and Bowen, pp1-29. ed. Hisayasu Hirukawa. Eichosha, Tokyo.
• 1972: Modern English Stories, pp286-303. Shueisa, Tokyo.
• 1979: Women Writing: an Anthology, pp1-19. ed. Denys Val Baker. W H Allen, London.
• 1979: Best for Winter: a Selection from 25 Years of Winter's Tales, pp46-59. ed. A D Maclean. Macmillan, London.
• 1990: Something Special: Four Poems and a Story. Eurographica, Helsinki.
• 1999: Something Special. Chatto & Windus, London.

References

• John Fletcher, Cheryl Bove. Iris Murdoch: a descriptive primary and annotated secondary bibliography. Garland Publishing, New York, 1994.