Collection: Joan Murray

Joan Murray (1917–1942) was born during an air raid in London. She was the daughter of Stanley Webster Murray, a painter and illustrator, and Florence Margaret Murray, a diseuse. She spent her early years in London, Paris, and Ontario, and lived most of her short life in the United States, where she studied dance and theater, and poetry with W. H. Auden at the New School. She suffered from rheumatic fever as a child, the complications of which led to a chronic heart condition and eventually to her death.

  • Shopping for someone else but not sure what to give them? Give them the gift of choice with a New York Review Books Gift Card.

    Gift Cards 
  • A membership for yourself or as a gift for a special reader will promise a year of good reading.

    Join NYRB Classics Book Club 
  • Is there a book that you’d like to see back in print, or that you think we should consider for one of our series? Let us know!

    Tell us about it