BBC Arts correspondent Madeleine Holt assesses Dame Iris Murdoch's life and work

The critically-acclaimed author suffered for years from the disease, a condition she described in its early stages as "a very, very bad, quiet place."

She died on Monday at Vale House - a nursing home, in Oxford. Her husband, the writer John Bayley, who had cared for his wife through her last years, was with her when she died. The couple had no children.

Iris Murdoch's husband John Bayley wrote about the effect Alzheimer's had on their lives

Dame Iris had requested before her death that there be no funeral and no memorial service.

Her books had won widespread acclaim - The Sacred and Profane Love Machine won the Whitbread Prize in 1974, and four years later she was awarded the Booker Prize for her 19th novel, The Sea, The Sea.

She was awarded a CBE in 1976 and a DBE in 1987.

Friends pay tribute

The Dublin-born dame had been a fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford since 1948, and taught philosophy.

Andrew Hosken looks back over the life of a prolific author

Ruth Deech, St Anne's College Principal said: "She was one of the greatest people ever to be associated with St Anne's, someone quite outstanding as a philosopher and as a writer of novels.

"I think her work immeasurably improved the canon of great English works of literature and philosophy.

She was a brilliant academic at Oxford

"In her declining years, the example of her husband in looking after her earned gratitude and admiration from everyone in Oxford, and no doubt around the world."

Fellow novelist, Professor Malcolm Bradbury, said: "I think she belongs amongst the four or five great novelists of the second half of this century to come out of Britain.

"There have not been all that many, but she was a major figure alongside William Golding and Anthony Burgess."

A unique talent

Dame Iris Murdoch's works were intricate studies of the human condition which never bowed to literary fads.

Friend and publisher Carmen Callil pays tribute to Iris Murdoch

She published no fewer than 26 novels. Some, like The Bell, The Sea The Sea and The Sacred and Profane Love Machine became modern classics.

The Italian Girl and A Severed Head were adapted for the stage.

Dame Iris was a prolific writer

Her books were not always an easy read and combined realism with fantasy, elements of sometimes bewildering mythology with firmly-defined characters and complex plots.

She once explained: "I invent the whole thing before I start writing.

"Even the conversations are in my head. I don't start writing the thing until I've got the whole of it absolutely."

Dame Iris was an academic, an eccentric, and a woman of tremendous intellect and character, a driven artist who produced a book a year and had firm views about what novel-writing should involve.

Last year her husband John, who was also an academic, gave a moving account of his wife's illness and their life together, in his book Iris: A Memoir.

He wrote: "The voyage is over and under the dark escort of Alzheimer's she has arrived somewhere. So have I."

In a 1994 interview, Dame Iris said two of the most important things in her life were her parents and her work.

"But above all else, the most important thing in my life is my husband.