Miles Leeson has been studying Dame Iris – one of Britain’s best-loved authors – for more than a decade.

When he got a call last year alerting him to the possible discovery of new work by the writer, he did not expect too much.

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But climbing into a dusty Oxford attic, he was stunned to find a treasure trove of art created by the novelist.

Almost 80 paintings and sketches, which had been undisturbed in the eaves for decades, are now on display for the first time at the centre Leeson runs in West Sussex.

Dame Iris lived in the house in the early 1940s, after arriving at Oxford University in her early 20s.

“Going into that house really did feel like stepping back in time,” Mr Leeson said.

“A space that hadn’t really been explored for a number of years. It really did feel like a complete treat to be invited in.

“To find the actual materials that we didn’t know existed – what a thrill. I brushed off the dust, but other than that they are as they were found.”

Iris Murdoch, right, at St Catherine’s College in 1977 (Image: Oxford Mail)

The highlight of the exhibition is the author’s only known self-portrait.

Mr Leeson added: “It shows us Murdoch in a new light.”

Other pieces were inspired by surrealist artists the author admired, such as Paul Nash and Salvador Dali, while the threat of war in Europe also influenced her paintings.

A free exhibition will run until December at the University of Chichester’s library, and afterwards it is hoped that the art may return to Oxford.

Iris Murdoch studied classics at Somerville College, Oxford, starting in 1938, and returned to live in the city permanently in 1948.

She lived for many years at a home on Charlbury Road in North Oxford with her husband, the literary critic and Oxford professor John Bayley.

In 1948, the author was appointed as a philosophy tutor and Fellow at St Anne’s College, where she taught moral and political philosophy. Her first novel Under the Net was published in 1954.

The writer spent 15 years teaching and researching at the college before resigning in the early 1960s to focus full-time on her career as a novelist.

Winner of the 1978 Booker Prize for The Sea, the Sea, she was made a Dame in 1987.

She died at a nursing home in Botley, in 1999 following a battle with Alzheimer’s disease.