For the first time published in Russian, the novel “An Honest Loss” is unanimously considered by critics to be one of the best works of the famous English writer Iris Murdoch. The plot of the novel is an “experiment” carried out by a prominent biologist Julius King on his friends. Every human being has enough shortcomings and weaknesses, King is sure, and by playing on them, a skilled manipulator can achieve anything, for example, destroy a seemingly unshakably strong relationship. Having become convinced of the correctness of his theory, Julius King is ready to take pity on his puppets. But it turns out that the experimenter is not omnipotent. Life is more complicated than theory, and people are sometimes weaker and sometimes stronger than one might expect.