Hugh is a retired civil servant whose son Randall owns a successful rose nursery near Romney Marsh.

Years before, Hugh had broken off his affair with Emma and returned to his wife, but Fanny's death opens up the possibility of his renewing the relationship.

Along with its obvious relevance to the rose nursery setting of the book, the title refers to the formlessness of Ann Peronett's character.

This contrasts with some of Murdoch's other novels, in which "people implausibly fall suddenly and often disastrously in love", and lends an air of naturalism to the plot.

Randall is determined to free himself from his marriage to Ann, and apparently succeeds in doing so, unlike his father Hugh, who gave up Emma and stayed with Fanny.

However, the question of individual freedom is complicated by the fact that the characters, while attempting to achieve their own ends, are influencing the course of other people's lives.

[7] Ann and Randall Peronett's relationship represents the tension between a virtuous or religious person and an artist, two ways of being that Murdoch often explores in her novels.

[8] Contemporary reviewers saw An Unofficial Rose as primarily a comic novel, describing it variously as a "tragi-comedy about the follies, miseries and ambiguities of love" or a "comedy of manners".

Hilda Spear describes it as belonging to Murdoch's "romantic phase", in which her books were concerned with "the responsibilities, impositions and ties of marriage".