john fowles biography

• History & Society
• Science & Tech
• Biographies
• Animals & Nature
• Geography & Travel
• Arts & Culture
• Games & Quizzes
• On This Day
• One Good Fact
• New Articles
• Lifestyles & Social Issues
• Philosophy & Religion
• Politics, Law & Government
• World History
• Health & Medicine
• Browse Biographies
• Birds, Reptiles & Other Vertebrates
• Bugs, Mollusks & Other Invertebrates
• Environment
• Fossils & Geologic Time
• Entertainment & Pop Culture
• Sports & Recreation
• Visual Arts
• Demystified
• Image Galleries
• Infographics
• Top Questions
• Britannica Kids
• Saving Earth
• Space Next 50
• Student Center

John Fowles

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

• British Council - Writers - Biography of John Fowles
• Official Site of John Fowles
• John Fowles - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

John Fowles (born March 31, 1926, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex , England—died November 5, 2005, Lyme Regis , Dorset) was an English novelist, whose allusive and descriptive works combine psychological probings—chiefly of sex and love—with an interest in social and philosophical issues.

Fowles graduated from the University of Oxford in 1950 and taught in Greece, France, and Britain. His first novel , The Collector (1963; filmed 1965), about a shy man who kidnaps a girl in a hapless search for love, was an immediate success. This was followed by The Aristos: A Self-Portrait in Ideas (1964), a collection of essays reflecting Fowles’s views on such subjects as evolution, art, and politics. He returned to fiction with The Magus (1965, rev. ed. 1977; filmed 1968). Set on a Greek island, the book centres on an English schoolteacher who struggles to discern between fantasy and reality after befriending a mysterious local man. The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969; filmed 1981), arguably Fowles’s best-known work, is a love story set in 19th-century England that richly documents the social mores of that time. An example of Fowles’s original style, the book combined elements of the Victorian novel with postmodern works and featured alternate endings.

Fowles’s later fictional works include The Ebony Tower (1974), a volume of collected novellas, Daniel Martin (1977), and Mantissa (1982). His last novel, A Maggot (1985), centred on a group of travelers in the 1700s and the mysterious events that occur during their journey. Fowles also wrote verse, adaptations of plays, and the text for several photographic studies. Wormholes , a collection of essays and writings, was published in 1998.

• Carolyn Djanodly

John Fowles

• Non-Fiction
• Short Stories
• Leighton-on-Sea, England
• Jonathan Cape Ltd
• Sheil Land Associates Ltd

John Fowles was born at Leighton-on-Sea, Essex in 1926, where he lived until the outbreak of the Second World War.

He was educated at Bedford School and New College, Oxford, where he read French and German. After graduating he taught English at the University of Poitiers and then at the Anagyriou School at Spetses. He became a full-time writer in 1963. His best-known fiction includes his first novel, The Collector (1963), the story of a young clerk, a butterfly collector, who kidnaps a young woman; The Magus (1966), set on a Greek island where a schoolteacher confronts a series of disturbing events; and The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969), a formally experimental novel that tells the tale of Victorian palaeontologist Charles Smithson and his involvement with the notorious and enigmatic Sarah Woodruff. The French Lieutenant's Woman won the Silver Pen Award and the WH Smith Literary Award and was adapted as a film in 1981 with a screenplay by Harold Pinter. Fowles' other fiction includes Daniel Martin (1977), Mantissa (1982) and A Maggot (1985). John Fowles lived in Lyme Regis in Dorset on the south coast of England and was for a period curator of the local museum. He was an avid collector of old books and china and a fascinated student of fossils. The Tree, published in 1992, is partly a memoir of childhood and explores Fowles' enduring love of nature. He also published a Short History of Lyme Regis in 1982 and was the editor of Thomas Hardy's England (1984). His last book, The Journals: Volume 1 (2003), is the first volume of the journal he began as a student at Oxford in the late 1940s and continued over the next half century.

John Fowles died in November 2005.

Critical perspective

John fowles enjoys a justifiably high standing as both a novelist of outstanding imaginative power (in some ways a modern-day thomas hardy, especially as a chronicler of his beloved dorset), and as a highly self-conscious 'postmodernist' author who fully registers the artifice inherent in the act of writing, the fictiveness of fiction itself..

His novels began with an original psychological thriller, The Collector (1963), but his reputation was made by his two best-known novels The Magus (1966), and especially The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969) with its vivid pastiche of Victorian fiction and famous device of 'alternative endings'. Fowles' writing is dominated by the consciousness of the author as a figure within his own books, entering the narrative at certain points to comment on the action, the characters' motives and possibilities, and explain how things might have been different. Able with equal ease to transform futures or point out absurdities, the novelist is a capricious, no longer an omnipotent god; a magician whose tricks may all be bogus; or simply a late-arriving, rather seedy impresario, as in the denouement to The French Lieutenant's Woman. Exercising free will, playing with fiction's constraints and conventions, the writer's authority is nevertheless relative: appropriate for an era of relative not absolute values. All of Fowles' large, capacious novels are incredibly rich reading experiences, from the labyrinthine plot twists of The Magus and the international panoramas in Daniel Martin (1977) to the brilliant recreation of the eighteenth century mind set in A Maggot (1985). They operate on the reader's consciousness on several levels at once; as page-turning narratives with memorable characters, demonstrations of the novelist's craft, historical and political commentaries; and as profound reflections on the whole spectrum of human behaviours. By his own account, Fowles was much influenced, during and after his student days at Oxford in the late 1940s, by the cultures of ancient Greece (especially the philosopher Heraclitus) and modern France, from Flaubert to post-war Existentialism and the nouveau roman. In The Aristos (1965), Fowles set out his ideas on 'the essential mystery in art', religion and its rituals, ethics, politics (no truck with 'quasi-emotional liberalism') that inform much of the drama, as well as the author's commentary, within his subsequent novels. Fowles' own fascination with the 'Circe-like quality' of Greece found unforgettable expression in his first great novel, The Magus. Nick, a young Englishman escaping from an unsatisfactory love affair and teaching at the Lord Byron School on the island of Phraxos, falls under the spell of Conchis, a rich mystery man, and the two alluring young English women attached to him. Nick is subjected to a disorientating succession of strange events, conflicting stories from 'actors', and erotic apparitions, during which he experiences echoes of the Greek mythic culture. The book suggests a world beyond ordinary reality but also the bogus mystification of a trickster: a multi-layered, ambiguous commentary on the nature of art and the artist's situation. The French Lieutenant's Woman is a tale of seduction in two senses: of 'fallen woman' Sarah Woodruff by the highly respectable gentleman geologist Charles Smithson; and of the reader by the author. Fowles offers pleasure and sentiment in the mode of the nineteenth century realist novel, complete with wonderfully realised characters, epigraphs to its chapters, and even sets it in his own town of Lyme Regis in Dorset. But this is written by a modern consciousness, aware of Darwin, Marx and Freud, (not to mention Barthes and Robbe-Grillet) and the wretched mid-nineteenth century conditions of the servant and labouring classes. Set alongside Fowles' socio-historical commentary, the players are made ever more ambiguous author's playthings. Sarah turns out to be an arch manipulator herself, whose story is an almost complete fabrication. Sarah's priggish employer Mrs Poulteney is imagined falling into hell, only to be reprieved by the author. And yet - the scene in which Smithson's naïve fiancée Ernestina is rejected by him is truly affecting. Dickens himself could hardly have bettered the scheming servants Sam and Mary, 'low' characters speaking in local dialect, whose domestic happiness runs throughout as a counterpoint to Charles and Sarah's doomed yearnings. Fowles' cutting through fiction's illusion is, however, shown most starkly when Sarah has fled to a small room in Exeter. She unwraps a toby jug that is sadly cracked, 'as I can testify', the author comments, 'having bought it myself a year or two ago for a good deal more than the three pennies Sarah was charged'. By contrast with his major novels' vivid and wide-ranging scenes, Mantissa (1982) takes place entirely within the mind of the novelist Miles Green, who is in hospital following a stroke. A small scale jeux d'esprit in the Flann O'Brien manner, its characters take violent revenge upon their creator, in a satirical revisiting of some of the preoccupations of Fowles' writing, sending up modish critical jargon and the pretensions of literature itself. The recumbent novelist's fantasies about the female medical staff (the Caribbean nurse Cory, and a shapely specialist in abnormal brain behaviour 'Dr A. Delfie') becomes a splenetic exchange about art and ethics with the Muses. Their traditional function as erotic inspiration for the male writer's craft has become comically outmoded by their status as modern women; withering exchanges between them and the hapless Green provide the entertainment. Fowles' dialogue, particularly the perennial verbal warfare between the sexes, is always incisive. Never more so than in Daniel Martin and A Maggot, books overshadowed by their grand predecessors but having attractive qualities of their own. Daniel Martin has elements that are tempting to read as semi-autobiographical: a rural West Country childhood during the Second World War, Oxford student friendships and love affairs, career involvement with the film industry. What it also has is some marvellous travel writing on Egypt and Syria, as its scriptwriter scouts locations for a movie and takes up again with his former lover; and a good deal of now very dated political debates from the 1970s. A Maggot is more satisfying though less ambitious. Set during 1736, it is not, as the author comments, a conventional historical novel about the mother of Ann Lee, founder of the Shaker sect. Rather, its eighteenth century world of religious visions and gross human appetites is presented in sections, as a lawyer interrogates a range of conflicting accounts, from actors to a brothel madam, about the apparent suicide of a deaf mute servant. Its main female character is, like Sarah Woodruff, a 'fallen woman' who undergoes a transformation: submissive prostitute Fanny becomes the fearless Quaker Rebecca. This shifting of identity before our very eyes during the teasing progression of a plot, with the direction of author himself, is what we identify as 'Fowlesian'. Dr. Jules Smith, 2002

For an in-depth critical review, see John Fowles by William Stephenson (Northcote House, 2003: Writers and their Work Series)

Bibliography

Author statement.

'I don't very often have the courage of my convictions face to face with people. This is why I became a novelist. If I was asked to pick the school child most likely to become a writer, I'd pick the shy boy or girl, the one who never manages to stand up for his or her beliefs. Who walks away from a lost argument thinking of all the answers that would have won it ... When I am inside a text I can say what I like. Not only about politics. I can be franker about sex, for example ... '

Sign Up to the Newsletter

Click here to sign-up

• Architecture Design Fashion
• Creative Economy
• Theatre and Dance
• Visual Arts

© 2024 British Council The United Kingdom's international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. A registered charity: 209131 (England and Wales) SC037733 (Scotland).

Advertisement

John fowles , the art of fiction no. 109, issue 111, summer 1989.

John Fowles was born in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, on March 31, 1926. He attended Bedford School (1940–1944) and then served nearly two years in the Royal Marines. After his four years at Oxford (New College), where he read in French and received a B. A. (Honors) in 1950, Fowles turned away from his conservative upper-middle-class background toward a new freedom and a trying decade of apprenticeship as a writer. He supported himself through teaching jobs at the University of Poitiers, at Spetsai, Greece (where he met his wife-to-be, Elizabeth Whitton) and at various schools in and around London until his first published novel,  The Collector , appeared in 1963. It became a best-seller, and was made into a film by William Wyler in 1965. These successes did not deter him from going back to earlier projects: the philosopher’s notebook (begun at Oxford), in which he attempted to deal with many questions pertinent to contemporary experience, was published as  The Aristos: A Self-Portrait in Ideas  in 1964; a first, tortured novel he wrote (inspired largely by his own self-analysis and “conversion” to existential freedom) appeared as  The Magus  in 1965. In that same year he took up residence in Lyme Regis on the Dorset coast.

The view of Lyme Bay from Fowles’s own Belmont House is described in the opening chapters of his most famous novel,  The French Lieutenant’s Woman  (1969), which won the Silver Pen Award from PEN International and the W. H. Smith Literary Award. The apprenticeship was over. This pseudo-historical novel revealed a new openness to experimentation with narrative voices and an intellectual sophistication that has marked all his later fiction:  The Ebony Tower  (1974),  Daniel Martin  (1977),  Mantissa  (1982), and  A Maggot  (1985).

But Fowles the novelist, true to the humanistic tradition, has insisted upon playing other roles. He is an imaginative historian, an environmentalist, and a student of natural history—as evidenced in  Islands  (1978),  The Tree  (1980),  The Enigma of Stonehenge  (1980), and  A Short History of Lyme Regis  (1982). He has translated and commented on several classic French works, including Perrault’s  Cinderella  and Molière’s play,  Don Juan . One comes to a better understanding of his art through a reading of his afterword for Alain-Fournier’s famous novel of youthful quest,  The Wanderer , his foreword to  The Lais of Marie de France , or his satirical conte on the deconstructionist thinkers,  Mantissa . Just where Fowles stands in relation to the history and culture of his own country is made clear in an early essay suggestively titled, “On Being English but Not British.” In spite of a large body of critical literature on his fiction, the best description of his attitudes and procedures in the course of creative composition is the often-anthologized “Notes on Writing a Novel.”

The interview was done, at Fowles’s request, through written exchanges beginning in June, 1987, and concluding in April, 1989. His desire to proceed “by post” had its origin in a certain dissatisfaction with the several taped interviews he had done and perhaps with some of the academic criticism of his fiction. He would set the record straight. Yet a taped interview was the occasion for our first encounter at his home in November 1985. At that time he gave the impression of great strength and confidence, gentle manner, and enormous capacity for ambiguity and complexity. When that interview was published (in the  Michigan Quarterly Review ), he wrote to say that in the future he wanted time to write out more thoughtful responses. On reaching mid-point in our written exchanges, John Fowles suffered a life-threatening stroke. He wrote: “Writing, what it is to be a writer, fills one with horror in their smallness, pettiness. All one’s former vanity is folly.” But he had the questions before him, he had promised to reply, and partial recovery allowed him to continue. The impact of that stroke on his spirit is described in the interview, but it is most tellingly realized in his concluding quotation of the refrain from Scottish poet William Dunbar’s sixteenth-century “Lament for the Makers”— Timor mortis conturbat me .

INTERVIEWER

Is it accurate to say that you did not begin to establish an identity as a writer until you went to Oxford in 1947 and entered into a rather fashionable revolt against the limitations of a suburban middle-class background?

JOHN FOWLES

Yes, completely accurate, though I think the notion of joining “a rather fashionable revolt” is a little bit wrong. You must remember my generation—I was born in 1926—had spent our late adolescence and early twenties in wartime, followed by a period of national austerity that remained psychologically like war. Oxford in the late 1940s was, I think, to all of us lucky enough to be there, a kind of wonderful escape from all that—a happy dream, an alternative world . . . in a sense a novel we had heard of, but never actually read until then. Where the individual was paramount, not the nation. I came out of the strict “order” and discipline of the British Marine Corps into the ancient indulgence of Oxford; it was a heady experience for all of us, an intoxication, hardly a matter of revolt.

I should add that in my teens I had a somewhat unusual experience for a youth, having become head boy of my large public school (in Britain really a private school, of course). Head boys were in those days responsible for all minor discipline in the school outside of class, able to give punishments and cane delinquents; we were, so to speak, appointed heads of Gestapo, with a body of lesser prefects to help us spy on and patrol, cow and bully, the several hundred other boys. It was really a very bad system, and I wish I could say that a more sensitive side of myself had revolted against it at once. It did not. The power went to my head, and it was only afterwards—when I had left the school—that I rejected it completely. I have indeed hated all forms of public authority ever since—oh, not every individual representative of it, but the general idea behind it.

Apart from anything else, head boys were largely excused from any other kind of work, and that had fatal results on my own proper “academic” career. We were also supposed to stand as models for the whole system (in my particular school, producing eventual administrators of the already dying British Empire, stiff with every supposed middle-class virtue), and that was a role I came to realize I despised and did not want. This happened in the two years or so of service in the Royal Marines between leaving school and going to Oxford. I arrived in that latter place, in other words, in a state of full rejection of everything I had been earlier taught to believe in. Oxford handsomely confirmed the revolt, rather than initiated it.

What induced you to read in French during your four years at Oxford? What writers particularly impressed you? Was Montaigne, for example, an influence and a model in the formation of your humanistic philosophy?

This was largely pure chance. I had been fairly good at modern languages in school, and had a very sympathetic master there. It was sort of taken for granted that I would later do them at university. Those were, of course, the days of compulsory conscription. So I was in the Marines from 1944 to 1946, ending as a lieutenant training recruits who hoped to become commandos. I was at the time a little bit torn between joining the Marines permanently or taking the place I had been promised at Oxford. One day we had an official visit from a famous lord mayor of Plymouth, Isaac Foot. I was appointed his temporary ADC for the visit, and took the opportunity to ask his advice about my dilemma. To my surprise—we had all been brainwashed in those days into thinking the only thing that mattered was one’s middle-class national duty—he said very crisply that only a fool would find it a dilemma. If I had a place at Oxford,  of course  I should go for that, not the Marines. Spurred by what Isaac Foot said, I applied at once.

My first year at Oxford I “read” both French and German. I liked my French tutors, did not like the German ones, and so dropped German . . . something I have regretted somewhat ever since. Despite grim experiences in the trenches and afterwards in the occupation army in Germany itself during the First World War, my own father was much more fond of German literature than French. That decision of mine did not please him. In a sense I was going against family (or Victorian) tradition in turning my back on Germany and German. But I am sure now, forty years later, that it was basically the right decision. I think it is much more useful for the future novelist—for any seeker after culture—to get to know the Latin side of Europe well, rather than the Teutonic and Nordic one. The Germans are too like the British, and the French so richly different. We need what we haven’t got by nature.

I had student “love affairs” with various French writers, although some took years to take effect. I very much liked Montaigne, although I haven’t read him for years now. He seems to me one of the sanest and intellectually most attractive Europeans who has ever lived and he set me on the course of humanism that I have followed ever since. We had at that time to spend a great deal of time on Old French, and used to rather groan about it linguistically; but there seeped into me eventually an affection for the early storytelling—for Marie de France, Chrétien de Troyes and the rest, the fathers and mothers of the European novel. I also liked the French comedy, especially Molière and Marivaux—not Racine and Corneille, I’m afraid, and I liked the late-nineteenth-century poets—Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Laforgue. I also particularly fell for that elegant, precise tradition of the  pensée , the carefully framed apothegm and wisdom, something we’ve never really mastered in English—Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, Chamfort, all the rest. That admiration ruined a book I wrote later,  The Aristos . I learnt my lesson there. It is not only wines that won’t travel between our two countries.

By and large, I have never had much enthusiasm for the classical side of the French tradition, whose apotheosis is, I suppose, Racine. Even at Oxford I seemed to get endlessly lost in the byways, things I should not—at least for exam purposes—have been reading. I have never been particularly interested in French contemporary literature. Though I love the language, I have never learned to speak it well, though I would claim I am quite a good reader of it. But that was, I think, the aim of the old Oxford at that time: to teach one to understand France and the French, not to speak the language currently and fluently. That for me remains a vital difference between proper university “French”—or any other foreign culture and language—and its language-school variation. They are, or should be, two different things. One is for human beings, the other for business people. I don’t think modern educationists have ever understood that, at least in this country.

But weren’t the existentialist writers—Sartre, Camus, de Beauvoir—important in fostering your bid for freedom from the rigid structures of your conservative background?

Those writers certainly came to us after the war as strange and exciting. I always liked Camus best. Sartre I often found hard to understand. I can remember giving up  L’Etre et le Néant  in a mixture of despair and disgust. It wasn’t just a language problem, more a philosophical one, not knowing what he actually meant in real life. That applies to most of the gurus since. I don’t recall having read Simone de Beauvoir then. I think the “influence” was partly from the endless amount of talk in Oxford about “the existentialists,” “authenticity,” being engagé and the rest, all the implicit condemnations of the bourgeois view of life, that affected me. It corresponded to feelings inside myself that I think would have emerged anyway, indeed had already emerged, if confusedly, but were certainly quickened by the existentialist writers.

Students of my work often make rather a lot of existentialism, a good deal more than I ever felt is true of myself. But that is a familiar feeling, for me, anyway. You are presented as something you never really were. Of course it’s flattering to be extensively studied; but I’m not altogether happy about the intensive pursuit of living writers that seems so popular now with literary students and teachers. I write for other reasons than providing fodder for the literary faculties.

Did you read Jung? Could his influence be linked with the theme of psychological growth so apparent in the early novels?

I did dabble in him, from Oxford days and after. But not as a serious student might, much more as a dilettante, picking up the ideas I needed and that appealed to me rather as a spoilt child might pick out of a lucky dip if he or she were given free range and choice. For me Jung has always been the most fruitful psychologist, that is, most fertile in his effects on any subsequent fiction. I suspect a straight analyst, more or less in Freud’s footsteps, would suit me better medically, if I ever needed such attention—which perhaps I do . . . like every other novelist!

You have said that you started writing  The Aristos  as a sort of student’s notebook or “self-portrait in ideas” at this time. It seems an indispensable book for the serious student of your early fiction— The Magus  and  The Collector . Did it precede any extended effort to write fiction?

Like so many Oxford students, I developed very timid literary ambitions there. Such as they were, mine had far more to do with poetry than the novel. Poetry lasted as a long dream, long after I’d left university, of which the  Poems  that were published in 1973 were a funeral relic. I still occasionally get the urge to write poems, but usually sternly resist it. I didn’t attempt fiction till the mid-1950s, and then not very seriously; it long remained a kind of second best, or  faute de mieux  to me.  The Aristos  I did begin in my last year at Oxford, 1949. I also began keeping a personal diary about that time. I am a great believer in diaries, if only in the sense that bar exercises are good for ballet dancers: it’s often through personal diaries—however embarrassing they are to read now—that the novelist discovers his true bent—that he can narrate real events and distort them to please himself, describe character, observe other human beings, hypothesize, invent, all the rest. I think that is how I became a novelist, eventually. It’s certainly how I tend to see my older books when I reread them, which is not at all often: that is, as a sort of past diary about myself. So that’s how I felt and thought then. Not always a pleasant experience!  The Aristos  certainly preceded my novels, and yes, often bears heavily on them.

You have said that you wanted to be known as a writer and not simply a novelist. You continue to make it difficult for us to separate the fiction and the nonfiction in your work. Is this a result of the early humanistic idealism—being a “renaissance man,” a generalist, rather than a devotee in any single genre?

I’ve always felt that expressing myself in other literary forms is natural  and  desirable. Or putting it most generally, that all novelists should live in two different worlds: a real one and an unreal one. That is perhaps why my taste in fiction is towards a fair degree of realism in style and my taste in nonfiction (say in what scientists and academics write) is towards those who can exhibit qualities like tolerance of hypothesis, dislike of the rigid interpretation, a general fluidity of attitude, and a basic sympathy towards a subject . . . a touch of ordinary humanity, in a phrase.

Very important for me also is the collection of “old” books I have gathered over the years. I am a lousy bibliophile in the proper and normal sense. What I like about picking up old books is their enormous variety and the glimpses they can give into past and lost worlds and cultures. I do this quite indiscriminately, with whatever takes my fancy; the returns, in a literary sense, are infinite, but difficult to categorize. An American student to whom I mentioned this asked if she might have a list of what I had read or collected over the years. I told her it was impossible. I keep no such list. But this very miscellaneous reading I have done over the years has become a major influence for all its maddening vagueness for the students. Students nowadays seem to want to “place” precisely, to locate precisely, everything about a writer’s work: what he is, what has made him or her what they are, and so on. It seems to me that to imprison it is to deny something very essential about writing. Rather the same thing has taken place in nature, or natural history—the mania to place everything in a precise species or subspecies, to discover exactly how it works, all the rest. I am opposed to the scientization of nature, the reducing of it all to species, ecological distributions, biochemical mechanisms, and so on. I feel this very strongly about writing and writers too. The world wants us caged, in one place, behind bars; it is very important we stay free.

Want to keep reading? Subscribe and save 33%.

Subscribe now, already a subscriber sign in below..

Link your subscription

Forgot password?

View Manuscript

Featured Audio

Season 4 trailer.

The Paris Review Podcast returns with a new season, featuring the best interviews, fiction, essays, and poetry from America’s most legendary literary quarterly, brought to life in sound. Join us for intimate conversations with Sharon Olds and Olga Tokarczuk; fiction by Rivers Solomon, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, and Zach Williams; poems by Terrance Hayes and Maggie Millner; nonfiction by Robert Glück, Jean Garnett, and Sean Thor Conroe; and performances by George Takei, Lena Waithe, and many others. Catch up on earlier seasons, and listen to the trailer for Season 4 now.

Suggested Reading

Les Cinquante Glorieuses

“‘What’s up with the signified?’ ‘Oh, we’re through with that now. We’re doing the passé.’”

The Art of Editing No. 4

By the time I arrived in New York in the late seventies, Lapham was established in the city’s editorial elite, up there with William Shawn at The New Yorker and Barbara Epstein and Bob Silvers at The New York Review of Books . He was a glamorous fixture at literary parties and a regular at Elaine’s. In 1988, he raised plutocratic hackles by publishing Money and Class in America , a mordant indictment of our obsession with wealth. For a brief but glorious couple of years, he hosted a literary chat show on public TV called Bookmark , trading repartee with guests such as Joyce Carol Oates, Gore Vidal, Alison Lurie, and Edward Said. All the while, a new issue of Harper’s would hit the newsstands every month, with a lead essay by Lapham that couched his erudite observations on American society and politics in Augustan prose.

Today Lapham is the rare surviving eminence from that literary world. But he has managed to keep a handsome bit of it alive—so I observed when I went to interview him last summer in the offices of Lapham’s , a book-filled, crepuscular warren on a high floor of an old building just off Union Square. There he presides over a compact but bustling editorial operation, with an improbably youthful crew of subeditors. One LQ intern, who had also done stints at other magazines, told me that Lapham was singular among top editors for the personal attention he showed to each member of his staff.

Our conversation took place over several sessions, each around ninety minutes. Despite the heat, he was always impeccably attired: well-tailored blue blazer, silk tie, cuff links, and elegant loafers with no socks. He speaks in a relaxed baritone, punctuated by an occasional cough of almost orchestral resonance—a product, perhaps, of the Parliaments he is always dashing outside to smoke. The frequency with which he chuckles attests to a vision of life that is essentially comic, in which the most pervasive evils are folly and pretension.

I was familiar with such aspects of the Lapham persona. But what surprised me was his candid revelation of the struggle and self-doubt that lay behind what I had imagined to be his effortlessness. Those essays, so coolly modulated and intellectually assured, are the outcome of a creative process filled with arduous redrafting, rejiggering, revision, and last-minute amendment in the teeth of the printing press. And it is a creative process that always begins—as it did with his model, Montaigne—not with a dogmatic axiom to be unpacked but in a state of skeptical self-questioning: What do I really know? If there a unifying core to Lapham’s dual career as an editor and an essayist, that may be it.

— Jim Holt

From the Archive, Issue 229

Subscribe for free:  Apple Podcasts  |  Spotify  |  Amazon Music

John Fowles Books In Order

Publication order of standalone novels.

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

John Fowles was an internationally renowned novelist best known for writing ‘The Magus’, a bestseller that was inspired by the time the author spent on the Greek Island of Spetses.

John Fowles was born in 1926 in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex to a family of merchants. Robert John Fowles, the author’s father, worked with a Tobacco importer (Allen & Wright). Gladys May Richards, his mother, died when he was six.

Gladys, whose family hails from Essex, met Robert at a Tennis Club after she moved to Westcliff-on-Sea. There was no reason to believe that the pair would hit it off, not only because the war had ruined Robert’s health but also because he was a decade older than Gladys.

Yet it only took the pair a year to court and marry, with Fowles coming into the world just months after that. Fowles’ earliest memories largely revolved around his cousin Peggy who, at the age of 18 when he was born, not only worked as his nursemaid but also acted as his constant companion for several years.

Because he spent the first sixteen years of his life as an only child, the author spent a lot of time reading. He was especially drawn to Richard Jefferies’ books and characters.

Following his time at Alleyn Court Preparatory School, John Fowles joined Bedford School in 1939. This was just as the Second World War was kicking off

Fowles’ father was a war veteran. Despite showing an interest in the law at a relatively early age, Robert went into the army following the completion of his legal training. He joined the First World War as a member of the Honorable Artillery Company.

During the years that followed, the author’s father was struck with many a tragedy, this including the death of his brother Jack and his father. It fell on the shoulders of Robert to take care his brother’s children as well as a number of young half-siblings.

But Robert did not buckle under the pressure, choosing to forego his dream of practicing law in favor of raising his extended family. It was in that climate that the author’s father made the decision to go into the Tobacco trade.

John Fowles wasn’t as unfortunate. He spent four years at Bedford School, exceeding expectations as an athlete and even becoming head boy before departing in 1944. Life after school took Fowles to Edinburgh University where pursued a Naval Short Course.

His plans for the Royal Marines were upended when he found himself at Okehampton Camp near Devon. Fowles none the less performed his duties to the best of his abilities, though he eventually left the military service behind in 1947.

Choosing to go back to school, the author set his sights on French and German at New College, Oxford. Those years saw Fowles’ politics transformed. Initially, a hopeful youth determined to maintain the British status quo it was at Oxford that Fowles began to nurture anarchist ideals.

Writing came naturally to him. He saw it as a means of expressing his unique views on life in his community, though he did not immediately pursue a career in the field, instead choosing to go into teaching.

His most notable assignment was at the Anargyrios and Korgialenios School of Spetses on a Greek Island. An English master at the time, it was on Spetses that John Fowles met his wife (Elizabeth Christy).

Teaching in Greece was a fulfilling experience for Fowles. It was there that he began to experiment with poetry. He formed close relationships with other expatriates and he would have gladly spent the rest of his life on the Island.

However, when the author and his colleagues at his school attempted to initiate reforms, Fowles was amongst those that were fired, this forcing him back to England. Fowles was initially separated from Elizabeth, not only because of the move back to England but also because she was married at the time.

But circumstances drove them back together. They were married in 1957. By 1960, the author had begun work on ‘The Collector’, his first novel, which he used to garner the attention of a publisher at Jonathan Cape.

By 1963, Fowles had become a published author. While British critics appreciated his debut work, American reviewers were put off by the elements of existentialism in the novel.

The tentative reception from the United States did not slow Fowles down. He stopped teaching and started writing full time. He continued to put out bestsellers and was eventually named one of the Fifty Greatest Writers to ever come of Britain.

Despite the strong political views of his youth, Fowles came to be known as a recluse even after becoming the curator of the Lyme Regis Museum. The author lost his wife to cancer in 1990.

John Fowles married again in 1998. He died in 2005.

+Adaptations

John Fowles was fortunate to see three of his works receive notable adaptations. The first was ‘The Collector’ which became a psychological crime film of the same name directed by William Wyler and released in 1965.

‘The Magus’ was also adapted into a British Mystery film two years later, directed by Guy Green. Fowles pushed for the making of this adaptation and even wrote the screenplay. However, the movie was panned by almost every notable critic that watched.

‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman’ was a better-received adaptation. The romantic drama was released in 1981, directed by Karel Reisz.

Nicholas Urfe is a young Englishman who enthusiastically accepts a teaching position at a school on a remote Greek Island. What starts as an exciting new friendship with a local millionaire devolves into something more dangerous. It isn’t long before Nicholas is fighting for his life and sanity.

This book tells the story of a confident young man who’s yearning for a little bit of mystery in life. Nicholas gets a little more mystery than he bargained for when he takes a teaching job in Greece.

+The French Lieutenant’s Woman

Sarah Woodruff is a governess whose life in the English Community of Lyme Regis is upended when she falls for a French Naval Officer that washes ashore and then abandons her after ruining her reputation.

Charles Smithson is a financially stable Gentleman who should be happily engaged to a beautiful heiress. Charles accidentally encounters Sarah while visiting his aunt and, despite warnings from the locals, falls for her, this causing his life to take a strange turn.

Leave a Reply

The links beside each book title will take you to Amazon where you can read more about the book, check availability, or purchase it. As an Amazon Associate, I earn money from qualifying purchases. If you would like to link to us, Get the Code Here .

I often get asked by readers if they can donate to the site as a thank you for all the hard work. While I appreciate the offer – please support one of these great causes instead (list rotates monthly): All4Paws United Way of Northwest Illinois Child’s Play Qajuqturvik

Are you a fan of psychological thrillers? A big fan of authors such as Gillian Flynn? These are our most recommended authors in the thriller genre, which is my personal favourite genre:

• Freida McFadden
• Linwood Barclay
• Megan Goldin
• Peter Swanson
• Sarah Alderson
• Shari Lapena
• Jack Reacher
• Court Gentry / Gray Man

I just want to thank everyone for visiting the site. Any issues at all don’t hesitate to use the contact form. To read more about the site or if you want a graphic to link to us, see the about page for more details.

John Fowles Biography

Birthday: March 31 , 1926 ( Aries )

Born In: Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England

Recommended For You

British Celebrities Born In March

Also Known As: John Robert Fowles

Died At Age: 79

Spouse/Ex-: Elizabeth Christy

father: Robert John Fowles

mother: Gladys May Richards Fowles

siblings: Jack

Novelists British Men

Died on: November 5 , 2005

place of death: Lyme Regis

education: Alleyn Court Preparatory School, Bedford School, Edinburgh University, New College, Oxford

Recommended Lists:

See the events in life of John Fowles in Chronological Order

How To Cite

People Also Viewed

Also Listed In

© Famous People All Rights Reserved

Biography of John Fowles

John Fowles was born on March 31st, 1926, in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England. His father, Robert Fowles, was a soldier in the First World War before becoming a tobacconist and later marrying Gladys Richards, who gave birth to John soon after. John Fowles claims to have felt suffocated by the suburban environment where he grew up, saying that he has "tried to escape" his childhood all his life. During the Second World War, the Fowles family was evacuated to the remote town of Ipplepen, in Devon, where Fowles attended Bedford School as a teenager. He excelled at sport and became Head Boy, despite suffering a nervous breakdown; his main academic interests were French and German literature.

After the fighting ceased, Fowles spent a brief time in the Royal Marines as a Lieutenant in charge of training new recruits, before leaving the army to attend Oxford University. He continued his study of Modern Languages, specializing in French at New College. John Fowles moved to France and then to Greece after college to teach English - it was in Greece that he started writing poetry and fiction, and also met his future wife, Elizabeth Whitton, who was married to someone else at the time. In 1953, Fowles moved back to England, where he continued to teach English until he could support himself through his writing alone. He and his wife lived in Lyme Regis, overlooking the Cobb, where some of the most important scenes of The French Lieutenant's Woman take place.

Fowles achieved literary success with his first published novel, The Collector , in 1963, though he had already written a novel about his time in Greece, titled The Magus , which would be published in 1965 to similar acclaim. The Collector describes the kidnapping and imprisonment of a college student by a lonely and obsessed young man, and was made into a horror movie that caught the attention of Alfred Hitchcock, among others. Fowles' famously innovative historical novel The French Lieutenant’s Woman was published in 1969, and was met with huge commercial success. It caused huge waves in the literary world because of its modern take on the Victorian novel, and Fowles soon won the W. H. Smith & Son Literary Award and the PEN Silver Pen Award for his work. Meryl Streep starred in the film adaptation, the screenplay of which was written by Harold Pinter, and which met with positive reviews. Fowles continued to write novels for the next several decades, tackling themes like love, art, and lust through the lens of what he called "old-fashioned existentialism."

His wife Elizabeth died of cancer in 1990, two years after Fowles himself had suffered a minor stroke and associated memory loss. He remarried in 1998 to Sarah Smith, and died in 2005 after a prolonged illness.

Study Guides on Works by John Fowles

The collector john fowles.

The Collector was John Fowles's first published novel, released in 1963. Fowles described this book as a commentary on class in England, specifically on class issues such as prosperity, pretension, and the contrasts between the working class and...

• Study Guide

The French Lieutenant's Woman John Fowles

The French Lieutenant's Woman was John Fowles' third published novel, and it has achieved enduring commercial and critical success.

The novel attracted the attention of critics soon after it was published, and was better received in literary...

The Magus John Fowles

The Magus is the first novel that John Fowles actually penned, although it would only be published after two subsequent efforts were completed. Fowles is perhaps most famous for later writing The French Lieutenant’s Woman . Anyone who has read that...

Please enable JavaScript in your web browser to get the best experience.

• Go to our Facebook page.
• Go to our Twitter page.
• Go to our Instagram page.
• Go to our YouTube page.
• Go to our TikTok page.

John Fowles

John Fowles was the author of The Magus and The French Lieutenant’s Woman and managed to slip both postmodernism and existentialism into his widely read novels.

Fowles, who had just missed the Second World War - he completed his training on 8 May 1945, VE Day - became an English language teacher in Greece before turning to fiction. He managed the difficult task of writing ‘literary’ novels that were also popular. That popularity, especially after the success of the film version of The French Lieutenant’s Woman , could be irksome to a shy man: ‘I know I have a reputation as a cantankerous man of letters and I don’t try and play it down. But I’m not really. I partly propagated it,’ he once told a reporter.   

The Modern Novel

The world-wide literary novel from early 20th century onwards, john fowles.

Home » England » John Fowles

At one period in the 1970s/early 1980s, it looked as though Fowles was about to become the great English writer that English literature has not had since the 19th century. The Magus and The French Lieutenant’s Woman had had great acclaim and were – and are – very fine novels. The film of The French Lieutenant’s Woman appeared to great acclaim. We could all ignore the film of The Magus , a good candidate for the worst film ever made and, in Anthony Quinn and Michael Caine, featuring two of the worst actors in the world. The film of The Collector was watchable. Daniel Martin was entirely self-indulgent and unsuccessful but one flop is allowed. But then all that came after were Mantissa and A Maggot which, frankly, did not work. And that was it. And Fowles slowly stepped into the background as another potentially English writer limited to being just a good writer.

John Fowles was born in 1926 in Leigh-on-Sea. He had a conventional middle class upbringing – his father had a cigar-making and tobacconist business. After national service – two years in the Marines – he studied French and German at Oxford University. He then taught English first in Poitiers and then in Spetsai , the setting for his book, The Magus . He returned to London and continued to teach before publishing his first novel, The Collector . However, it was The Magus which allowed him to become a full-time writer and which enabled him to move to Lyme Regis , away from the London literati. It was also the setting for his next book, The French Lieutenant’s Woman .

But since The French Lieutenant’s Woman , his output has been spotty and not particularly successful, not helped by his own illness and the death of his wife in 1990 from cancer. He will be remembered for his first three novels. He died in 2005.

Books about John Fowles

James M. Acheson: John Fowles James R. Aubrey: John Fowles Peter J. Conradi: John Fowles Robert Huffaker: John Fowles Ray A. Roberts: John Fowles: A Bibliographic Checklist Eileen Warburton: Biography Of John Fowles

Other Links

John Fowles–The Web Site John Fowles John Fowles (1926-) John Fowles Featured Author: John Fowles The Memory of John Fowles Interview Interview Collecting John Fowles

Bibliography

Privacy overview.

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

John Fowles, British Author of Ambiguous Endings, Dies at 79

By Sarah Lyall

• Nov. 7, 2005

John Fowles, the British writer whose teasing, multilayered fiction explored the tensions between free will and the constraints of society, even as it played with traditional novelistic conventions and challenged readers to find their own interpretations of his work, died on Saturday at his home in Lyme Regis, England. He was 79.

His death was announced by his publisher, Random House U.K. No cause was given, but Random House said that Mr. Fowles, who suffered a stroke in the late 1980's and had heart problems, had been ill for some time.

Mr. Fowles's originality, versatility and skill were nowhere more evident than in his most celebrated novels, among them "The Collector," " The Magus" and "The French Lieutenant's Woman."

In 'The French Lieutenant's Woman," for instance, he combined the story and melodrama of a 19th-century Victorian novel with the sensibility of a 20th- century postmodern narrator, offering his readers two alternative endings from which to choose, and at one point boldly inserting himself into the book as a character who accompanies its hero on a train to London.

In "The Collector," Mr. Fowles painted an eerily plausible portrait of a psychopath who kidnaps a young woman out of what he imagines is love, telling the story from the two characters' opposing points of view until, at the end, the narratives converge with a shocking immediacy.

And in "The Magus," the story of a young Englishman who gets caught up in the frightening dramatic fantasies of a strangely powerful man on an Aegean island, he again wrote an ending of self-conscious ambiguity, leaving the hero's future an open puzzle that readers are challenged to solve for themselves.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

Learning Materials

• Business Studies
• Combined Science
• Computer Science
• Engineering
• English Literature
• Environmental Science
• Human Geography
• Macroeconomics
• Microeconomics
• John Fowles

John Fowles (1926-2005) was a British, Post-Modernist writer. He was greatly influenced by the Existentialist writings of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. His most famous novels include The Collector  (1963), The Magus   (1965), and The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969). Fowles's work was so successful that it was translated into many languages, and some of his novels have been adapted into films.                                          

Millions of flashcards designed to help you ace your studies

• Cell Biology

What philosophical belief was Fowles exposed to while at Oxford?

What kind of novel is The Collector ?

Review generated flashcards

to start learning or create your own AI flashcards

Start learning or create your own AI flashcards

• American Drama
• American Literary Movements
• American Literature
• A Journal of the Plague Year
• A Map Of The World
• A Tale of Two Cities
• Albert Camus
• Alexandre Dumas
• Alias Grace
• All Quiet on the Western Front
• An American Childhood
• Angie Thomas
• Anita Desai
• Anna Karenina
• Annie Dillard
• Antelope Wife
• As I Lay Dying
• Asian Literature
• Babylon Revisited
• Bernard Malamud
• Blood Meridian
• Bobbie Ann Mason
• Book of Daniel
• Brideshead Revisited
• Brothers and Keepers
• Captain Corellis Mandolin
• Carson McCullers
• Cat's Cradle
• Cathedral by Raymond Carver
• Charles Bukowski
• Charles Chesnutt
• Clear Light of Day
• Cormac McCarthy
• Crime and Punishment
• Cry the Beloved Country
• Daniel Defoe
• David Foster Wallace
• Death Comes For The Archbishop
• Don DeLillo
• Don Quixote
• EL Doctorow
• Edith Wharton
• England England
• Erich Maria Remarque
• Ethan Frome
• European Literature
• Evelyn Waugh
• Fahrenheit 451
• Fathers and Sons
• Flaubert's Parrot
• Ford Madox Ford
• Frances Harper
• Franz Kafka
• Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Gertrude and Claudius
• Go Tell It on the Mountain
• Going After Cacciato
• Gravitys Rainbow
• Great Expectations
• Gulliver's Travels
• Gustave Flaubert
• Haruki Murakami
• Henry Fielding
• Herman Melville
• Hermann Hesse
• In Cold Blood
• In the Lake of the Woods
• In the Time of the Butterflies
• Infinite Jest
• Invisible Cities
• Invisible Man
• Islands in the Stream
• Italo Calvino
• Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev
• JD Salinger
• Jack Kerouac
• James Baldwin
• James Fenimore Cooper
• Jane Hamilton
• Jazz (1992) Toni Morrison
• Jean Toomer
• Jill Ker Conway
• John Cheever
• John Edgar Wideman
• John Updike
• Jonathan Swift
• Joseph Heller
• Joyce Carol Oates
• Julia Alvarez
• Julian Barnes
• Kafka on the shore
• Katherine Anne Porter
• Katherine Mansfield
• Kingsley Amis
• Kurt Vonnegut
• Leo Tolstoy
• Light in August
• Louis de Bernieres
• Louise Erdrich
• Love in the Time of Cholera
• Madame Bovary
• Maggie A Girl of the Streets
• Mansfield Park
• Margaret Laurence
• Markus Zusak
• Martin Amis
• Maxine Hong Kingston
• Miguel de Cervantes
• Milan Kundera
• Moll Flanders
• Mrs. Dalloway
• Naked Lunch
• Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Nineteen Eighty-Four
• Northanger Abbey
• Norwegian Wood
• Notes From Underground
• O Pioneers!
• Oceanian Literature
• Octavia Butler
• Of Mice and Men
• Of Mice and Men Chapter 1
• Of Mice and Men Chapter 2
• Of Mice and Men Chapter 3
• Of Mice and Men Chapter 4
• Of Mice and Men Chapter 5
• Of Mice and Men Chapter 6
• On the Road
• One Hundred Years of Solitude
• Passing by Nella Larsen
• Philip K. Dick
• Philip Roth
• Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
• Rabbit, Run
• Ragtime Novel
• Ralph Ellison
• Ray Bradbury
• Raymond Carver
• Richard Wright
• Robinson Crusoe
• Rudolfo Anaya
• Sandra Cisneros
• Saul Bellow
• Scarlet Letter
• Sent for You Yesterday
• Serafinas Stories
• Ship of Fools
• Sister Carrie
• Slaughterhouse Five
• Song Of Solomon
• Sons and Lovers
• Stephen Crane
• Tess of the D'Ubervilles
• The Adventures of Augie March
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
• The Age of Innocence
• The American
• The Aspern Papers
• The Baron in the Trees
• The Book Thief
• The Book of Ruth
• The Catcher in the Rye
• The Conjure Woman
• The Crying of Lot 49
• The French Lieutenants Woman
• The Garden Party and Other Stories
• The Good Soldier
• The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
• The Heart of The Matter
• The House of Mirth
• The House of the Seven Gables
• The House on Mango Street
• The Joy Luck Club
• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
• The Loved One
• The Making of Americans
• The Man in the High Castle
• The Mayor of Casterbridge
• The Member of the Wedding
• The Metamorphosis
• The Natural
• The Plot Against America
• The Portrait of a Lady
• The Power of Sympathy
• The Red Badge of Courage
• The Road From Coorain
• The Sound and the Fury
• The Stone Angel
• The Stranger
• The Sun Also Rises
• The Temple of My Familiar
• The Three Musketeers
• The Unbearable Lightness Of Being
• The Wapshot Chronicle
• The Woman Warrior
• Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Theodore Dreiser
• Thomas Pynchon
• Tim O'Brien
• Time's Arrow
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• To the Lighthouse
• Uncle Tom's Cabin
• Virginia Woolf
• Vladimir Nabokov
• Voyage in the Dark
• Washington Irving
• We Were the Mulvaneys
• What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
• White Noise
• Wide Sargasso Sea
• Willa Cather
• William Faulkner
• William Hill Brown
• William S. Burroughs
• American Poetry
• American Regionalism Literature
• American Short Fiction
• Literary Criticism and Theory
• Literary Devices
• Literary Elements
• Literary Movements
• Literary Studies
• Non-Fiction Authors

A Biography of John Fowles

John Fowles was born on March 31, 1926, in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England. In his youth, Fowles discovered the work of Richard Jefferies and attended Bedford School in 1939. In 1944, Fowles left the Bedford School and enrolled at the University of Edinburgh's Naval Short course. In 1947, after completing two years at the Okehampton Camp, Fowles enrolled at New College, Oxford. There, he studied French and German, but mainly focused on French. While at Oxford, Fowles explored the literature of Existentialists such as Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. He was also introduced to anarchy.

In 1951, Fowles went to teach English in the Peloponnese, located in Greece. Fowles would use his time in Greece as inspiration for his novels, such as The Magus (1965) and various poems. In 1953, Fowles was asked to leave the school after attempting to institute a series of reforms. Fowles returned to England and taught English at St. Godric's College for about ten years. In 1960, while also working to complete his novel, The Magus , Fowles began work on The Collector (1963) which he would publish in 1963.

The Collector was so successful that Fowles was able to fully devote his time to writing and quit teaching. In 1965, the novel was adapted into a film. In 1964, Fowles published a collection of philosophical essays titled The Aristos . Fowles moved to an isolated home in Dorset in 1965. The isolation proved too much for Fowles, and in 1968, he moved to Belmont with his wife, which would serve as inspiration for the setting in The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969). When The French Lieutenant's Woman was published, it was extremely successful and cemented Fowles' reputation as a critically acclaimed author.

Controversy surrounded Fowles after his death when his diaries, written between 1965 and 1990, were published. In the diaries, Fowles wrote cruel, homophobic, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim remarks about people, including his wife, Elizabeth.

Fowles remained at Belmont for the rest of his life, working on more novels, short fiction, and poetry. On the November 5, 2005, Fowles died of heart failure.

Works by John Fowles

John Fowles wrote many literary works, such as novels, short fiction, and poems, over his lifetime. His most famous pieces are The Collector , The Magus , and The French Lieutenant's Woman . Some other works by Fowles include:

• The Aristos (1964)
• The Ebony Tower (1974)
• Daniel Martin (1977)
• A Short History of Lyme Regis (1982)
• A Maggot (1985)
• Wormholes—Essays and Occasional Writings (1998)

The Collector

The Collecto r is a thriller novel written by Fowles in 1963. It centers around a young, lonely, and psychotic man named Frederick Clegg, who kidnaps a female, named Miranda Grey, he is obsessed with. She is an art student he keeps captive in a cellar in a farmhouse. Miranda does whatever she can to escape Clegg, who will not let her go.

The Collector was so successful that it was adapted several times into a play. In 1965, the novel was adapted into a feature film of the same name, starring Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar. On a more serious note, three serial killers have claimed to use the novel as the basis of their crimes.

The novel is told from both the perspective of Clegg and Miranda. Miranda's chapters are written in epistolary form, which means the narration is told through a series of letters. The novel contains themes such as irony and the absurd.

The Magus is a novel by Fowles, published in 1965. It is a P ost-Modern novel that centers on Nicholas Urfe, a young British teacher living on a Greek island.

Post-modernism : a late 20th-century philosophical and literary movement that emphasized subjectivity, relativism, skepticism, and the role of ideology in politics and economy. Post-modern novels and other works are meant to question and subvert one's expectations of a known concept, genre, or narrative form.

There he meets Maurice Conchis, a wealthy and reclusive Greek man that plays psychological games on Nicholas. As the novel progresses, the psychological games grow more intense and intricate leading Nicholas to lose sight of what is reality and what is part of the game. The novel contains themes such as escape, identity, and the blurring of reality. The novel was included in the Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Novels.

The French Lieutenant's Woman

The French Lieutenant's Woman is a post-modern novel by Fowles, written in 1969. It centers on Sarah Woodruff, who lives in a coastal town and works as a servant in the Poulteney household. She is considered a disgraced woman because the French ship officer she was involved with abandoned her and went back to France to marry.

When Sarah meets Charles Smithson, an engaged man, they have three meetings. During each meeting, Sarah tells of her history and asks for support. The narrator presents three possible endings for the novel, opening the door to three plausible outcomes. The novel contains themes such as the role of gender, the concept of metafiction, and religion.

John Fowles' Influences

While at Oxford, Fowles was exposed to existentialism , particularly in Jean-Paul Sartre's and Albert Camus's works.

Existentialism is a philosophical belief that states that each individual is responsible for creating and finding meaning in their lives that is unique from other people's existence. Existentialists also believe that all problems are rooted in the essence of existence. This leads many existentialists to ponder the meaning of life.

This concept is thoroughly explored in The Magus, in which Nicholas believes his mind is being controlled by Conchis and therefore falls into more and more psychological games. However, had Nicholas realized the game adapted to his choices, ideas, and openness of mind, he would have been able to escape the psychological games sooner. In this framework, Nicholas is responsible for all that happens to him.

Fowles commonly wrote characters that grappled with freedom and the freedom of choice in the face of a character that symbolized a regime. In the case of The Magus , Nicholas is the one who struggles with freedom, while Conchis represents a regime.

The Writing Style of John Fowles

John Fowles is considered a post-modern writer who sees the artificiality of writing fiction. He consciously places himself into his novels, interrupting the narrator to include his commentary on the action of the novel. Using this narrative technique, Fowles can enter the text and provide commentary. This technique is known as metafiction .

Metafiction is a type of narrative in which the fictitious aspect of the literary work is emphasized, particularly by the author entering the text.

Quotes by John Fowles

Here are a few quotes from John Fowles' novels to get a better sense of post-modernist literature and his writing style.

They sensed that their current accounts of the world were inadequate; that they had allowed their windows on reality to become smeared by convention, religion, and social stagnation; they knew, in short, that they had things to discover, and that the discovery was of the utmost importance to the future of man" (The French Lieutenant's Woman, Chapter 8).

In this quote from The French Lieutenant's Woman, the reader is exposed to a notion that was felt during the Victorian Age, when the novel is set, and during the 1960s, when the novel is written. Great change and revolution in the Victorian Age make the characters feel that their discoveries will set them apart from the past and launch them straight into the future. Similarly, during the 1960s and 1970s, many technological and scientific achievements, such as the Space Race, made those two decades significant and different from previous centuries.

I am one in a row of specimens. It's when I try to flutter out of line that he hates me. I'm meant to be dead, pinned, always the same, always beautiful. He knows that part of my beauty is being alive, but it's the dead me he wants," (The Collector, Part 2).

Miranda writes this excerpt in epistolary form towards the end of the novel. Miranda observes that according to Clegg, she is no longer a woman; rather, she is just another object to be collected. She compares herself to the beautiful butterflies he collects. Miranda rejects this notion and attempts to escape many times. However, this only makes Clegg more upset. Miranda slowly realizes she in fact may join those butterflies in death.

'Greece is like a mirror. It makes you suffer. Then you learn.'

'To live alone?'

'To live. With what you are.'" (The Magus, Chapter 15).

This quote in the Magus is a conversation between Alison and Nicholas. It reveals Fowles's interest in existentialism. The main concept of Existentialism is that each individual being must learn to create meaning and purpose for themselves, separate from others. In this quote, Greece acts as the "mirror" or place where an individual's values, thoughts, and beliefs are reflected towards them. Within that reflection, the individual must come to terms with who they are and how to live with who they are.

John Fowles - Key takeaways

• John Fowles was born in Essex, England, in 1926.
• While studying at Oxford, Fowles was exposed to Existentialism, which would influence his writing and beliefs.
• John Fowles is considered a post-modernist writer and has written many novels, short fiction, and poems.
• His most famous novels include The Magus , The Collector , and The French Lieutenant's Woman .
• John Fowles would insert himself into the texts of his novels to emphasize the fictitious aspect of his novels, which is a post-modernist writing technique.

Flashcards in John Fowles 2

Existentialism

Learn with 2 John Fowles flashcards in the free StudySmarter app

We have 14,000 flashcards about Dynamic Landscapes.

Already have an account? Log in

Frequently Asked Questions about John Fowles

Who is John Fowles? 

John Fowles (1926-2005) was a British, Post-Modernist writer. 

How did John Fowles die? 

On the 5th of November 2005, Fowles died of heart failure.  

What did John Fowles write? 

John Fowles wrote novels such as The Collector  (1963), The Magus  (1965), and  The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969). 

When was John Fowles born? 

John Fowles was born on March 31, 1926. 

What is John Fowles famous for? 

John Fowles is well-known for his post-modernist literature and is most well known for his 1969 novel, The French Lieutenant's Woman.  

Discover learning materials with the free StudySmarter app

About StudySmarter

StudySmarter is a globally recognized educational technology company, offering a holistic learning platform designed for students of all ages and educational levels. Our platform provides learning support for a wide range of subjects, including STEM, Social Sciences, and Languages and also helps students to successfully master various tests and exams worldwide, such as GCSE, A Level, SAT, ACT, Abitur, and more. We offer an extensive library of learning materials, including interactive flashcards, comprehensive textbook solutions, and detailed explanations. The cutting-edge technology and tools we provide help students create their own learning materials. StudySmarter’s content is not only expert-verified but also regularly updated to ensure accuracy and relevance.

StudySmarter Editorial Team

Team English Literature Teachers

• 10 minutes reading time
• Checked by StudySmarter Editorial Team

Study anywhere. Anytime.Across all devices.

Create a free account to save this explanation..

Save explanations to your personalised space and access them anytime, anywhere!

By signing up, you agree to the Terms and Conditions and the Privacy Policy of StudySmarter.

Sign up to highlight and take notes. It’s 100% free.

Join over 22 million students in learning with our StudySmarter App

The first learning app that truly has everything you need to ace your exams in one place

• Flashcards & Quizzes
• AI Study Assistant
• Study Planner
• Smart Note-Taking

• Biographies & Memoirs
• Arts & Literature

Sorry, there was a problem.

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

• To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

John Fowles: A Life in Two Worlds Hardcover – March 30, 2004

• Print length 528 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Viking Adult
• Publication date March 30, 2004
• Dimensions 6.48 x 1.71 x 9.6 inches
• ISBN-10 0670032832
• ISBN-13 978-0670032839
• See all details

Editorial Reviews

From publishers weekly, from booklist, about the author, from the washington post.

Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Viking Adult (March 30, 2004)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 528 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0670032832
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0670032839
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.1 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.48 x 1.71 x 9.6 inches
• #13,231 in Author Biographies

About the author

Eileen warburton.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 5 star 42% 25% 23% 0% 10% 42%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 4 star 42% 25% 23% 0% 10% 25%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 3 star 42% 25% 23% 0% 10% 23%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 2 star 42% 25% 23% 0% 10% 0%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 1 star 42% 25% 23% 0% 10% 10%

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

• Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

• About Amazon
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell products on Amazon
• Sell on Amazon Business
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Become an Affiliate
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Host an Amazon Hub
• › See More Make Money with Us
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Amazon and COVID-19
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices

• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

The Novels of John Fowles

Note: The following are synopses of John Fowles’ seven novels, taken with permission from Professor James Aubrey’s excellent 1991 book John Fowles: A Reference Companion . This book contains a biography of Fowles, along with explanatory notes about obscure details and references in all of Fowles’ novels.

Click on one of the following or simply scroll down:

The Collector The Magus The French Lieutenant’s Wom an The Ebony Tower Daniel Martin Mantissa A Maggot

The Collector

The Collector is the story of the abduction and imprisonment of Miranda Grey by Frederick Clegg, told first from his point of view, and then from hers by means of a diary she has kept, with a return in the last few pages to Clegg’s narration of her illness and death.

Clegg’s section begins with his recalling how he used to watch Miranda entering and leaving her house, across the street from the town hall in which he worked. He describes keeping an “observation diary” about her, whom he thinks of as “a rarity,” and his mention of meetings of the “Bug Section” confirms that he is an amateur lepidopterist. On the first page, then, Clegg reveals himself to possess the mind-set of a collector, one whose attitude leads him to regard Miranda as he would a beautiful butterfly, as an object from which he may derive pleasurable control, even if “collecting” her will deprive her of freedom and life.

Clegg goes on to describe events leading up to his abduction of her, from dreams about Miranda and memories of his stepparents or coworkers to his winning a “small fortune” in a football pool. When his family emigrates to Australia and Clegg finds himself on his own, he begins to fantasize about how Miranda would like him if only she knew him. He buys a van and a house in the country with an enclosed room in its basement that he remodels to make securable and hideable. When he returns to London, Clegg watches Miranda for 10 days. Then, as she is walking home alone from a movie, he captures her, using a rag soaked in chloroform, ties her up in his van, takes her to his house, and locks her in the basement room.

When she awakens, Clegg finds Miranda sharper than “normal people” like himself. She sees through some of his explanations, and recognizes him as the person whose picture was in the paper when he won the pool. Because he is somewhat confused by her unwillingness to be his “guest” and embarrassed by his inadvertent declaration of love, he agrees to let her go in one month. He attributes her resentment to the difference in their social background: “There was always class between us.”

Clegg tries to please Miranda by providing for her immediate needs. He buys her a Mozart record and thinks, “She liked it and so me for buying it.” he fails to understand human relations except in terms of things. About her appreciation for the music, he comments, “It sounded like all the rest to me but of course she was musical.” There is indeed a vast difference between them, but he fails to recognize the nature of the difference because of the terms he thinks in. When he shows her his butterfly collection, Miranda tells him that he thinks like a scientist rather than an artist, someone who classifies and names and then forgets about things. She sees a deadening tendency, too, in his photography, his use of cant, and his decoration of the house. As a student of art and a maker of drawings, her values contrast with his: Clegg can judge her work only in terms of its representationalism, or photographic realism. In despair at his insensitivity when he comments that all of her pictures are “nice,” she says that his name should be Caliban–the subhuman creature in Shakespeare’s The Tempest .

Miranda uses several ploys in attempts to escape. She feigns appendicitis, but Clegg only pretends to leave, and sees her recover immediately. She tries to slip a message into the reassuring note that he says he will send to her parents, but he finds it. When he goes to London, she asks for a number of articles that will be difficult to find, so that she will have time to, try to dig her way out with a nail she has found, but that effort also is futile.

When the first month has elapsed, Miranda dresses up for what she hopes will be their last dinner. She looks so beautiful that Clegg has difficulty responding except with cliches and confusion. When she refuses his present of diamonds and offer of marriage, he tells her that he will not release her after all. She tries to escape by kicking a log out of the fire, but he catches her and chloroforms her again, this time taking off her outer clothing while she is unconscious and photographing her in her underwear.

Increasingly desperate, Miranda tries to kill Clegg with an axe he has left out when he is escorting her to take a bath upstairs. She injures him, but he is able to prevent her from escaping. Finally, she tries to seduce him, but he is unable to respond, and leaves, feeling humiliated. He pretends that he will allow her to move upstairs, with the stipulation that she must allow him to take pornographic photographs of her. She reluctantly cooperates, and he immediately develops the pictures, preferring the ones with her face cut off.

Having caught a cold from Clegg, Miranda becomes seriously ill, but Clegg hesitates to bring a doctor to the house. He does get her some pills, but she becomes delirious, and the first section ends with Clegg’s recollection: “I thought I was acting for the best and within my rights.”

The second section is Miranda’s diary, which rehearses the same events from her point of view, but includes much autobiographical reflection on her life before her abduction. She begins with her feelings over the first seven days, before she had paper to write on. She observes that she never knew before how much she wanted to live.

Miranda describes her thoughts about Clegg as she tries to understand him. She describes her view of the house and ponders the unfairness of the whole situation. She frequently remembers things said by G. P., who gradually is revealed to be a middle-aged man who is a painter and mentor whom Miranda admires. She re-creates a conversation with Clegg over, among other things, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. She gets him to promise to send a contribution, but he only pretends to. She admits that he’s now the only real person in her world.

Miranda describes G. P. as the sort of person she would like to marry, or at any rate the sort of mind. She lists various ways he has changed her think- ing, most of which involved precepts about how to live an authentic, committed life. Then she characterizes G. P. by telling of a time that he met her aunt and found her so lacking in discernment and sincerity that he made Miranda feel compelled to choose between him and her aunt. Miranda seems to choose his way of seeing, and he subsequently offers some harsh but honest criticism of her drawing, which seems to help her to become more self-aware and discriminating. Her friends Antoinette and Piers fail to appreciate the art G. P. has produced, and Miranda breaks with her Aunt Caroline over her failure to appreciate Rembrandt. Miranda describes her growing attraction to G. P., despite their age difference and his history of sexual infidelity. In the final episode about him, however, G. P. confesses to being in love with her and, as a consequence, wants to break off their friendship. She is flattered but agrees that doing so would probably be for the best.

Miranda says that G. P. is “one of the few.” Her aunt–and Clegg–are implicitly among “the many,” who lack creativity and authenticity. Indeed, Miranda associates Clegg’s shortcomings with “the blindness, deadness, out-of-dateness, stodginess and, yes, sheer jealous malice of the great bulk of England,” and she begins to lose hope. She gets Clegg to read Catcher in the Rye , but he doesn’t understand it. Miranda feels more alone and more desperate, and her reflections become more philosophical. She describes her reasons for thinking that seducing Clegg might change him, and does not regret the subsequent failed attempt, but she fears that he now can hope only to keep her prisoner.

Miranda begins to think of what she will do if she ever gets free, including revive her relationship with G. P. on any terms as a commitment to life. At this point, Miranda becomes sick with Clegg’s cold, literally as well as metaphorically. As she becomes increasingly ill, her entries in the journal become short, declarative sentences and lamentations.

The third section is Clegg’s, and picks up where his first left off. He tells of becoming worried over her symptoms and over her belief that she is dying. When he takes her temperature, Clegg realizes how ill Miranda is and decides to go for a doctor. As he sits in the waiting room, Clegg begins to feel insecure, and he goes to a drugstore instead, where the pharmacist refuses to help him. When he returns and finds Miranda worse, Clegg goes back to town in the middle of the night, to wake a doctor; this time an inquisitive policeman frightens him off. Miranda dies, and Clegg plans to commit suicide.

In the final section, less than three pages long, Clegg describes awakening to a new outlook. He decides that he is not responsible for Miranda’s death, that his mistake was kidnapping someone too far above him, socially. As the novel ends, Clegg is thinking about how he will have to do things somewhat differently when he abducts a more suitable girl that he has seen working in Woolworth’s.

The Magus is told from the point of view of Nicholas Urfe, who is bored with life. Having attended Oxford and taught for a year at a public school, he decides to take a position as the English teacher at the Lord Bryon School in Greece, on the island of Phraxos. Nicholas looks up a former teacher there, and is warned to “Beware of the waiting-room,” without explanation. Nicholas is not deterred, but during the last few weeks before he leaves, he meets Alison Kelly, an Australian girl who is about to begin training as an airline stewardess. They are both sophisticated about sex and somewhat cynical, but each experiences some regret as they go their separate ways.

During his first six months on Phraxos, Nicholas finds the school claustrophobic but the island beautiful. He realizes that he cannot write good poetry and that he is having difficulty forgetting Alison. In a funk, he visits a brothel in Athens and contracts a venereal disease. He seriously contemplates suicide. The first of the novel’s three parts ends at this point.

The mysteries begin as Nicholas goes swimming and someone leaves a book of poems, evidently meant for him to find. As he looks in the woods nearby, he finds a gate to a villa with a nearby sign Salle D’Attente , French for “waiting room.” One of his colleagues at the school explains that the villa is owned by a rich recluse named Maurice Conchis. Nicholas decides to look him up and finds, inexplicably, that he is expected. After some conversation, as Nicholas is leaving, he finds an old-fashioned glove on the path and surmises that someone has been watching them.

Invited back for the next weekend, Nicholas is astonished by Conchis’ collection of art and by his claim to be psychic. After dinner, Conchis tells Nicholas about an episode in his boyhood when he was fifteen and met a fourteen-year-old girl named Lily Montgomery, whose image haunted him afterward. They were both musically inclined and fell in love, but in 1914, she led him to feel that he ought to volunteer for the army. Conchis explains that he deserted at the battle of Neuve Chapelle , and offers Nicholas a chance to gamble with his own life by rolling a die and promising that he will take a cyanide pill if the die comes up six. It does, but Nicholas refuses to take the pill; Conchis seems to approve his decision, and reveals that the die was loaded against the roller–as was World War I against the soldiers. That night, as Nicholas is going to sleep, he hears voices singing a war song and smells a foul stench.

The next day Conchis encourages Nicholas to read a pamphlet by Robert Foulkes, written as he was waiting to be hanged in 1677. Nicholas takes it with him on a walk, falls asleep, and awakes to see a man in 17th-century dress staring at him from across a ravine. The man disappears before Nicholas can reach him.

At dinner that night, Conchis tells of his wartime pretense to be on leave so that he could return to England to visit Lily. As Nicholas retires, he hears a harpsichord accompanied by a recorder, and investigates, to find Conchis and a beautiful girl dressed in Edwardian clothes, but he declines to interrupt them.

The next weekend “Lily” joins them after dinner and speaks in the language of the early 1900s. Their conversation is interrupted when a horn sounds, a spotlight illuminates a nymph who runs by, pursued by a satyr, and another woman seems to shoot the satyr with an arrow. Nicholas is bewildered but decides that Conchis must be re-creating masques for his own amusement. Lily refuses to explain, and Conchis talks in parables. He describes an attempt to found a Society for Reason after the war, and he tells the story of a rich collector whose mansion is burned by a resentful servant. Nicholas begins to fall in love with Lily, who professes to be as mystified by what Conchis may be up to as Nicholas is. Conchis explains that she is a schizophrenic whom he indulges by letting her manipulate men in the controlled environment at Bourani, but that Nicholas must not believe what she tells him. For the weekend’s culminating experience, Conchis hypnotizes Nicholas, who experiences the separateness of himself from everything else. Nicholas leaves eager to return for more adventures.

Alison has invited Nicholas to Athens the next weekend. Nicholas finds the villa closed up, so he meets her and falsely tells her that he is suffering from syphilis. They have an enjoyable weekend climbing in the mountains, at the end of which, back in Athens, Nicholas confesses his lie and tells her about Bourani and Lily. Alison is hurt, and gives him an ultimatum: She will quit her job and join him on Phraxos, or she will leave him. When Nicholas hesitates, a violent argument ensues, and she refuses to let him back in their hotel room.

When Nicholas returns to the villa, Conchis drops the pretense that Lily is a schizophrenic and tells him that she and her twin sister are actresses named Julie and June, whom Conchis has hired for a theatrical experiment. The first evening, Conchis tells Nicholas the story of Henrik Nygaard, a blind madman who believes that he talks with God. Afterward, Nicholas goes to a passionate rendezvous with Julie in the woods, where he is shocked to discover that Julie has sent her twin sister instead. June explains that they feel like prisoners, always watched by Conchis’ black valet, Joe, repeatedly told to learn lines and to prepare for improvisations, but never told what it all means. The next day the twins tell Nicholas their backgrounds and show him documents to support their statements. After a day of being shadowed by Joe, even while they are inside an empty chapel, the twins leave with Conchis on his yacht, vowing to insist that he begin to be forthright with them all.

The next Wednesday the yacht returns, and Julie meets Nicholas at night to assure him that there will be no more pretense of schizophrenia; however, Nicholas is to join the twins in the improvisation the next weekend, after which all will be explained. Julie again avoids sex with Nicholas, pleading her menstrual period. On his way back to school in the dark, Nicholas is stopped by a patrol of soldiers in Nazi uniforms, who proceed to beat up a captured partisan. To Nicholas’s dismay, he receives a letter on Friday that he will not be welcome, after all, at the villa that weekend.

Nicholas receives two letters the next Thursday, one from Julie indicating that Conchis has told her that Nicholas was sick and the other from Alison’s roommate telling Nicholas that Alison has committed suicide. He does not reveal this to Conchis the next weekend, but demands to know the truth. Conchis explains that he is experimenting with a new form of theater, without audience, in which everyone is an actor.

Conchis continues the supposed story of his life with the narrative of the German occupation, when he served as mayor of Phraxos. A crucial event, interpreted differently by different characters in the novel, occurred after the killing of three Austrian soldiers by guerrillas. Conchis was told that the lives of eighty villagers about to be executed in reprisal would be spared if he would club the guerrilla leader to death; he refused, and took his place with the hostages, but managed to survive the mass execution.

Conchis then explains that Julie is his mistress and that they are all about to leave. When Nicholas tries to confront Julie, she disappears, playfully demonstrating one of their hiding places in an old bunker. Inside, she denies what Conchis has said, but as she climbs out of the bunker, she is grabbed and Nicholas locked in. When he gets out, he finds the villa shut up and a skull and a doll hanging from a nearby tree. Nicholas does not know what to think and returns to school.

Several nights later, June appears at the school in distress, concerned about Julie. She says that they have lied to Nicholas and falsified documents about who they are. Nicholas explains that their games have cost the life of Alison. She apologizes, and explains that Conchis is really a psychiatrist doing research and that Julie is at his house in the village, to which June offers to take Nicholas. When he arrives, Nicholas and Julie make passionate love, after which she tells him that Julie is not really her name, and walks out. Three men walk in and restrain Nicholas as they administer an injection that makes him lose consciousness.

Some days later, Nicholas revives, is dressed in ritual garb, and is taken to a chamber decorated with symbols, where he is seated on a throne facing 12 figures in bizarre costumes. As they unmask, they are introduced as psychiatrists, including the former Lily as Dr. Vanessa Maxwell, who reads a clinical diagnosis of Nicholas’s psychological problems. She is then stripped to the waist and tied to a flogging frame, as Nicholas is handed a cat-o’-nine-tails and invited to judge her–and the others–by choosing to flay her or not. He declines. Then Nicholas is tied to the frame, to watch Lily and Joe make tender love in front of him. Afterward, he is again made unconscious.

Nicholas awakens on the mainland, alone. He returns to the school and gets himself fired. He goes back to the villa and searches for clues. Although he finds a typescript of a story about how a prince learns to become a magician by accepting that life is full of illusion, Nicholas goes on looking for expla- nations. The second part of the book ends with his discovery that Alison is still alive, her supposed suicide evidently part of the charade.

In the last part, Nicholas continues his research. Nicholas finds no record of Conchis’ supposed credentials in psychology. He interviews one of his predecessors at the Lord Byron School, now living as a monk in Italy, but the monk is not interested in helping Nicholas. He finally succeeds in locating a house in which a Montgomery lived during World War I and the inhabitant directs him to one of the Montgomery daughters, a Mrs. Lily de Seitas. At first, she toys with Nicholas, but when he finds out that she has twin daughters of her own, she admits that she is a friend of Conchis–and of Alison. Nicholas is angry, partly over her refusal to tell him where Alison is, but he gradually overcomes his resentment and they meet again.

Nicholas begins to appreciate what has happened, and even declines to discuss it with his immediate predecessor at the Lord Byron School. Finally, Alison appears when he least expects her, and they have a confrontation in Regent’s Park, where he at first imagines that they are being watched from Cumberland Terrace. Nicholas issues her an ultimatum–“them or me.” She rejects the ultimatum, and Nicholas walks away from her. When she follows him, he slaps her without understanding why. Then he realizes that they are unobserved and asks forgiveness. The novel ends at that point, with their future relationship uncertain.

The French Lieutenant’s Woman

The first chapter describes Lyme Regis and its Cobb, a harbor quay on which three characters are standing: Charles Smithson, Ernestina Freeman, and Sarah Woodruff. The describing narrator has a distinctive voice, all-knowing yet intimate, with a wide-ranging vocabulary and evidently vast knowledge of political and geographical history. In one sentence the narrator sounds like a Victorian, as he remarks that the male character recently “had severely reduced his dundrearies, which the arbiters of the best English male fashion had declared a shade vulgar–that is, risible to the foreigner–a year or two previously.” In the next sentence he sounds modern, as he describes how “the colors of the young lady’s clothes would strike us today as distinctly strident.” The narrator’s double vision and double voice make him as important as the characters in this novel.

Charles is a middle-aged bachelor and amateur paleontologist; Ernestina is his fiancée, who has brought him to spend a few days with her aunt. Out of a chivalric concern for Sarah, Charles advises her to return from the end of the Cobb to a safer position, but she merely stares at him. As he reflects on this curious meeting, the narrator begins to comment on Charles’s outlook on life and on the attitudes that were typical of the age in 1867, with occasional comparisons with 1967.

Ernestina is revealed to be a pretty but conventional young woman. Sarah is an outcast who is reputed to be pining for the French lieutenant who has jilted her. Charles is earnest but intelligent enough to be aware of Ernestina’s limitations. When he is looking for fossils along the wooded Undercliff, Charles discovers Sarah sleeping, and must apologize when she awakes and sees him observing her. As he returns to Lyme, he inquires about her at a nearby farm, whose owner tells him that the “French Loot’n’nt’s Hoer” often walks that way. Sarah’s employer, having separately become aware of that fact, forbids her to walk there any more. Sarah spends that night contemplating suicide, and Chapter 12 ends with two questions: “Who is Sarah? Out of what shadows does she come?”

Chapter 13 begins “I do not know,” and the narrator proceeds to discuss the difficulty of writing a story when characters behave independently rather than do his bidding. Charles, he complains, did not return to Lyme as the narrator had intended but willfully went down to the Dairy to ask about Sarah. But, the narrator concedes, times have changed, and the traditional novel is out of fashion, according to some. Novels may seem more real if the characters do not behave like marionettes and narrators do not behave like God. So the narrator, in effect, promises to give his characters the free will that people would want a deity to grant them. Likewise, the narrator will candidly admit to the artifice of the narration and will thereby treat his readers as intelligent, independent beings who deserve more than the manipulative illusions of reality provided in a traditional novel.

Subsequent chapters contain representations of domestic life–a quiet evening with Charles and Ernestina, a morning with Charles and his valet, a concert at the Assembly Rooms. During this last, Charles reflects on where his life seems to be leading and on the fact that, as he puts it, he has become “a little obsessed with Sarah…or at any rate with the enigma she presented.” He returns to the Undercliff, again finds Sarah there, and is shocked to be told by her that she is not pining for her French lieutenant, that he is married. The next time Charles encounters her in the Undercliff she offers Charles some fossils she has found and tells him that she thinks she may be going mad; she asks him to meet her there once more, when she has more time, so that she can tell him the truth about her situation and obtain his advice.

Charles decides to seek advice himself and visits Dr. Grogan, an elderly bachelor and an admirer of Darwin, whose theories they discuss. When the conversation turns to Sarah, Grogan expresses the belief that she wants to be a victim. Sarah seems to bear out his view when she explains to Charles that she indeed became infatuated with the French lieutenant when he was recovering from an injury in the house, where Sarah was governess, and that she followed him when he left to return to France. She tells Charles that she quickly realized that he had regarded her only as an amusement, but that she “gave” herself to him nonetheless, doubly dishonoring herself by choice as well as by circumstances. She seems to be proud of her status as outcast, for it differentiates her from a society she considers unjust. Charles accepts her story–even finds it fascinating.

When Charles returns to his room at the inn, he finds a telegram from his bachelor uncle Robert, summoning him home to the family estate he is in line to inherit. To Charles’s surprise, Robert has decided to marry Bella Tomkins, a young widow, whose sons–if she has any–would displace Charles as heir. On Charles’s return to Lyme Regis, Ernestina mentions that Sarah was seen returning from their last meeting in the Undercliff, where she had been forbidden to walk, and has been dismissed by Mrs. Poulteney. At his hotel, Charles finds a message from Sarah, urging him to meet her one more time. Charles has Dr. Grogan call off the search for Sarah, who, it was thought, might have killed herself Grogan again warns Charles against Sarah, this time by offering him a document to read about a case of bizarre behavior by a young woman in France who manages to get one of her father’s officers unjustly convicted of attempting to rape her. Charles decides to meet Sarah again, despite the possibility that she may be deranged and trying to destroy him.

When he finds her, she confesses that she deliberately allowed herself to be seen and, hence, dismissed. Charles is unable to resist kissing her but is bewildered. His feelings turn to dismay when they are stumbled on by Sam and Mary, his valet and Ernestina’s aunt’s servant, who have come to the Undercliff for their own privacy. Embarrassed, he swears them to secrecy.

Now even more of two minds about his marriage, Charles decides to go to London to discuss his altered financial prospects with Ernestina’s father, a prosperous merchant there. Mr. Freeman is more concerned for the happiness of his daughter, who evidently loves Charles dearly, so the engagement stands; but Charles is increasingly uncomfortable with, even trapped by, his situation. He goes to his club and drinks too much. He visits a brothel with two of his friends, but finds the entertainment repellant, and leaves. He picks up a Cockney streetwalker and returns to her flat with her; when she tells him her name is, coincidentally, Sarah, Charles becomes ill and, subsequently, returns to his room. The next morning Charles receives a letter from Grogan, and a note from Sarah with the name of a hotel in Exeter.

Because the train station nearest to Lyme Regis is in Exeter, Charles must pass through that town on his way back from London. Having steamed open the note from Sarah, Sam is confident that they will spend the night in Exeter, so that Charles can visit Sarah, but they proceed to Lyme, where Charles and Ernestina are reunited. The narrator recounts that they go on to marry, have seven children, and live well into the twentieth century. In the next chapter, the narrator explains that this traditional ending is just one possibility, a hypothetical future for his characters. Charles recognized his freedom of choice and “actually” did decide to put up at Exeter for the night, precisely as Sam had expected.

As the story resumes and continues to unfold, Charles visits Sarah at her hotel. He must see her in her room because she has supposedly injured her ankle, though she has purchased the bandage before the “accident” occurred. Charles is overcome by passion and takes her to bed, only to discover that she is a virgin, despite what she had told him about the French lieutenant. She confesses that she has deceived him, says that she cannot explain why and, furthermore, cannot marry him. Stunned by the whole experience, Charles visits a nearby church and meditates on the human condition. He decides that Sarah has been trying to “unblind” him with her stratagems, so that he would recognize that he is free to choose. He writes a letter to Sarah, telling her how much she means to him, and then returns to Lyme to call off his engagement.

Sam does not deliver the letter. Ernestina is distraught when Charles tells her that he is unworthy to be her husband, more so when she realizes that the true reason is another woman. Sam correctly surmises that his master’s star will wane as the marriage is called off, so determined to protect his prospect of marriage to Mary, he leaves his position as Charles’s valet in hope that Ernestina’s aunt and her father will help him.

When Charles returns to Exeter, he finds Sarah gone to London, having left no forwarding address. As he follows her, by train, a bearded figure sits opposite Charles and watches him as he dozes. The character is the narrator himself, who professes not to know where Sarah is or what she wants; indeed, he is wondering what exactly to do with Charles. He compares writing a novel to fixing a fight in favor of one boxer or another; to seem less dishonest, he decides to show the “fight” as if “fixed” both ways, with different “victors,” or endings. Because the last ending will seem privileged by its final position, he flips a coin to determine which ending to give first.

The narrative resumes the description of Charles’s search for Sarah. He checks agencies for governesses, patrols areas frequented by prostitutes, and advertises–all without success. He visits the United States and advertises there. Two years after she disappeared, Charles gets a cable from his solicitor saying that Sarah has been found. Charles hopes that Sarah has decided to answer the ad, but the narrator explains that Mary has seen Sarah enter a house in Chelsea, and that it is Sam who responded to the ad, now that he is a thriving employee of Mr. Freeman as well as a happy father and husband, but still slightly guilt-ridden over his having intercepted the letter at Lyme.

When Charles arrives at Sarah’s house, he finds her surprised to see him and not apologetic about having left him in ignorance of her whereabouts. She gradually is revealed to be living in the house of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and several other artists and models of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Charles is shocked, partly by the rather notoriously unconventional company she is keeping and partly by her lack of repentance for having deceived him and left him in uncertainty. He accuses her of implanting a dagger in his breast and then twisting it. She decides not to let Charles leave without revealing that she has had a child by him, named Lalage. Chapter 60 ends with the three of them evidently on the threshold of some kind of future together.

Chapter 61 begins with the bearded narrator in front of Sarah’s house with a watch, which he sets back fifteen minutes and drives off. The narrative resumes with the same piece of dialogue from Chapter 60, about twisting the knife. In this version of the conversation, Charles sees that she cannot marry without betraying herself, and that he cannot accept her on more independent terms. He leaves without realizing that the child he notices on the way out is his. The narrator ends the novel by noting that Charles has at least begun to have some faith in himself, despite his not feeling that he understands Sarah, and that the reader should not imagine that the last ending is any less plausible than the one before it.

The Ebony Tower (a novella)

David Williams, an English art critic and color-field painter, arrives in northern France to interview an older painter named William Breasley, who is living in self-imposed exile from England and Paris. Away from his wife, David finds himself affected by the atmosphere at Breasley’s manor, which is deep in one of the old woods of Brittany, filled with priceless paintings, and inhabited not only by the great painter but also by two young art students, Diana and Anne.

The girls befriend David, and warn him that he can expect to be baited by their host. At dinner, as Breasley becomes increasingly drunk, he attacks the art establishment and, sometimes, Williams himself. Finally, the girls put Breasley to bed, and Diana explains that Breasley’s reference to an “ebony tower” was his attempt to denigrate contemporary artists who work with abstraction because they are afraid to be clear; then she encourages David to dismiss what Breasley has said by telling David that an ebony tower is where you dump things you are too old to appreciate.

The next day Breasley is back to his usual cantankerous self. They all go on a picnic in the woods, where Diana and Anne go swimming in the nude as Breasley explains to David that he passed a kind of test the night before. After lunch–an enactment of Manet’s Le Dejeuner sur I’herbe –Breasley goes to sleep and the women tell David about their lives. The three of them go swimming, and then the four of them return to the house, where David conducts one more interview, about Breasley’s politics and his sources.

That night’s dinner is friendlier. Afterward, Diana puts Breasley to bed early, and Anne explains that Breasley wants Diana to marry him. The two women take David upstairs to look at Diana’s artwork, which he is impressed by. After Anne leaves, Diana tells David more about herself. They then decide to take a walk in the garden, where David kisses Diana and she responds with passion. He hangs back, and she senses that sexual intercourse would be a mistake. “She had broken away; and he had let her, fatal indecision.” He then tries to persuade her to come to bed with him, but she goes to her room and locks the door. He believes that he has both come alive and been prevented from living, that he has both lost his principles and feared to act against them.

The next day Diana absents herself from the house until David has left. He spends the drive back to Paris thinking about her with regret, feeling that he has been in a dream. At the airport, he meets his wife, who is flying in from England for a holiday. When she asks him how things went, he answers, “I survived.”

Daniel Martin

The novel begins in 1942 as 15-year-old Danny Martin is helping with “The Harvest,” title of the first chapter. He is terrified by a low-flying German bomber and repelled by the more localized violence against rabbits that have become trapped in the center of a field as the circles of the reaper grow nearer. The chapter ends with his retreat into a beech wood, “innocent, already in exile…”

The second chapter, “Games,” takes place in the early 1970s, in Hollywood, when Daniel Martin is now a middle-aged, successful screenwriter who is divorced from Nell, with a daughter named Caro. He is dissatisfied with script-writing as well as with his life, and is thinking of trying to write a novel. He receives encouragement from his girlfriend, a young Scottish actress named Jenny, who proposes that he name his fictionalized self Simon Wolfe. The chapter ends as Dan receives a telephone call from England.

The third chapter, “The Woman in the Reeds,” takes place in a third time period, when Dan was attending Oxford University in his early twenties. Dan is on a picnic with Jane, sister of his girlfriend Nell, when they discover a body in one of the canals. Andrew, a baronet’s son, helps them recover from the shock while they wait for the police to arrive. Dan uses the word “games” to describe their superficial lives at Oxford.

“An Unbiased View” is written by Jenny as a contribution toward Dan’s novel. The chapter describes the world of filmmaking as well as how they met, and how she found him attractive because she could not read him easily. “The Door” picks up with a telephone call from Jane, who tells Dan that her terminally ill husband, Anthony, wants to see Dan before he dies. Dan is stunned, and the next chapter, “Aftermath,” helps to account for his reaction. After they had returned from their Oxford outing, Jane proposed that they go to bed together, just once, as a gratuitous, Rabelaisian act. “Passage” switches the scene back to the United States, where Dan is flying from Los Angeles to New York, en route to England, and thinking about what it means to be English.

“The Umbrella” returns to Dan’s boyhood in the 1930s, as Dan describes how the son of a vicar grew into an atheist. Allusions to Citizen Kane help to emphasize Dan’s father’s lack of demonstrative love for his son. The next chapter, “Gratuitous Act,” describes Dan and Jane’s sexual intercourse in Dan’s room at Oxford, where they are almost discovered by Barney Dillon, who lives in the room above. “Returns” takes place on the airplane from New York to London, where Dan coincidentally encounters the older Barney, who is now a media critic for a London newspaper. Dan’s daughter, Caroline, is his secretary.

“Tarquinia” provides another reminiscence of the Oxford days, on a vacation when Dan, Nell, Jane, and Anthony visited Italy and “played Pagan” in the sea near the Etruscan ruins. In “Petard,” while Dan stays over in London with Caro, she tells him that she is having an affair with the still-married Barney. On the subway to Padding- ton Station, in “Forward Backward,” Dan thinks back to a trip he took to Devon with Caro to show her where he grew up and ended up buying a farm he found for sale, named Thorricombe. In “Breaking Silence,” while riding the train from London to Oxford, Dan thinks back further to the early years of his marriage to Nell–his successes as a playwright that gained him entrée to the film world, his infidelity with an actress, Nell’s acquisitiveness and growing discontent with their marriage, her accusation that Dan must be having an affair with his assistant, and her demand for a divorce.

In “Rencontre,” Dan meets Jane for dinner, and in “Crimes and Punishments,” he recalls how a play of his with obvious parallels in their lives had led to anger all around and a letter from Anthony that wrote him out of their lives. Now, in “Catastasis,” Dan goes to the hospital to meet Anthony and finds that Jane long ago told her husband of her gratuitous act, with Dan. Anthony explains that they have had a somewhat bloodless relationship in their marriage, due in part to his religiosity, and he wants Dan to be a friend to Jane when he is gone. After he leaves, in “Jane,” Dan takes Jane to dinner, where she explains why she is thinking of joining the Communist Party. When they return to Jane’s house, in “Beyond the Door,” they learn that Anthony committed suicide shortly after Dan left. In “Webs,” NelI arrives with Andrew, whom she has married, and their daughter Rosamund. Dan and Caro drive back to London, where Dan watches an old man on the street and thinks about how separated people are from one another.I

Jenny writes “A Second Contribution,” which describes her view of Dan’s Jewish friends Mildred and Abe and of Dan, whose discussions have enabled her to see that he is in love with loss, and that his seeming untypicality is really what is most typical of the English: their ability to hide their true selves from others. “Interlude” provides a narrator’s view of Dan, who does expect to lose women, and illustrates Dan’s life with a “fable” about twin sisters, Miriam and Marjory, whom Dan allows to move in with him; they are unsophisticated (except as sexual partners), but Dan genuinely likes them. At the end of the chapter, they have moved away, and Dan is haunted by their loss.

In “Hollow Men,” Dan meets Barney for lunch, and they discuss his life, including Caro. At breakfast the next day, in “Solid Daughter,” Caro tells Dan that Jane thinks him to be two persons, and Caro suggests that he does not want her to know him either. The topic leads Dan to write “The Sacred Combe,” about why Robin Hood is the perfect myth for England because the English love to retreat behind masks, to melt into the trees. Dan notes that his own impulse to write a novel may be evidence of this wish to escape from social responsibility into a self-chosen exile, into a private world of self-indulgence.

In “Rituals,” Dan meets with David Malevich, his producer, about their next film project, and David suggests that Dan visit possible shooting locations in Egypt. Dan attends the inquest into the suicide and then takes Rosamund, Jane’s oldest daughter, to dinner. Dan spends the weekend at “Compton,” the title of the next chapter and country estate of Nell and Andrew, where he ponders the existence of the upper class and discusses the state of England with a cynical ultraconservative named Miles Fenwick.

“Tsankawi” is another reminiscence, of a visit to an archeological site in New Mexico. Dan identifies strongly with the place, and is offended that Jenny wants to make gifts out of potsherds she finds there.

In “Westward,” back in England, Dan invites Jane and her teenage son Paul to visit Thorncombe. Paul is somewhat obsessed with medieval agriculture, so he agrees to come along if he can visit some sites of historical interest. Dan recalls how he acquired his gardener and housekeeper, Ben and Phoebe, and then, in “Phillida,” how he fell in love as a boy with Nancy Reed, who then lived on the farm Dan has bought, until their parents put an end to the romance. After they have arrived, in “Thorncombe,” Dan tells Jane about his wish to try writing a novel, and she tells him about Marxist views of the novel and of culture. On impulse, Dan invites Jane to accompany him to Egypt. That night, “In the Orchard of the Blessed,” Dan ponders the devaluation of happy endings in contemporary culture but decides that his novel will have one nonetheless. In “Rain,” Jane reluctantly agrees to go along to Egypt, and Dan has two strained transatlantic telephone conversations with Jenny.

In “A Third Contribution,” Jenny describes a supposedly fictional but extremely detailed sexual liaison with her costar, Steve. When they talk by telephone again, in “The Shadows of Women,” she apologizes for having sent it.

Jane and Dan arrive in Cairo in “Pyramids and Prisons,” where Dan discusses the film project with an Egyptian agent and Jane visits the pyramids. They attend a dinner party at which the jokes told by an Egyptian playwright reveal much about Egyptian culture, including, in Dan’s view, much it has in common with Jewish culture. In “Barbarians,” they start a tour up the Nile at Karnak and reflect on the ancient Egyptian obsession with size, which reminds them of ancient Rome and the modern United States. An old German archaeologist named Otto Kirnberger befriends them and offers suggestions about purchasing artifacts. In “Nile,” they encounter other tourists, including an American couple, the Hoopers, who disagree about Vietnam but are enthusiastic about visiting Palmyra, Syria. In “The River Between,” Kirnberger tells about himself and offers insights into cultural and biological differences. When they arrive at Aswan and “Kitchener’s Island, they find a paradise surrounded by technology run amok. Jane imagines living in a house there and accepts some beads from a little girl. Dan increasingly wants to reveal the growing affection he is feeling toward Jane, but instead, he proposes a side excursion to Palmyra on their trip back to England. Back at the hotel in Aswan, “In the Silence of Other Voices,” Dan experiences a mental crisis of anxiety that he must choose himself, and of confidence that he alone can create a world in film or fiction, let alone in life, but he sits down and composes a scene that he believes will work. The chapter title “Flights” refers to the return by air to Cairo and to Jane’s demurral when Dan declares that he does not want to leave Jane, that there was something right about their day in Oxford, that they should try living together.

In “North,” Dan feels depressed. After they arrive in Beirut, he sits in a bar and feels that he must be condemned to pursue emotional situations that contain the structure of their own destruction, for which his thwarted relationship with Nancy Reed was the seed crystal. The drive to Palmyra in the fog takes them to “The End of the World,” a desolate landscape Dan compares to the possibilities Jane has destroyed over the courses of their lives. He persuades her that she should stop conforming to an ideal of nobility and sacrifice, acting as if Anthony is still watching her, and instead join him in movement toward a sympathetic, loving relationship. For the first time on the trip they sleep together. The next day, in “The Bitch,” still wary of love but proceeding on instinct like the mother dog of the chapter title, Jane buries her wedding ring in the sand.

In the last chapter, “Future Past,” Dan meets Jenny in a London pub to discuss why he is ending their relationship. They walk on Hampstead Heath and part. Dan goes into the Kenwood Museum and looks at the Rembrandt self-portrait there, which seems like a sentinel. Dan will not turn back but will continue to choose and to learn to feel and to write his novel. Indeed, the last sentence of Dan’s novel, which exists only as an idea in Daniel Martin , John Fowles as Dan’s “ill-concealed ghost” has adopted as the first sentence of this novel: “Whole sight; or the rest is desolation.”

Part I begins with an attempt by Miles Green to regain consciousness, as a pair of eyes above him gradually takes the form of his wife, Claire–or so she tells him, for Miles seems to be suffering from amnesia. His wife leaves, and the female attendant explains that he has been under sedation, but when Miles asks how long he has been in the hospital, she answers, “Just a few pages.” Her name is Dr. A. Delfie, and she introduces her West Indian assistant as Nurse Cory. They explain that he must learn to relax, and as part of his treatment, they begin to massage his penis. Miles is shocked as they encourage him to fondle their bodies, more so as Dr. Delfie mounts his erection. She tells Miles to try to provide a climax from as deep as possible, in the interest of his baby, to keep going “to the very last syllable.” After he finishes, Nurse Cory bring him a small sheaf of papers, cradled in her arms, which she refers to as “a lovely little story.” He begins to wonder if his lost identity is that of “a mere novelist or something” when a crash interrupts and ends this first part of the book.

The cause of the crash becomes apparent in Part II. A woman appears who looks like a twin of Dr. Delphie but has spikes of hair and black eye-makeup, is dressed in boots and a black leather jacket, and holds an electric guitar. She slashes at the guitar strings and the nurses disappear. Then she turns to Miles and accuses him of antifeminist, bourgeois elitism, among other literary crimes, in what he has just written. He defends himself by saying that it could have been worse, that he at least did not represent her running through the olive groves in a transparent nightie– though she would look terrific that way. She begins to run scales on her guitar and it changes to a lyre, as she changes into a traditional muse, dressed in a white tunic. She warns him that she will not, however, be a brainless female body at his perverted beck and call, and she gives him 10 sentences to provide a formal apology. As he does so he begins to play with her. She is not very interested–is still a bit queasy from her flight from Greece–and tells him that it is not easy to be the muse of love poetry, Erato, and find that you have been stuck with fiction as well.

Erato tells Miles to listen to a story for a change, and tells him about her sexual awakening in ancient Greece, when a satyr discovered her rubbing herself with olive oil. She tells Miles that he must not repeat her story, that she’s told it to only one other person, a French poet who blabbed. As she tells her erotic story, Miles undresses her and mounts her. Erato continues to talk and tells Miles that her point is, that he should not be a modern satyr, who invents women who are implausible wish-fulfilIments of his diseased mind. In fact, she reminds him, any witness to what they are doing would think it ridiculous, so he should get off her. Erato then lectures him on how she has no freedom to be herself as long as she depends on him to create her as a character, even to kill her off. At that point, Erato gradually changes into an independent-minded, serious woman who speaks intelligently, even intellectually about the sympathy she feels for Miles as a male, a victim of “the overwhelming stress the prevailing capitalist hegemony puts on sexuality.” They discuss fictional possibilities for her, which quickly degenerate into soft-core romance scenarios with crude symbolism and exotic trappings. Miles turns and accuses her of exceeding the bounds of artistic decency, and starts lecturing her on how out of fashion her ideas about novels are. He tells her that she should not expect to be able to think and to be a universal girlfriend at the same time. After having delivered several intellectual parting shots and turning to leave, Miles cannot find a door in the wall. Erato tells him that he cannot walk out of his own brain. Miles now accuses her of dictating to him, and whines that he, as author, feels as “written” as she does as a character. She shows him that there is a door, after all, but when he opens it, he sees only a reflection of himself and the room behind him. When he turns around, Erato knocks him out with an uppercut to the jaw.

As Part IV begins, they wake up and begin to discuss how it was–both the sex and their previous dialogues. Miles and Erato discuss how they found each other, were perfect for each other in their desire for endlessly revisable textuality. Miles unwisely remarks that he especially liked her as Nurse Cory, and Erato replies that she has singled him out for her affection because he’s such an incompetent writer that she can be sure he will never succeed in telling about her. He retorts that he has lots of readers, and that she does not know what it is like to be a writer. She confesses that she did once write an epic satire revealing how immature men are, called The Odyssey . He confesses that he wants Nurse Cory. Erato admits that she is not perfect, indeed gets a lot of facts wrong, but her business is to inspire people. Miles complains that they do too much talking.

As they lie together, Miles reflects that he should not complain about his situation, but that Erato does not appreciate his importance and is becoming “just one more brainwashed, average twentieth-century female.” As he begins to imagine a compliant, sexy Japanese woman, he finds that Erato has turned him into a satyr. He threatens to write everything down, but she just smiles. When he tries to jump on her, Erato disappears, and he knocks himself out on the wall above the bed. He returns to the form of Miles Green, and Nurse Cory covers him up. The book ends with the cry of “Cuckoo” from the clock above the oblivious patient.

The story begins with a narrator’s description of five characters on horseback in the West Country in April. The party is composed of a Mr. Brown and his nephew, a deaf-mute servant named Dick, a woman called Louise, and a bodyguard named Sergeant Farthing. Their journey began in London and has taken them into Devon, where the nephew is to meet his beloved for an elopement—or so they tell the staff at the Black Hart, an inn near Exmoor. When the narration becomes dialogue, relationships seem different. The uncle Is subordinate to the nephew, who is referred to as Lacy, not Brown. The woman seems unperturbed when Dick unbuttons his breeches and stands near her with an exposed erection. She does plead for an explanation, however, when the nephew–whom she refers to as “my lord” and who calls her Fanny–chastises her for having worn a bouquet of violets beneath her nose as they traveled that day.

After 50 pages of this narration, whose dialogue is from the 18th century but whose narrator is from the late 20th, a facsimile page with no immediately evident connection appears, part of the “Historical Chronicle” from The Gentleman’s Magazine , for April 1736, when the fictional story has been taking place. The next page is fictional but purports to be an item from The Western Gazette reporting the discovery of a corpse in the woods near Exmoor, hanging from a tree, with a bouquet of violets growing from its mouth.

The next 10 pages are in a different, dramatic mode, an interrogation of the Black Hart’s innkeeper, Thomas Puddicombe, with the questions and answers marked by Qs and A’s, and the whole transcript signed by one Henry Ayscough. After two more interviews and two more excerpts from The Gentleman’s Magazine , Ayscough’s role becomes clearer with a letter to his employer, addressed as “Your Grace,” who is evidently the father of the young lord in the party of travelers. Ayscough is confident that the so-called nephew is indeed “his Lordship,” this unidentified duke’s younger son, but Ayscough cannot imagine what he was doing in this part of the country or why he brought the extra companions, besides his now-deceased servant.

The next section is narrated, in which Ayscough intimidates the actor Francis Lacy into admitting that he was indeed hired by a man he knew was only pretending to be “Mr. Bartholemew,” and agreed to pretend to be his “uncle,” Mr. Brown, to help him reach the vicinity of his fiancée undetected. Lacy recounts several of their conversations in which Lord ——- revealed an interest in Stonehenge, mathematics, and philosophy. Lacy further reports that Farthing told him that he had once seen the woman in their party entering a London house of prostitution owned by a Mrs. Claiborne, that Dick and “Louise” were having a clandestine sexual relationship as they traveled, and that his lordship had stolen out with Dick and her during the night that they lodged in Amesbury, near Stonehenge–all of which information leads Lacy to suspect that more has been going on than he can now explain to Ayscough. He does point out that he and Farthing separated from the rest of the party on the morning after the night at the Black Hart, so he is unable to account for the disappearances of his lordship and the woman.

The next interview, with Hannah Claiborne, establishes that “Louise” is “Fanny,” one of her prize prostitutes, who came to her as Rebecca Hocknell, of a Quaker family in Bristol; her ability to feign religiosity and chastity made her an especially sought-after prostitute, known as “the Quaker maid.” Lord ——– had paid Claiborne for Fanny’s services for one week, for a party in Oxford he told her, but for a trip abroad he told a friend. His real purpose remains obscure.

Ayscough next interviews Jones, the real name of Farthing, whom his agents have located, and learns that Jones decided to follow the three others after they had parted on the road, He tells Ayscough of having seen them meet a woman dressed in silver trousers near a cave in the woods by Exmoor. Sometime after they all entered the cave, he reports, Dick came running out looking terrified and disappeared into the woods; then Rebecca emerged, naked; his lordship never came out. Jones recounts that he assisted Rebecca in reaching Bideford, from which port he shipped to Wales and she to Bristol, but not before she told him that she had seen witches inside the cave, had been raped by Satan, and had witnessed what appeared to be a mock marriage between his lordship and the younger witch.

Several letters follow, from Ayscough’s agents who are searching for Rebecca, who is found in Manchester, married to a blacksmith named John Lee, member of a faction that has broken off from the Quakers. When Ayscough interviews her, Rebecca explains that she has repented her past life and is now a devoted servant of God–as well as a mother-to-be. She tells Ayscough that she lied to Jones about what happened in the cave, first to keep him at a distance, physically, and second because he would not be able to understand what really had happened. First she explains that when they visited Stonehenge at night, she saw a bright, “floating lantern” and observed two men watching them. She then explains that she was told to engage in sexual intercourse with Dick while his lordship watched, and that she accepted Dick’s subsequent advances out of pity for him. About the cave, Rebecca explains that inside she saw a large maggot-shaped machine floating in the air, with a door and lights inside. She was taken inside it by a gray-haired woman who had previously been three women of three ages who merged into one. She was shown moving pictures of a green world with large buildings that serve as communal housing, which Rebecca now refers to as “June Eternal.” The two men she saw at Stonehenge she recognizes were God the Father and God the Son, and the three women were a female trinity of Christ’s daughter, widow, and “Holy Mother Wisdom.” Ayscough then interviews one of the leaders of the religious sect and learns that Rebecca’s views are largely her own, which she has not revealed to the others, even though they do believe in a female aspect of the Trinity. When he calls Rebecca back, she stands by her bizarre story, claiming that she awoke to find the cave empty and his lordship gone, having left with the spiritual “deities” and left his fallen half–that is, Dick–behind. Before the interview ends, she has apparently seen a vision of his lordship in the room and the narrator has explained that she and Ayscough have radically different ways of seeing the world–hers artistic, female, and right-brain hemispheric, and his scientific, male, and left-brain.

Ayscough does not believe her, and he writes in his last letter to the duke that probably his son killed himself in the cave, having felt more and more vile about not being able to accept the world as it is and himself as impotent. The Stonehenge incident, he concludes, must have been staged. Dick, in despair over his master’s suicide, probably imitated his master. The narration concludes in Manchester, where Rebecca has just given birth to a baby girl, whom she names Ann.

Fowles concludes the book in his own voice, with an essay explaining that Ann Lee became the founder of the Shakers. Even though Fowles is, he declares, an atheist, he admires religious dissenters and sees the year 1736 as a convenient marker between the English Revolution of 1688 and the French Revolution of 1789. He observes, too, that sometimes novelists must use far-fetched tropes to convey truths, and that Rebecca represents an emotional enlightenment, a “painful breaking of the seed of the self from the hard soil of an irrational and tradition-bound society.”

• Biography of John Fowles
• Novels of John Fowles
• John Fowles First Editions and related items for sale
• BBC Radio’s Adaptation of The Magus
• Journals of John Fowles — Volumes I & II
• Selected Poems of John Fowles
• John Fowles 1926-2005 : An appreciation and more
• Radio Interviews of John Fowles
• Collecting John Fowles — Article in Firsts Magazine
• The Last Chapter — TV adaptation of Fowles short story
• The Magus ready for a revival?
• Film Adaptations of Fowles novels
• 1966 Fowles Letter discusses meaning of The Magus
• Transcript of 1977 BBC interview of John Fowles
• Author visits Lyme Regis in remembrance of John Fowles
• Novels similar to The Magus
• Translating the last lines of The Magus
• The Magus and TFLW chosen as two of 20th century’s top novels
• Wormholes Review by Professor James Aubrey
• Does the 1997 movie The Game rip off The Magus?

The Definitive Biography of John Fowles

What’s New?

• Recent news about John Fowles and his work, including potential film and TV adaptations, happenings in his home town of Lyme Regis, the publication of new books about Fowles, etc.
• Miniseries of The Magus in the Works
• Bringing The Magus to the Screen — How to Do It Right This Time
• Criterion Blu-ray of The French Lieutenant’s Woman
• Restoration of John Fowles’ Lyme Regis Home
• NEW BLU-RAY OF THE COLLECTOR PACKED WITH SPECIAL FEATURES
• John Fowles News & Notes

Film Adaptations

• Four of John Fowles’ novels have been adapted into films: The Collector, The Magus, The French Lieutenant’s Woman and The Ebony Tower. Click here for all the details, including DVD and Blu-ray availability.