A short life of the author
John Robert Fowles (31 March 1926 – 5 November 2005) was an English novelist whose six novels — particularly The Collector (1963), The Magus (1965, revised 1977), and The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969) — made him one of the most successful and intellectually ambitious British writers of the second half of the twentieth century. His fiction combines realistic storytelling with philosophical self-consciousness, exploring questions of freedom, authenticity, obsession, and the relationship between art and life with a seriousness that earned him comparison to existentialist philosophers and with a narrative skill that earned him millions of readers. He lived for most of his adult life in Lyme Regis, Dorset — the setting of The French Lieutenant’s Woman — and cultivated a public image of literary seclusion that became part of his legend.
Life
Fowles was born in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, and was educated at Bedford School and New College, Oxford, where he studied French and German. He served briefly in the Royal Marines at the end of World War II. After Oxford, he taught English in France and on the Greek island of Spetsai — the island that became the setting of The Magus — before returning to England to teach at a school in London.
He published his first novel, The Collector, at thirty-seven and was immediately successful. The book’s film rights were sold before publication, and Fowles was able to devote himself to writing full-time. He moved to Lyme Regis in 1968 and remained there for the rest of his life.
The Collector (1963)
Fowles’s debut is a psychological thriller told from two perspectives: Frederick Clegg, a lonely, obsessive butterfly collector who kidnaps a young art student named Miranda Grey and imprisons her in his basement; and Miranda herself, whose diary records her captivity, her attempts to connect with Clegg, and her gradual realisation that he is incapable of genuine human feeling. The novel is a study of class, power, and the difference between those who collect (possess, control, objectify) and those who create (imagine, empathise, connect). It was an immediate bestseller and was adapted into a William Wyler film (1965).
The Magus (1965, revised 1977)
The Magus is Fowles’s most ambitious and most debated novel — a labyrinthine narrative set on a Greek island, where a young English teacher named Nicholas Urfe falls under the spell of a mysterious millionaire named Maurice Conchis, who stages an elaborate series of psychological dramas, illusions, and theatrical events that blur the line between reality and performance. The novel is simultaneously a realistic adventure story, an allegory of existential freedom, and a meditation on the nature of fiction itself. Its sources include Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Greek mythology, and Fowles’s own experience on Spetsai.
Fowles revised the novel extensively in 1977, producing a version he considered superior. The book has a devoted cult following, particularly among readers who encounter it young, and it has been more widely read than almost any other experimental novel of its era.
The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969)
Fowles’s masterpiece is a Victorian novel that is also a postmodern metafiction — a love story set in 1867 Lyme Regis in which the narrator interrupts the narrative to reflect on the conventions of Victorian fiction, the relationship between past and present, and the nature of authorial authority. The novel famously offers two endings — one conventionally happy, one bleakly honest — and invites the reader to choose.
The protagonist, Charles Smithson, is a gentleman amateur palaeontologist who is engaged to a conventional Victorian woman but is drawn to Sarah Woodruff, the mysterious “French lieutenant’s woman” who stands on the Cobb at Lyme Regis, staring out to sea. Sarah’s enigmatic presence — her intelligence, her sexuality, her refusal to conform — makes her one of the great female characters in English fiction.
The novel was adapted into a Harold Pinter–scripted film (1981) starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons.
Other Novels
Daniel Martin (1977) is Fowles’s longest and most autobiographical novel — a portrait of a screenwriter returning to England from Hollywood and confronting his past. A Maggot (1985) is a historical mystery set in eighteenth-century England that begins as a detective story and ends as a visionary religious narrative. The Tree (2010, posthumous) is a beautiful essay on nature and creativity.
Critical Standing
Fowles is one of the major English novelists of the postwar period. His best work combines the narrative pleasures of traditional fiction with genuine philosophical inquiry, and his influence on subsequent British novelists — including A.S. Byatt and Ian McEwan — is significant.
Collecting Fowles
The Collector (1963, Jonathan Cape) in first edition with dust jacket brings $300–$800. The Magus (1965, Jonathan Cape) brings $200–$500. The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969, Jonathan Cape) brings $150–$400. Signed copies are scarce — Fowles was reclusive — and command significant premiums.