John Fowles

John Robert Fowles (31 March 1926 – 5 November 2005) is a British author, known especially for his fictional writings.

1. Life

Born 1926 in Leigh-on-Sea, a suburb of London, John Fowles grew up as an only child, having only a 15-year younger sister. His parents, Robert and Gladys Fowles, were part of the English middle-class (Aubrey, p.2). From 1939-1944 he went to the Bedford School, but had to take one semester off when he was 15 due to psychological problems (Aubrey, p.8). Afterwards he studied one year in Edinburgh, before he joined the Marines in 1945. After a visit from Isaac Foot, the Lord Mayor of Plymouth, who had commented on Fowles’ plan to stay with the Marines that it was preposterous that a man of intelligence should stay in the armed forces (cmp. Acheson, p.4-5), Fowles reorientated himself and enrolled at Oxford University to study French language and literature, graduating in 1950. For the next 14 years he taught at several schools and Universities in England and Greece, before his first huge success, the short story “The Collector” allowed him to work as a full-time writer (Thrope, p.8). He was married to Elizabeth Whitton and died in 2005 in Lyme Regis in Dorset, England.

2. Literary Works

Fowles began writing when he started his studies in Oxford. Especially his early works are deeply influenced by his interest in French existentialism, which he developed during his undergraduate years in Oxford (Acheson, p.6). Especially the existentialists’ approach on identity fascinated him. The vast majority of his characters develop in the course of Fowles stories, being forced to face different kinds of challenges and societal pressure (see Stephenson, p.2). An example is Sarah Woodruff, protagonist in the bestselling novel The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969) that is set in Victorian England. She attempts to live an independent and sexually active life in Victorian England, not following the common gender norms for women of that time (see Stephenson, p.2-3). Other prominent and reappearing themes in Fowels’ work are sexuality, the relation between male and female in general, and the nature and possibility of personal freedom (see Acheson, p.6, Throne, p.10). Furthermore it is characteristic for Fowels’s stories to include autobiographical elements; so for example Aubrey (p.13) writes: “The first novel Fowles wrote was The Magus, and its first-person-narrator announces in the first paragraph, ‘I went to Oxford; and there I began to discover I was not the person I wanted to be.’”

3. Film Adaptions

Fowels’ novels The Collector, The Magus and The French Lieutenant’s Woman, as well as his short story “The Ebony Tower” have been adapted as films in the 1960’s and 1980’s (Acheson, p.93).

4. Sources

Acheson, James. John Fowles. Basingstoke: Macmillian, 1998. Aubrey, James R. John Fowles: A Reference Companion. Westport: Greenwood

    Press, 1991.

Stephenson, William. John Fowles. Tavistock, Northcote House, 2003. Thrope, Michael. John Fowles. Windsor: Profile Books, 1982.

(Article reserved by S.R.)