John Robert Fowles was an English novelist and essayist. In 2008,
The TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
newspaper named Fowles among their list of "The 50 greatest
British writersBritish Literature refers to literature associated with the United Kingdom, Isle of Man and Channel Islands. By far the largest part of British literature is written in the English language, but there are bodies of written works in Latin, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, Cornish, Manx, Jèrriais,...
since 1945".
Birth and family
Fowles was born in
Leigh-on-SeaLeigh-on-Sea , sometimes called Leigh, is a civil parish in Essex, England. It is part of Southend-on-Sea for administrative purposes. It became a civil parish in 1996. The council tax was increased to support it. A town council was formed. Leigh is the only parish in Southend...
in
EssexEssex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
, England, the son of Gladys May Richards and Robert John Fowles. Robert Fowles came from a family of middle-class merchants of London. Robert's father Reginald was a partner of the firm Allen & Wright, a tobacco importer. Robert's mother died when he was 6 years old. At age 26, after receiving legal training, Robert enlisted in the
Honourable Artillery CompanyThe Honourable Artillery Company was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1537 by King Henry VIII. Today it is a Registered Charity whose purpose is to attend to the “better defence of the realm"...
and spent three years in the trenches of
FlandersFlanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
during World War I. Robert's brother Jack died in the war, leaving a widow and three children. During 1920, the year Robert was demobilized, his father Reginald died. Robert became responsible for five young half-siblings and the children of his brother, and though he had hoped to practice law, the obligation of raising an extended family forced him into the family trade of tobacco importing.
Gladys Richards belonged to an Essex family originally from London as well. The Richards family moved to
Westcliff-on-SeaWestcliff-on-Sea is a suburb of Southend-on-Sea, a seaside resort in the East of England and unitary authority in Essex. It is situated on the northern bank of the Thames Estuary and about 34 miles east of London.-Geography:...
in 1918, as
Spanish FluThe 1918 flu pandemic was an influenza pandemic, and the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus . It was an unusually severe and deadly pandemic that spread across the world. Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify the geographic origin...
swept through Europe, for Essex was said to have a healthy climate. Robert met Gladys Richards at a tennis club in Westcliff-on-Sea in 1924. Though she was ten years younger, and he in bad health from the war, they were married a year later on 18 June 1925. Nine months and two weeks later Gladys gave birth to John Robert Fowles.
Early life and education
Fowles spent his childhood attended by his mother and by his cousin Peggy Fowles, 18 years old at the time of his birth, who was his nursemaid and close companion for ten years. Fowles attended
Alleyn Court Preparatory SchoolAlleyn Court Prep School is a preparatory school in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex. It was started in 1904 by the Wilcox family.The school has a very good reputation in all areas and for many years boys could be seen in their famous bright pink caps and ties....
. The work of
Richard JefferiesJohn Richard Jefferies was an English nature writer, noted for his depiction of English rural life in essays, books of natural history, and novels. His childhood on a small Wiltshire farm had a great influence on him and provides the background to all his major works of fiction...
and his character Bevis were Fowles's favourite books as a child. He was an only child until he was 16 years old.
In 1939, Fowles won a position at
Bedford SchoolBedford School is not to be confused with Bedford Modern School or Bedford High School or Old Bedford School in Bedford, TexasBedford School is an HMC independent school for boys located in the town of Bedford, England, United Kingdom...
, a two-hour train journey north of his home. His time at Bedford coincided with the Second World War. Fowles was a student at Bedford until 1944. He became Head Boy and was also an athletic standout: a member of the rugby-football third team, the
FivesFives is a British sport believed to derive from the same origins as many racquet sports. In fives, a ball is propelled against the walls of a special court using gloved or bare hands as though they were a racquet.-Background:...
first team and captain of the cricket team, for which he was a bowler.
After leaving Bedford School in 1944, Fowles enrolled in a Naval Short Course at
Edinburgh UniversityThe University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
. Fowles was prepared to receive a commission in the
Royal MarinesThe Corps of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, commonly just referred to as the Royal Marines , are the marine corps and amphibious infantry of the United Kingdom and, along with the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary, form the Naval Service...
. He completed his training on 8 May 1945—VE Day. Fowles was assigned instead to
OkehamptonOkehampton is a town and civil parish in West Devon in the English county of Devon. It is situated at the northern edge of Dartmoor, and has an estimated population of 7,155.-History:...
Camp in the countryside near Devon for two years.
In 1947, after completing his military service, Fowles entered
New College, OxfordNew College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.- Overview :The College's official name, College of St Mary, is the same as that of the older Oriel College; hence, it has been referred to as the "New College of St Mary", and is now almost always...
, where he studied both French and German, although he stopped studying German and concentrated on French for his BA. Fowles was undergoing a political transformation. Upon leaving the marines he wrote, "I ... began to hate what I was becoming in life—a British Establishment young hopeful. I decided instead to become a sort of anarchist."
It was also at Oxford that Fowles first considered life as a writer, particularly after reading existentialists like
Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
and
Albert CamusAlbert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...
. Though Fowles did not identify as an existentialist, their writing, like Fowles's, was motivated from a feeling that the world was wrong.
Teaching career
Fowles spent his early adult life as a teacher. His first year after Oxford was spent at the
University of PoitiersThe University of Poitiers is a university in Poitiers, France. It is a member of the Coimbra Group.-History:Founded in 1431 by Pope Eugene IV and chartered by King Charles VII, the University of Poitiers was originally composed of five faculties: theology, canon law, civil law, medicine, and...
. At the end of the year, he received two offers: one from the French department at
WinchesterWinchester College is an independent school for boys in the British public school tradition, situated in Winchester, Hampshire, the former capital of England. It has existed in its present location for over 600 years and claims the longest unbroken history of any school in England...
, the other "from a ratty school in Greece," Fowles said, "Of course, I went against all the dictates of
common senseCommon sense is defined by Merriam-Webster as, "sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts." Thus, "common sense" equates to the knowledge and experience which most people already have, or which the person using the term believes that they do or should have...
and took the Greek job."
In 1951, Fowles became an English master at the Anargyrios and Korgialenios School of Spetses on the
PeloponnesianThe Peloponnese, Peloponnesos or Peloponnesus , is a large peninsula , located in a region of southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...
island of Spetsai, a critical part of Fowles's life, as the island would be where he met his future wife Elizabeth Christy, née Whitton, wife of fellow teacher Roy Christy, and would later serve as the setting of his novel
The MagusThe Magus is the first novel written by British author John Fowles. It tells the story of Nicholas Urfe, a teacher on a small Greek island...
. Fowles was happy in Greece, especially outside of the school. He wrote poems that he later published, and became close to his fellow exiles. But during 1953 Fowles and the other masters at the school were all dismissed for trying to institute reforms, and Fowles returned to England.
On the island of Spetsai, Fowles had grown fond of Elizabeth Christy, who was married to one of the other teachers. Christy's marriage was already ending because of the relationship with Fowles, and though they returned to England at the same time, they were no longer in each other's company. It was during this period that Fowles began drafting The Magus. His separation from Elizabeth did not last long. On 2 April 1954 they were married and Fowles became stepfather to Elizabeth's daughter from her first marriage, Anna. After his marriage, Fowles taught English as a foreign language to students from other countries for nearly ten years at St. Godric's College, an all-girls in
HampsteadHampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
, London.
Literary career
In late 1960, though he had already drafted
The MagusThe Magus is the first novel written by British author John Fowles. It tells the story of Nicholas Urfe, a teacher on a small Greek island...
, Fowles began working on
The CollectorThe Collector is the title of a 1963 novel by John Fowles. It was made into a movie in 1965.- Plot summary :The novel is about a lonely young man, Frederick Clegg, who works as a clerk in a city hall, and collects butterflies in his spare time...
. He finished his first draft in a month, but spent more than a year making revisions before showing it to his agent. Michael S. Howard, the publisher at
Jonathan CapeJonathan Cape was a London-based publisher founded in 1919 as "Page & Co" by Herbert Jonathan Cape , formerly a manager at Duckworth who had worked his way up from a position of bookshop errand boy. Cape brought with him the rights to cheap editions of the popular author Elinor Glyn and sales of...
was enthusiastic about the manuscript. The book was published in 1963 and when the paperback rights were sold in the spring of that year it was "probably the highest price that had hitherto been paid for a first novel," according to Howard. British reviewers found the novel to be merely an innovative thriller, but several American critics detected a serious promotion of existentialist thought.
The success of his novel meant that Fowles was able to stop teaching and devote himself full-time to a literary career. The Collector was also optioned and became a film in 1965.
Against the counsel of his publisher, Fowles insisted that his second book published be
The AristosThe Aristos: A Self-Portrait and Ideas is a 1964 collection of several hundred philosophical aphorisms by English author John Fowles. A revised edition, without the subtitle, which was shorter but also incorporated new material, was published in hardcover in 1968 and in paperback in 1970....
, a non-fiction collection of philosophy. Afterward, he set about collating all the drafts he had written of what would become his most studied work, The Magus, based in part on his experiences in Greece.
In 1965 Fowles left London, moving to a farm, Underhill, in
DorsetDorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
, where the isolated farm house became the model for The Dairy in the book Fowles was then writing,
The French Lieutenant's WomanThe French Lieutenant’s Woman , by John Fowles, is a period novel inspired by the 1823 novel Ourika, by Claire de Duras, which Fowles translated into English in 1977...
(1969). The farm was too remote, "total solitude gets a bit monotonous," Fowles remarked, and in 1968 he and his wife moved to
Lyme RegisLyme Regis is a coastal town in West Dorset, England, situated 25 miles west of Dorchester and east of Exeter. The town lies in Lyme Bay, on the English Channel coast at the Dorset-Devon border...
in Dorset, where he lived in Belmont House, also used as a setting for parts of The French Lieutenant's Woman. In the same year, he adapted The Magus for cinema.
The film version of The Magus (1968) was generally considered awful; when
Woody AllenWoody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
was asked whether he'd make changes in his life if he had the opportunity to do it all over again, he jokingly replied he'd do "everything exactly the same, with the exception of watching The Magus." The French Lieutenant's Woman was made into
a filmThe French Lieutenant's Woman is a 1981 film directed by Karel Reisz and adapted by playwright Harold Pinter. It is based on the novel of the same title by John Fowles...
in 1981 with a screenplay by the British playwright
Harold PinterHarold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
and was nominated for an
OscarAn Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
.
Fowles lived the rest of his life in Lyme Regis. His works
The Ebony TowerThe Ebony Tower by John Fowles is a collection of five short novels with interlacing themes, built around a medieval myth: The Ebony Tower, Eliduc, Poor Koko, The Enigma and The Cloud.-The Ebony Tower:...
(1974),
Daniel MartinDaniel Martin is a novel by John Fowles. It was released in 1977 and can be taken as a Bildungsroman, following the life of the eponymous protagonist. The novel uses both first and third person voices, whilst employing a variety of literary techniques such as multiple narratives and flashback...
(1977),
MantissaMantissa is a novel by British author John Fowles published in 1982. It consists entirely of a presumably imaginary dialogue in a writer's head between himself and an embodiment of the Muse Erato, after he wakes an amnesiac in a hospital bed....
(1981), and
A MaggotA Maggot is a novel by British author John Fowles. It is Fowles' sixth major novel, following The Collector, The Magus, The French Lieutenant's Woman, Daniel Martin, and Mantissa. Its title, as the author explains in the prologue, is taken from the archaic sense of the word that means "whim",...
(1985) were all written from Belmont House. Fowles became a member of the Lyme Regis community, serving as the curator of the Lyme Regis Museum from 1979–1988, retiring from the museum after having a mild stroke. Fowles was involved occasionally in politics in Lyme Regis, and occasionally wrote letters to the editor advocating preservation. Despite this involvement, he was generally considered reclusive. In 1998, he was quoted in the New York Times Book Review as saying, "Being an atheist is a matter not of moral choice, but of human obligation."
His first wife Elizabeth died in 1990. With his second wife Sarah by his side, Fowles died 5 miles from Lyme Regis in Axminster Hospital on 5 November 2005.
Major works
Many
criticA critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...
s now consider his work on the cusp between
modernismModernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
and
postmodernismPostmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
.
External links
- FowlesBooks.com -- The Official John Fowles web site
- http://www.amazon.com/John-Fowles-Naturalist-Lyme-Regis/dp/1453651241
- BBC obituary of John Fowles
- The New York Times obituary of John Fowles
- John Fowles, playful postmodernist who wrote 'The French Lieutenant's Woman', dies aged 79 at The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
- The New York Times Featured Author: John Fowles – Reviews and articles from The New York Times
- Fair or Fowles? – Interview with John Fowles at The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- The Guardian Book Authors: John Fowles – Biography, list of articles and interviews at The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/johnfowles/ a page about the author by his New Jersey based namesake
- John Fowles Collection, and Papers at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
- Criticism in Portuguese. By Dr. Shirley Carreira
- Fowles in Dorset BBC Radio 4: Chris Ledgard explores a series of previously unheard recordings of the novelist John Fowles at work during his time as the curator of Lyme Regis Museum. 28 Oct. 2008.