Fowles, John Robert 1926-
English novelist

Born in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, he was educated at Bedford School, Edinburgh University and New College, Oxford, where he studied French. He served in the Royal Marines (1945-46), and thereafter taught in schools in France, Greece (1951-52) and London. An allusive and richly descriptive writer, he wrote his first novel, and still perhaps his most sensational, The Collector in 1963. However, The Magus (1965, rev edn 1977) is the book which made his name. Drawing on his own experience, it is set in the 1960s on a remote Greek island. It is a disturbing and much-imitated tale about an English schoolteacher, his bizarre experiences, and his involvement with a master trickster. The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969), however, exceeded it in popularity, in large part due to the film version with Meryl Streep in the title role. Later books - Daniel Martin (1977), Mantissa (1982) and A Maggot (1985) - suffered a critical backlash but underlined his willingness to experiment, as well as the fecundity of his imagination. He also published a collection of short stories, The Ebony Tower (1974). An essay on the significance of nature in his work, originally written in 1979, was re-issued as The Tree (1992), and was followed by Tessera (1993), which Fowles describes as 'a piece of juvenilia'.

Bibliography: Robert Huffaker, John Fowles (1980)