John Fowles (b. 1926)

The publishing and international success of his first novel, The Collector, has ended his teaching career and started his literary career. Among his other significant works are the novels The Magus and The French Lieutenant's Woman. The Aristos, his most well-known non-fiction work, is a collection of philosophical reflections.

Most critics have considered John Fowles as a well reputed forefather of British postmodernism.

The French Lieutenant's Woman

The French Lieutenant's Woman is a 1969 novel by John Fowles. The plot concerns the love affair between a Victorian gentleman and a woman who has been jilted by a French officer, scandalizing the "polite society" of Lyme Regis. The book was inspired by the 1823 novel Ourika by Claire de Duras, which Fowles translated to English in 1977 (and revised in 1994).

Fowles makes his plot intertwine on itself, laying it out linearly at first, only to have it curl back on itself later with a "that was what might have happened, or maybe this is what really happened." Along the way, he discourses on Victorian customs, the theories of Charles Darwin, and the poetry of Matthew Arnold.

“Perhaps it is only a game. Modern women like Sarah exist and I have never understood them.”