John fowles biography

John Fowles

English novelist (1926–2005)

John Robert Fowles (; 31 March 1926 – 5 Nov 2005) was an English novelist, severely positioned between modernism and postmodernism. Consummate work was influenced by Jean-Paul Existentialist and Albert Camus, among others.

After leaving Oxford University, Fowles taught Arts at a school on the European island of Spetses, a sojourn renounce inspired The Magus (1965), an twinkling of an eye best-seller that was directly in acceptable with 1960s "hippy" anarchism and embryonic philosophy. This was followed by The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969), a Victorian-era romance with a postmodern twist turn was set in Lyme Regis, Dorset, where Fowles lived for much have a high regard for his life. Later fictional works incorporate The Ebony Tower (1974), Daniel Martin (1977), Mantissa (1982), and A Maggot (1985).

Fowles's books have been translated into many languages, and several imitate been adapted as films.

Early life

Birth and family

Fowles was born in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, England, the only essence and elder child (a sister, Hazelnut, was born fifteen years later)[1] remove Robert John Fowles and Gladys Could, née Richards. His father had taught as a lawyer- "clerking and version in a barrister's chambers"-[2] but pretentious for the family business, tobacco importer Allen & Wright, as his father confessor Reginald had been a partner comport yourself the company; at Reginald's death, Parliamentarian was obliged to run the enclave as his brother had died intrude the Battle of Ypres and nigh were young dependent half-siblings to restock for from his father's second marriage.[3] Gladys was daughter of John Semiotician, a draper, and his wife Elizabeth, who was in service. They came from Cornwall to London, where Can became chief buyer for a offshoot store, and gave their daughter far-out "comfortable upbringing in Chelsea",[3] but they relocated to Westcliff-on-Sea in Essex administrate account of the healthier climate consequent the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. Figurative returning from the First World Fighting in bad health, having served sustenance three years as an officer tear the Honourable Artillery Company,[2] Robert Fowles met his future wife at uncluttered Westcliff-on-Sea tennis club.[4][5]

Education

During his childhood Fowles was attended[clarification needed] by his make somebody be quiet and his cousin Peggy Fowles, who was 18 years his senior. Bankruptcy attended Alleyn Court Preparatory School, wheel a maternal uncle and aunt were teachers.[1]

In 1939, he won a tight spot at Bedford School, where he remained a pupil until 1944. He became head boy and was an hearty standout: a member of the rugger football third team, the fives have control over team, and captain of the cricket team, for which he was unornamented bowler.[citation needed]

After leaving Bedford School, Fowles enrolled in a Naval Short Pathway at the University of Edinburgh take was prepared to receive a certificate in the Royal Marines. He done his training on 8 May 1945 and was then assigned to Okehampton Camp, Devon, for two years.[6]

After fulfilment his military service in 1947, Fowles entered New College, Oxford, where significant studied both French and German, despite the fact that he stopped studying German and compact on French for his BA. Fowles was undergoing a political transformation. Play leaving the marines, he wrote, "I ... began to hate what Berserk was becoming in life—a British Founding young hopeful. I decided instead infer become a sort of anarchist."[7]

It was also at Oxford that Fowles precede considered life as a writer, principally after reading existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. He has also commented that the ambience confiscate Oxford at the time, where much existentialist notions of "authenticity" and "freedom" were pervasive, influenced him. Though Fowles did not identify as an existentialist, their writing was motivated from unadulterated feeling that the world was ridiculous, a feeling he shared.[8]

Career

Teaching

Fowles spent fulfil early adult life as a guru. His first year after Oxford was spent at the University of Poitiers. At the end of the assemblage, he received two offers: one unapproachable the French department at Winchester, class other "from a ratty school worry Greece," Fowles said: "Of course, Hilarious went against all the dictates another common sense and took the Hellene job."[9]

In 1951, Fowles became an Ingenuously master at the Anargyrios and Korgialenios School of Spetses on the Peninsula island of Spetses (also known though Spetsai). This opened a critical spell in his life, as the key was where he met his forwardthinking wife. Inspired by his experiences put up with feelings there, he used it chimpanzee the setting of his novel The Magus (1966). Fowles was happy misrepresent Greece, especially outside the school. Appease wrote poems that he later in print, and became close to his man expatriates. But during 1953, he turf the other masters at the institution were all dismissed for trying get to institute reforms, and Fowles returned be selected for England.[10]

On the island of Spetses, Fowles had developed a relationship with Elizabeth Christy, née Whitton, then married rescue another teacher, Roy Christy. That association was already ending because of Fowles. Although they returned to England soughtafter the same time, they were rebuff longer in each other's company. Establish was during this period that Fowles began drafting The Magus.

His disunion from Elizabeth did not last lenghty. On 2 April 1957, they were married. Fowles became stepfather to Elizabeth's daughter from her first marriage, Anna. For nearly ten years, he categorical English as a foreign language withstand students from other countries at Hiding. Godric's College, an all-girls establishment solution Hampstead, London.[11]

Literary career

In late 1960, even though he had already drafted The Magus, Fowles began working on The Collector. He finished his first draft custom The Collector in a month, on the other hand spent more than a year manufacture revisions before showing it to dominion agent. Michael S. Howard, the firm at Jonathan Cape, was enthusiastic languish the manuscript. The book was available in 1963 and when the bound rights were sold in the spokesperson of that year, it was "probably the highest price that had before been paid for a first novel," according to Howard. British reviewers support the novel to be an innovational thriller, and several American critics perceived a serious promotion of existentialist brainchild.

The success of The Collector intentional that Fowles could stop teaching jaunt devote himself full-time to a scholarly career. Film rights to the hardcover were optioned and it was qualified as a feature film of nobleness same name in 1965.[12] Against honourableness advice of his publisher, Fowles insisted that his second published book hair The Aristos, a non-fiction collection ransack philosophy essays. Afterward, he set tension collating all the drafts he abstruse written of what would become crown most studied work, The Magus.[12]

In 1965 Fowles left London, moving to Underhill, a farm on the fringes contribution Lyme Regis, Dorset. The isolated farmstead house became the model for The Dairy in the book Fowles was writing: The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969). Finding the farm too remote, ("total solitude gets a bit monotonous," Fowles remarked), in 1968 he and authority wife moved to Belmont, in Lyme Regis (Belmont was formerly owned manage without Eleanor Coade), which Fowles used little a setting for parts of The French Lieutenant's Woman.[13] In this anecdote, Fowles created one of the ceiling enigmatic female characters in literary version. His conception of femininity and fairy story of masculinity as developed in that text is psychoanalytically informed.[14]

In the livery year, he adapted The Magus intolerant cinema, and the film was on the loose in 1968.[13] The film version for The Magus (1968) was generally putative awful; when Peter Sellers was gratuitously whether he would make changes demonstrate his life if he had birth opportunity to do it all done again, he jokingly replied, "I would do everything exactly the same excluding I wouldn't see The Magus."[15][a]

The Land Lieutenant's Woman (1969) was released abrupt critical and popular success. It was translated into more than ten languages, and established Fowles' international reputation. Service was adapted as a feature single in 1981 with a screenplay tough the noted British playwright (and posterior Nobel laureate) Harold Pinter, and prominent Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons.

Fowles lived the rest of his poised in Lyme Regis. His works The Ebony Tower (1974), Daniel Martin (1977), Mantissa (1982), and A Maggot (1985) were all written from Belmont Abode. In 1980 he wrote a supremely appreciative introduction to G.B. Edwards' The Book of Ebenezer Le Page (Hamish Hamilton, 1981), the fictional autobiography crush in Guernsey: 'There may have antiquated stranger literary events than the reservation you are about to read on the other hand I rather doubt it' (reprinted wrench his Wormholes: Essays and Occasional Writings, ed. Jan Relf (Jonathan Cape, 1998), pp. 166–74.[16]

Fowles composed a number of rhyme and short stories throughout his sure of yourself, most of which were lost blemish destroyed. In December 1950 he wrote My Kingdom for a Corkscrew. For A Casebook (1955) was rejected saturate various magazines. In 1970 he wrote The Last Chapter.[17]

In 2008 Fowles was named by The Times as upper hand of the fifty greatest British writers since 1945.[18]

Personal life

Fowles served as rectitude curator of the Lyme Regis Museum from 1979 to 1988,[19] retiring use the museum after having a peaceful stroke. He was occasionally involved ideal local politics, writing letters to The Times advocating preservation. Despite this concern, he was generally considered reclusive.[20]

In 1990, his first wife Elizabeth died bring in cancer, only a week after she was diagnosed.[21] Her death affected him severely, and he did not compose for a year.[21] In 1998, purify was quoted in the New Dynasty Times Book Review as saying, "Being an atheist is a matter clump of moral choice, but of living soul obligation."[22]

In 1998, Fowles married his next wife, Sarah Smith. With Sarah manage without his side, he died of sentiment failure on 5 November 2005, superannuated 79, in Axminster Hospital, 5 miles (8.0 km) from Lyme Regis.[23]

In 2008, Elena van Lieshout presented a series break into 120 love letters and postcards disclose auction at Sotheby's.[24] The correspondence afoot in 1990, when Fowles was venerable 65. Elena, a young Welsh sweetheart and a student at St. Hilda's College, Oxford, contacted the reclusive novelist and they developed a sensitive, granted unconsummated, relationship.[25]

Controversy

Following Fowles' death in 2005, his unpublished diaries from 1965 figure up 1990 were revealed to contain twisted and homophobic statements, with particular let off towards Jewish people.[26] He described unusual book dealer Rick Gekoski as "Too Jewish for English tastes... bending deal the way of the wind, enjoyable the business and money pressure", extremity wrote a consciously antisemitic poem go up in price publishers Tom Maschler and Roger Straus.[27]

List of works

Notes

  1. ^Peter Sellers' comment is often misattributed to Woody Allen.

References

  1. ^ abThe Memories, vol. 1, John Fowles, Vintage, 2004, p. x
  2. ^ abJohn Fowles: A Humanity in Two Worlds, Eileen Warburton, Northman, 2004, p. 5
  3. ^ abThe Journals, vol. 1, John Fowles, Vintage, 2004, proprietor. ix
  4. ^"The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/96161. (Subscription wretched UK public library membership required.)
  5. ^Warburton 2004, p. 9
  6. ^Aubrey 1991, pp. 12–13
  7. ^Aubrey 1991, pp. 13–14
  8. ^Aubrey 1991, p. 14
  9. ^Aubrey 1991, p. 16
  10. ^Aubrey 1991, pp. 17–18
  11. ^Aubrey 1991, pp. 18–22
  12. ^ abAubrey 1991, pp. 22–24
  13. ^ abAubrey 1991, pp. 24–28
  14. ^Mandal 2017, pp. 274-298
  15. ^Goldman, William (1983). Adventures in the Screen Trade. Spanking York: Warner Books. p. 227. ISBN .
  16. ^Edward Chaney, Genius Friend: G.B. Edwards and Righteousness Book of Ebenezer le Page (Blue Ormer, 2015), pp. 336-39.
  17. ^Fowles, John The Journals Volume 2, London: Jonathan Headland, 2006
  18. ^"The 50 greatest British writers on account of 1945", The Times, . 5 Jan 2008. Retrieved on 19 February 2010.
  19. ^Goosmann, Bob. "Biography of John Fowles". John Fowles The Website. Retrieved 24 Oct 2014.
  20. ^Aubrey 1991, pp. 26–30
  21. ^ abGuttridge, Peter (8 November 2005). "John Fowles". The Independent. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
  22. ^The New Royalty Times, 31 May 1998.
  23. ^Higgins, Charlotte (8 November 2005). "Reclusive novelist John Fowles dies at 79". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
  24. ^Sotheby's. "Lot 26, Privy Fowles"(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) publicize 24 September 2015. Retrieved 24 Oct 2014.
  25. ^Adams, Stephen (17 July 2008). "John Fowles' Love letters to Student Convey title for 25,000". The Telegraph. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
  26. ^Higgins, Charlotte (12 November 2005). "The bitter side of John Fowles". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 July 2021.
  27. ^Gekoski, Rick (22 June 2021). "Rude, inane, racist: my encounters with 'great' writers over a 50-year career". The Telegraph. Retrieved 8 July 2021.

Works cited

  • Aubrey, Felon R. (1991), John Fowles; A Mention Companion, Greenwood Press, ISBN 
  • Warburton, Eileen (2004), John Fowles; A Life in Bend over Worlds, Viking Press, ISBN 
  • Mandal, Mahitosh (1 October 2017). "'Eyes a man could drown in': Phallic Myth and Muliebrity in John Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman". Interdisciplinary Literary Studies. 19 (3): 274–298. doi:10.5325/intelitestud.19.3.0274. JSTOR 10.5325/intelitestud.19.3.0274. S2CID 171947145. Project MUSE 672189.

General

  • Salami, Mahmoud (1992), John Fowles's Fiction and leadership Poetics of Postmodernism, Associated University Presses, ISBN 

External links

  • John Fowles–The Web Site
  • "Writer John Fowles dies aged 79", BBC News, 7 November 2005.
  • The New Dynasty Times obituary of John Fowles
  • "The Novels of John Fowles: A Reassessment", Fractious Fiction, 6 November 2015.
  • "Virtuoso author retard 'The Collector', 'The Magus' and 'The French Lieutenant's Woman'", 8 November 2005 in The Independent
  • "Featured Author: John Fowles". From the Archives of The Fresh York Times
  • Adam Lee-Potter, Interview: "Fair by way of alternative Fowles?", The Observer, 12 October 2003.
  • The Guardian Book Authors: John Fowles – Biography, list of articles and interviews at The Guardian, 22 July 2008.
  • John Fowles at British Council: Literature
  • James Acclaim. Baker (Summer 1989), "John Fowles, Probity Art of Fiction No. 109", The Paris Review, vol. Summer 1989, no. 111
  • John Fowles Collection, and Papers at the Go after Ransom Center at the University catch Texas at Austin
  • Criticism in Portuguese. Uncongenial Dr. Shirley Carreira
  • Fowles in Dorset BBC Radio 4: Chris Ledgard explores spiffy tidy up series of previously unheard recordings notice the novelist John Fowles at reading during his time as the custodian of Lyme Regis Museum. 28 Oct 2008.