Writer John Fowles died
The French Lieutenant`s Woman author John Fowles has died aged 79. Fowles died at his home in Lyme Regis, Dorset on Saturday after battling a long illness, his publisher said.
Born in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, Fowles` writing career spanned more than 40 years and also included works such as The Magus and The Collector.
The French Lieutenant`s Woman, which became an Oscar-nominated film in 1981 starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons, remains his arguably most famous work. The novel was first published in 1969. It was seen as a new kind of writing, a historical novel, with layers of truth, fantasy and self-awareness. The French Lieutenant`s Woman has been described as a pastiche of a historical romance, juxtaposing Victorian characters with the commentary of the author writing in the 1960s.
Fowles was a boarder at Bedford School before completing compulsory military service between 1945 and 1947. He went on to Oxford University, where he gained a degree in French. But he was a teacher before becoming a full-time writer in 1963 after The Collector won critical acclaim and commercial success. His tale of a butterfly collector who kidnaps a woman in London was made into a film starring Terence Stamp two years later.
Fowles moved to Lyme Regis in 1968, which was also the setting for The French Lieutenant`s Woman. In the same year he adapted his 1966 novel The Magus, a tale of intrigue on a Greek island, for the big screen. The book, which achieved cult status in the US, was reportedly inspired by his time working in a college on the island of Spetsai. But the film version featuring Michael Caine was widely regarded as a flop, with Fowles himself describing it as "a disaster all the way down the line".
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