Table Of ContentTHE ROMANCES OF JOHN FOWLES
THE ROMANCES OF
JOHN FOWLES
Simon Loveday
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN 978-1-349-17873-5 ISBN 978-1-349-17871-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-17871-1
© Simon Loveday 1985
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1985
All rights reserved. For information, write:
St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
Published in the United Kingdom by The Macmillan Press Ltd.
First published in the United States of America in 1985
ISBN 978-0-312-69107-3
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Loveday, Simon, 1949-
The romances of John Fowles.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Fowles, John, 1926- -Criticism and inter-
pretation. I. Title.
PR6056.085Z74 1984 823'.914 84-13396
ISBN 978-0-312-69107-3
To the author of
The Anatomy of Criticism
Contents
Acknowledgements Vlll
List of Abbreviations ix
Chronology xi
1 John Fowles: the Life and the Work 1
2 The Collector 11
3 The Magus 29
4 The French Lieutenant's Woman 48
5 The Ebony Tower 82
6 Daniel Marlin 103
7 The Romances of John Fowles 129
Notes 155
Bibliography 165
Index 171
vii
Acknowledgements
I should like to thank the following for permission to use copyright
material: Jonathan Cape and Little, Brown for permission to quote
from Shipwreck, Islands, and The Enigma of Stonehenge; Anthony
Sheil Associates for permission to quote from the English editions of
The Collector, The Magus (both versions), The French Lieutenant's
Woman, The Ebony Tower, Daniel Martin, The Tree, and Mantissa
(copyright © J. R. Fowles Ltd), and Little, Brown for permission
to quote from the American editions; the BBC for permission to quote
from unpublished interviews with John Fowles; and the University of
East Anglia for permission to quote from an interview recorded on
videotape there. In all these cases, acknowledgement is also due to
John Fowles. Finally I should like to thank the editor(s) of thelournal
of Narrative Technique for permission to use material which first
appeared in that journal.
I am particularly grateful to John Fowles himself, who volunteered to
read through the typescript of this work, did so with minute care, and
made a number of factual corrections and helpful comments.
As may be clear from the text that follows, my principal intellectual
debt is to the work of Northrop Frye. But there is a less obvious debt to
be acknowledged, namely to the work of Edmund (now Sir Edmund)
Leach, formerly Reader in Anthropology at Cambridge University. I
would like to express my gratitude to both for the stimulus (and
pleasure) which I have derived from their work.
Throughout the writing of this book I have been enormously helped
by advice, encouragement, and detailed critical comments from Ann
Jefferson, of St John's College, Oxford, and Ritchie Robertson, of
Downing College, Cambridge.
My greatest personal debt is to my wife Jill, without whom many
things, including this book, would never have been possible.
Oxford, 1983
viii
List of Abbreviations
Page references for quotations from the fiction of John Fowles are to
the English paperback editions. The following abbreviations have
been used. Full details are given in the bibliography.
Works by John Fowles:
C The Collector
A The Aristos (references are to the revised edition, 1968)
MI The Magus
FLW The French Lieutenant's Woman
ET The Ebony Tower
D M Daniel Martin
M The Magus: A Revised Version
ix
Chronology
1926 31 March: John Robert Fowles born in Leigh-on-Sea, a
small town near the marshes of the Thames estuary. His
father owns a tobacco business with several small shops in
London.
1939 Goes as a boarder to Bedford School.
1940 His family move to a Devon village. Fowles immediately
falls in love with the intricate and intimate West Country
landscape.
Has a minor nervous breakdown at school and spends a
term at home in Devon with his parents.
1944-47 Completes his school career in fine style as Head Boy and
Captain of Cricket, and enters the Royal Marines.
Spends most of his military service giving pre-commando
training on Dartmoor.
1947-50 At New College, Oxford, reading French.
1950-51 Lecteur in English at the University of Poitiers.
1951-52 Teacher of English at Anargyrios College, on the Greek
island of Spetsai.
Meets his future wife on the island.
Starts work soon after leaving on what will eventually be
The Magus.
1954-63 Teaching English as a Foreign Language in London.
Working on a number of fictional and non-fictional pro
jects.
1954 2 April: John Fowles and Elizabeth Whitton are married.
xi
xii Chronology
1963 Publication of The Collector (by Cape, the first publishers
who were offered it. Total sales, excluding the United
States, over 550,000 by 1984; film version appears in
1965).
1964 Publication of The Aristos: A Self Portrait in Ideas ('against
the advice of almost everyone who read it').
Fowles gives up teaching.
1966 Publication of The Magus (American edition had appeared
in 1965. Total sales, excluding the United States, over
500,000 by 1984; film version appears in 1968).
John and Elizabeth Fowles move to Underhill Farm, near
Lyme Regis (the Dairy of The French Lieutenant's
Woman).
1968 Move from Underhill Farm (which is gradually sliding into
the sea) into Lyme Regis itself.
1969 Publication of The French Lieutenant's Woman (total sales,
excluding the United States, over one million by 1984; film
version appears in 1981).
1973 Publication of Poems (collected verse from 1951-1972).
1974 Publication of:
The Ebony Tower, a collection of five short stories (total
sales, excluding the United States, over 240,000 by
1984);
Cinderella, a translation of Perrault's fairy tale;
Shipwreck, a collection of photographs by the Gibson
family for which Fowles has written an introduction and
commentary.
1977 Publication of:
Daniel Martin (total sales, excluding the United States,
over 240,000 by 1984);
Ourika, a translation of a little-known French novel of
1824.
1978 Publication of Islands, a collection of photographs of the
Scilly Isles by Fay Godwin with an extended essay by
Fowles on the metaphorical significance of islands.
