His first year after Oxford was spent at the University of Poitiers.

Teaching career įowles spent his early adult life as a teacher. Though Fowles did not identify as an existentialist, their writing was motivated from a feeling that the world was absurd, a feeling he shared. He has also commented that the ambience of Oxford at the time, where such existentialist notions of 'authenticity' and 'freedom' were pervasive, influenced him. It was also at Oxford that Fowles first considered life as a writer, particularly after reading existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. I decided instead to become a sort of anarchist.' began to hate what I was becoming in life-a British Establishment young hopeful. Fowles was undergoing a political transformation. Īfter completing his military service in 1947, Fowles entered New College, Oxford, where he studied both French and German, although he stopped studying German and concentrated on French for his BA. He completed his training on and was then assigned to Okehampton Camp, Devon, for two years.

Īfter leaving Bedford School, Fowles enrolled in a Naval Short Course at the University of Edinburgh and was prepared to receive a commission in the Royal Marines. He became head boy and was an athletic standout: a member of the rugby football third team, the fives first team, and captain of the cricket team, for which he was a bowler. In 1939, he won a place at Bedford School, where he remained a pupil until 1944. He was an only child until he was 16 years old. He attended Alleyn Court Preparatory School. New College, Oxford, where Fowles attended university.ĭuring his childhood Fowles was attended by his mother and his cousin Peggy Fowles, who was 18 years his senior.

Later fictional works include The Ebony Tower (1974), Daniel Martin (1977), Mantissaįowles's books have been translated into many languages, and several have been adapted as films.īiography Birth and family įowles was born in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, England, the son of Gladys May Richards and Robert John Fowles. This was followed by The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969), a Victorian-era romance with a postmodern twist that was set in Lyme Regis, Dorset, where Fowles lived for much of his life. His work was influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, among others.Īfter leaving Oxford University, Fowles taught English at a school on the Greek island of Spetses, a sojourn that inspired The Magus (1965), an instant best-seller that was directly in tune with 1960s 'hippy' anarchism and experimental philosophy. John Robert Fowles ( / f aʊ l z/ 31 March 1926 – 5 November 2005) was an English novelist of international renown, critically positioned between modernism and postmodernism.

John fowles's the magus