John Fowles

About John Fowles

Who is it?: Writer & Teacher
Birth Day: March 31, 1926
Birth Place: Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England, British
Occupation: Writer, teacher
Period: 1960–2005
Notable works: The Collector The Magus The French Lieutenant's Woman

John Fowles

John Fowles was born on March 31, 1926 in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England, British, is Writer & Teacher. John Fowles initially started out as a teacher and was unaware that his life would change with the publication of his first novel, ‘The Collector’, which went on to become one of his best-known works in his long and fruitful career. Some of his other prominent works include ‘The Aristos’, ‘The Ebony Tower’, ‘Daniel Martin’, ‘The Magus’ and ‘A Maggot’ to name a select few. This prominent author and novelist gained immense fame during his lifetime but towards the end of his life, he could barely walk, with a verbal disorder and a bemused gaze. A master of literature, Fowles reiterated on the themes of philosophy, postmodernism, social life, personal relationships and feminism. His importance can be gauged by the fact that ‘The Times’ newspaper named him as one of the ’50 greatest British writers since 1945’. In addition to his novels, short stories, poems, theoretical writings and screenplays, Fowles also translated several plays from French for the National Theater. He is also accredited with writing several reference books on preservation and ecology, local history and the appreciation of nature.
John Fowles is a member of Writers

Does John Fowles Dead or Alive?

As per our current Database, John Fowles has been died on 5 November 2005(2005-11-05) (aged 79)\nLyme Regis, Dorset, England.

🎂 John Fowles - Age, Bio, Faces and Birthday

When John Fowles die, John Fowles was 79 years old.

Popular As John Fowles
Occupation Writers
Age 79 years old
Zodiac Sign Aries
Born March 31, 1926 (Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England, British)
Birthday March 31
Town/City Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England, British
Nationality British

🌙 Zodiac

John Fowles’s zodiac sign is Aries. According to astrologers, the presence of Aries always marks the beginning of something energetic and turbulent. They are continuously looking for dynamic, speed and competition, always being the first in everything - from work to social gatherings. Thanks to its ruling planet Mars and the fact it belongs to the element of Fire (just like Leo and Sagittarius), Aries is one of the most active zodiac signs. It is in their nature to take action, sometimes before they think about it well.

🌙 Chinese Zodiac Signs

John Fowles was born in the Year of the Tiger. Those born under the Chinese Zodiac sign of the Tiger are authoritative, self-possessed, have strong leadership qualities, are charming, ambitious, courageous, warm-hearted, highly seductive, moody, intense, and they’re ready to pounce at any time. Compatible with Horse or Dog.

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Biography/Timeline

1920

Fowles was born in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, England, the son of Gladys May Richards and Robert John Fowles. Robert Fowles came from a family of middle-class merchants of London. Robert's father Reginald was a partner of the firm Allen & Wright, a tobacco importer. Robert's mother died when he was six years old. At the age of 26, after receiving legal training, Robert enlisted in the Honourable Artillery Company and spent three years in the trenches of Flanders during the First World War. Robert's brother Jack died in the war, leaving a widow and three children. During 1920, the year Robert was demobilised, his father Reginald died. Robert became responsible for five young half-siblings as well as the children of his brother. Although he had hoped to practise law, the obligation of raising an extended family forced him into the family trade of tobacco importing.

1925

Gladys Richards belonged to an Essex family also originally from London. The Richards family moved to Westcliff-on-Sea in 1918, as Spanish flu swept through Europe, for Essex was said to have a healthy climate. Robert met Gladys Richards at a tennis club in Westcliff-on-Sea in 1924. Though she was ten years younger, and he in bad health from the war, they were married a year later on 18 June 1925. Nine months and two weeks later, Gladys gave birth to John Robert Fowles.

1939

In 1939, Fowles won a place at Bedford School, a two-hour train journey north of his home. His time at Bedford coincided with the Second World War. Fowles was a student at Bedford until 1944. 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.

1945

Fowles was named by The Times newspaper of UK as one of the 50 greatest British Writers since 1945.

1947

After 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. Fowles was undergoing a political transformation. Upon leaving the marines, he wrote, "I ... began to hate what I was becoming in life—a British Establishment young hopeful. I decided instead to become a sort of anarchist."

1950

Fowles composed a number of poems and short stories throughout his life, most of which were lost or destroyed. In December 1950 he wrote My Kingdom for a Corkscrew. For A Casebook (1955) was rejected by various magazines. In 1970 he wrote The Last Chapter.

1951

In 1951, Fowles became an English master at the Anargyrios and Korgialenios School of Spetses on the Peloponnesian island of Spetses (also known as Spetsai). This opened a critical period in his life, as the island was where he met his Future wife Elizabeth Christy, née Whitton, wife of fellow Teacher Roy Christy. Inspired by his experiences and feelings there, he used it as the setting of his novel, The Magus (1966). Fowles was happy in Greece, especially outside the school. He wrote poems that he later published, and became close to his fellow expatriates. But during 1953, Fowles and the other masters at the school were all dismissed for trying to institute reforms, and Fowles returned to England.

1957

His separation from Elizabeth did not last long. On 2 April 1957, they were married. Fowles became stepfather to Elizabeth's daughter from her first marriage, Anna. For nearly ten years, Fowles taught English as a foreign language to students from other countries at St. Godric's College, an all-girls establishment in Hampstead, London.

1960

In late 1960, though he had already drafted The Magus, Fowles began working on The Collector. He finished his first draft in a month, but spent more than a year making revisions before showing it to his agent. Michael S. Howard, the publisher at Jonathan Cape was enthusiastic about the manuscript. The book was published in 1963 and when the paperback rights were sold in the spring of that year, it was "probably the highest price that had hitherto been paid for a first novel," according to Howard. British reviewers found the novel to be an innovative thriller, but several American critics detected a serious promotion of existentialist thought.

1965

In 1965 Fowles left London, moving to Underhill, a farm in Dorset. The isolated farm house became the model for The Dairy in the book Fowles was writing: The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969). Finding the farm too remote, as "total solitude gets a bit monotonous," Fowles remarked, in 1968 he and his wife moved to Lyme Regis in Dorset. They lived much of the time in Belmont (formerly owned by Eleanor Coade), which Fowles used as a setting for parts of The French Lieutenant's Woman. In this novel, Fowles created one of most enigmatic female characters in literary history. His conception of femininity and myth of masculinity as developed in this text is psychoanalytically informed.

1968

In the same year, he adapted The Magus for cinema, and the film was released in 1968. The film version of The Magus (1968) was generally considered awful; when Woody Allen was later asked whether he would make changes in his life if he had the opportunity to do it all over again, he jokingly replied he would do "everything exactly the same, with the exception of watching The Magus."

1969

The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969) was released to critical and popular success. It was eventually translated into more than ten languages, and established Fowles' international reputation. It was adapted as a feature film in 1981 with a screenplay by the noted British Playwright Harold Pinter, and starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons.

1974

Fowles lived the rest of his life in Lyme Regis. His works The Ebony Tower (1974), Daniel Martin (1977), Mantissa (1981), and A Maggot (1985) were all written from Belmont House.

1979

Joining the community, Fowles served as the curator of the Lyme Regis Museum from 1979 to 1988, retiring from the museum after having a mild stroke. Fowles was involved occasionally in politics in the town. He occasionally wrote letters to the Editor advocating preservation. Despite this involvement, he was generally considered reclusive.

1998

In 1998, he was quoted in the New York Times Book Review as saying, "Being an atheist is a matter not of moral choice, but of human obligation."

2005

In 1990, his first wife Elizabeth died of cancer, only a week after it was diagnosed. Her death affected him severely, and he did not write for a year. In 1998, Fowles married his second wife Sarah Smith. With Sarah by his side, Fowles died of heart failure on 5 November 2005, aged 79, in Axminster Hospital, 5 miles (8.0 km) from Lyme Regis.

2008

In 2008, Elena van Lieshout, a former girlfriend of Fowles, presented a series of 120 love letters and postcards for auction at Sotheby's. The letters start in 1990, when Fowles was aged 65. Elena, a young Welsh admirer and a student at St. Hilda's College, Oxford, contacted the reclusive author and they developed a sensitive relationship.

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