John Fowles (1926–2005) is best remembered for his great novels of the 1960s: The Collector (1963), The Magus (1965) and The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969). William Wyler’s 1965 film version of The Collector and Karel Reisz’s 1981 adaptation of The French Lieutenant’s Woman were both critically acclaimed on release. Even Guy Green’s 1968 version of The Magus — savagely criticised at the time as being incomprehensible, despite it being Fowles’ screenplay — has recently been reappraised positively.
Fowles’ early life was the standard one of middle-class boys of his era: from a private prep school he went to a public school, Bedford. Bullied and homesick to begin with, he later seemed to thrive, captaining the cricket team in his final year. He was not a particularly literary boy, though his prep school magazine published his essay ‘Entomology for a Schoolboy’ (1938), inspired by his love of nature expeditions led by his Uncle Stanley (a teacher at his next school). A favourite trip was to go ‘hunting for caterpillars and lappet-moths on the Thames estuary marshes’ (Drazin 2008). Fowles’ fascination for butterflies played a considerable part in his characterisation of the strange and unforgettable Frederick Clegg in The Collector.
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