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John Fowles

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John Fowles


Born
in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, The United Kingdom
March 31, 1926

Died
November 05, 2005

Website

Genre
Literature & Fiction

Influences
D.H. Lawrence, Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, Sade, Danie ...more


John Robert Fowles was born in Leigh-on-Sea, a small town in Essex. He recalled the English suburban culture of the 1930s as oppressively conformist and his family life as intensely conventional. Of his childhood, Fowles said "I have tried to escape ever since."

Fowles attended Bedford School, a large boarding school designed to prepare boys for university, from ages 13 to 18. After briefly attending the University of Edinburgh, Fowles began compulsory military service in 1945 with training at Dartmoor, where he spent the next two years. World War II ended shortly after his training began so Fowles never came near combat, and by 1947 he had decided that the military life was not for him.

Fowles then spent four years at Oxford, where he discov ...more

Combine Editions

Average rating: 3.94 · 231,395 ratings · 16,179 reviews · 115 distinct works • Similar authors
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The Magus
4.05 avg rating — 63,591 ratings — published 1965 — 28 editions
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The French Lieutenant’s Woman
3.88 avg rating — 55,418 ratings — published 1969 — 5 editions
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The Ebony Tower
3.70 avg rating — 4,368 ratings — published 1974 — 41 editions
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A Maggot
3.59 avg rating — 3,554 ratings — published 1985 — 3 editions
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Daniel Martin
3.80 avg rating — 2,840 ratings — published 1977 — 31 editions
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Mantissa
3.15 avg rating — 2,768 ratings — published 1982 — 73 editions
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The Tree
by
3.76 avg rating — 1,851 ratings — published 1979 — 51 editions
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Áristos
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3.68 avg rating — 743 ratings — published 1964 — 44 editions
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Wormholes: Essays and Occas...
3.77 avg rating — 341 ratings — published 1998 — 26 editions
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More books by John Fowles…

Series by John Fowles

The Journals: Volume I: 194... The Journals: Volume II: 19...
(2 books)
by
4.09 avg rating — 183 ratings

Quotes by John Fowles  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“The human race is unimportant. It is the self that must not be betrayed."

"I suppose one could say that Hitler didn't betray his self."

"You are right. He did not. But millions of Germans did betray their selves. That was the tragedy. Not that one man had the courage to be evil. But that millions had not the courage to be good.”
― John Fowles, The Magus
tags: betrayal, hitler, tragedy, war
538 likes
Like

“To write poetry and to commit suicide, apparently so contradictory, had really been the same, attempts at escape.”
― John Fowles, The Magus
tags: escape, poetry, suicide
298 likes
Like

“I love making, I love doing. I love being to the full, I love everything which is not sitting and watching and copying and dead at heart.”
― John Fowles, The Collector
281 likes
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Polls

2016 2nd Quarter Long Read

 
  40 votes, 22.7%

 
  30 votes, 17.0%

1853, Bleak House by Charles Dickens, 1032 pages
 
  30 votes, 17.0%

900, The Arabian Nights, 1049 pages
 
  17 votes, 9.7%

1920, Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset, 1168 pages
 
  13 votes, 7.4%

 
  10 votes, 5.7%

1965, The Magus by John Fowles, 656 pages
 
  8 votes, 4.5%

440 BC, The Histories by Herodotus, 716 pages
 
  7 votes, 4.0%

1901, The Wings of the Dove by Henry James, 741 pages
 
  5 votes, 2.8%

1997, Underworld by Don DeLillo, 832 pages
 
  5 votes, 2.8%

1987, The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher, 656 pages
 
  3 votes, 1.7%

 
  3 votes, 1.7%

 
  3 votes, 1.7%

1876, Daniel Deronda by George Eliot, 796 pages
 
  2 votes, 1.1%

176 total votes
More...

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