posted November 07, 2005 11:57
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http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/nationa...it_051107.html
John Fowles, the British author who wrote The French Lieutenant's Woman, has died at the age of 79.
A spokesperson for publisher Jonathan Cape, a division of Random House, announced the news Monday, saying that the novelist died at his home in Dorset on Saturday, after being "ill for some time."
Fowles had a stroke in 1988 and had heart problems.
Born in Essex in March 1926, Fowles worked as a teacher in France, Greece and the U.K. before turning to writing full-time in 1963 upon the success of his first novel, The Collector, which tells the story of a young butterfly collector who kidnaps and imprisons a young woman. His other works include The Magus, The Ebony Tower, Mantissa and A Maggot.
Fowles is best known, however, for The French Lieutenant's Woman, which was published in 1969. Though peopled with Victorian characters, the historical romance is told through the lens of a writer living during the 1960s.
The book was adapted into a critically acclaimed, Oscar-nominated film starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons in 1981.
In addition to his writing, Fowles worked for many years as the honorary curator of the Lyme Regis Museum and was a devoted conservationist.
Fowles was said to have based many of his female characters on his first wife, Elizabeth, who died of cancer in 1990. He married his second wife, Sarah, in 1998.
The author preferred to live a private life by the sea in Dorset and was considered a virtual recluse. In an interview with the Guardian newspaper in 2003, he acknowledged his "reputation as a cantankerous man of letters" and claimed to be "persecuted" by readers.
we've still got OUR Sir John!
Char
