This selection of Fowles’s poetic work includes two major sequences dating from the early part of his career in the 1950s and 60s, both of which (‘Apollo’ and ‘Mycenae’) draw on his time living in Greece and his interest in Greek mythology. The other poems included, largely unpublished previously and roughly in chronological order, are very varied in content, form and technique, and culminate in a sequence written in hospital towards the end of his life. Together, these poems constitute a powerful body of work reflecting on love, nature, suffering and desire. Fowles was always interested in verse translation and adaptation, and the book concludes with a fascinating sample of this side of his literary achievement. This section includes his translations of Martial, Catullus, Li Po and the eighth-century Man’yoshu, Japan’s oldest poetry compilation. John Fowles (1926–2005) is widely regarded as one of the most innovative and important English novelists of the second half of the twentieth century, but his career as a writer began in the 1950s with poetry. After studying French at Oxford, he taught in France and Greece before returning to England. His first published novel, The Collector (1963), was a major critical as well as commercial success, and was followed in 1965 by The Magus, a highly original novel set in Greece. In 1968 he moved to Lyme Regis, a town that featured in his next novel, The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969). Subsequent works of fiction are The Ebony Tower (1974), Daniel Martin (1977), Mantissa (1982) and A Maggot (1985). He also published a number of non-fiction books, but his only book of poetry, simply called Poems, came out in the USA (but not in the UK) in 1973.
Author
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 discovered the writings of the French existentialists. In particular he admired Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, whose writings corresponded with his own ideas about conformity and the will of the individual. He received a degree in French in 1950 and began to consider a career as a writer. Several teaching jobs followed: a year lecturing in English literature at the University of Poitiers, France; two years teaching English at Anargyrios College on the Greek island of Spetsai; and finally, between 1954 and 1963, teaching English at St. Godric's College in London, where he ultimately served as the department head. The time spent in Greece was of great importance to Fowles. During his tenure on the island he began to write poetry and to overcome a long-time repression about writing. Between 1952 and 1960 he wrote several novels but offered none to a publisher, considering them all incomplete in some way and too lengthy. In late 1960 Fowles completed the first draft of The Collector in just four weeks. He continued to revise it until the summer of 1962, when he submitted it to a publisher; it appeared in the spring of 1963 and was an immediate best-seller. The critical acclaim and commercial success of the book allowed Fowles to devote all of his time to writing. The Aristos, a collection of philosophical thoughts and musings on art, human nature and other subjects, appeared the following year. Then in 1965, The Magus - drafts of which Fowles had been working on for over a decade - was published. The most commercially successful of Fowles' novels, The French Lieutenant's Woman, appeared in 1969. It resembles a Victorian novel in structure and detail, while pushing the traditional boundaries of narrative in a very modern manner. In the 1970s Fowles worked on a variety of literary projects—including a series of essays on nature—and in 1973 he published a collection of poetry, Poems. Daniel Martin, a long and somewhat autobiographical novel spanning over 40 years in the life of a screenwriter, appeared in 1977, along with a revised version of The Magus. These were followed by Mantissa (1982), a fable about a novelist's struggle with his muse; and A Maggot (1985), an 18th century mystery which combines science fiction and history. In addition to The Aristos, Fowles wrote a variety of non-fiction pieces including many essays, reviews, and forewords/afterwords to other writers' novels. He also wrote the text for several photographic compilations. From 1968, Fowles lived in the small harbour town of Lyme Regis, Dorset. His interest in the town's local history resulted in his appointment as curator of the Lyme Regis Museum in 1979, a position he filled for a decade. Wormholes, a book of essays, was published in May 1998. The first comprehensive biography on Fowles, John Fowles: A Life in Two Worlds, was published in 2004, and the first volume of his journals appeared the same year (followed recently by volume two). John Fowles passed away on November 5, 2005 after a long illness.
