John Robert Fowles (/faʊlz/; 31 March 1926 – 5 November 2005) was an English novelist, critically positioned between modernism and postmodernism.

After leaving Oxford University, Fowles taught English at a school on the Greek island of Spetses, a sojourn that inspired The Magus (1965), an instant best-seller that was directly in tune with 1960s "hippy" anarchism and experimental philosophy.

This was followed by The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969), a Victorian-era romance with a postmodern twist that was set in Lyme Regis, Dorset, where Fowles lived for much of his life.

They came from Cornwall to London, where John became chief buyer for a department store, and gave their daughter a "comfortable upbringing in Chelsea",[3] but they relocated to Westcliff-on-Sea in Essex on account of the healthier climate following the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.

On returning from the First World War in bad health, having served for three years as an officer in the Honourable Artillery Company,[2] Robert Fowles met his future wife at a Westcliff-on-Sea tennis club.

[citation needed] After leaving Bedford School, Fowles enrolled in a Naval Short Course at the University of Edinburgh and was prepared to receive a commission in the Royal Marines.

"[7] It was also at Oxford that Fowles first considered life as a writer, particularly after reading existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus.

At the end of the year, he received two offers: one from the French department at Winchester, the other "from a ratty school in Greece," Fowles said: "Of course, I went against all the dictates of common sense and took the Greek job.

For nearly ten years, he taught English as a foreign language to students from other countries at St. Godric's College, an all-girls establishment in Hampstead, London.

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, and several American critics detected a serious promotion of existentialist thought.

The isolated farm house became the model for The Dairy in the book Fowles was writing: The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969).

It was adapted as a feature film in 1981 with a screenplay by the noted British playwright (and later Nobel laureate) Harold Pinter, and starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons.

With Sarah by his side, he died of heart failure on 5 November 2005, aged 79, in Axminster Hospital, 5 miles (8.0 km) from Lyme Regis.

Elena, a young Welsh admirer and a student at St. Hilda's College, Oxford, contacted the reclusive author and they developed a sensitive, albeit unconsummated, relationship.

[26] He described rare book dealer Rick Gekoski as "Too Jewish for English tastes ... bending to the way of the wind, or the business and money pressure", and wrote a consciously antisemitic poem about publishers Tom Maschler and Roger Straus.