Books

8vo, pp. 445. Original maroon boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Printed dustwrapper, with author's photographic portrait to rear panel. Illustrated endpapers. Top edge red. Small smudge to leading edge of text block, but a near fine copy in a near fine, price-clipped dustwrapper. 1978 reprint, INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR TO DOUBLE OSCAR-WINNING FREDDIE FRANCIS, CINEMATOGRAPHER ON THE FILM VERSION OF THE NOVEL: 'Dear Freddie, Just to assure you my next novel will be set in one room. and meanwhile how grateful I am to you for putting up with the Undercliff, the weather and all the rest. John Fowles 26 June 1980. Lyme.' The film starred Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons, and was directed by Karel Reisz from a screenplay by Harold Pinter, It was shot on location at Lyme Regis and at Twickenham Studios, and was nominated for five Oscars, with Streep and Pinter among the nominees. Freddie Francis received a BAFTA nomination for his work on the film.

The French Lieutenant's Woman is a 1969 postmodern historical fiction novel by John Fowles. It explores the fraught relationship of gentleman and amateur naturalist Charles Smithson and Sarah Woodruff, the former governess and independent woman with whom he falls in love. The novel reflects the Victorian England period and questions the social and scientific issues of the time.