Books

First edition, first printing, inscribed by both Pinter and Fowles on the title page, "To Clive Hirschhorn from Harold Pinter", Fowles adding below "Also from John Fowles, Lyme Regis". Although copies signed by both Pinter and Fowles can be found, it is rare for both authors to inscribe a copy to the same person. The recipient was Clive Hirschhorn, the film and theatre critic for the Sunday Express for over three decades. His pencilled ownership inscription is on the front pastedown. Hirschhorn had a wide collection of signed theatre and film works, including many of Pinter's plays. Fowles moved to Lyme Regis in 1965, and it was this location that inspired the novel. He first lived in a farm called Underhill, where he began the novel, later moving to a Georgian mansion named Belmont in 1969 where he finished it. Both locations were used in the film adaptation. The US edition was published in October 1981 and was also released as a signed limited edition of 350 copies. It preceded the UK edition, which was published the following month by Jonathan Cape in association with Eyre Methuen. Octavo. Original grey quarter cloth, spine lettered in red, red sides with publisher's device in blind on front cover, grey endpapers. With dust jacket by Marjorie Anderson. Spine foot bumped, top edge foxed; unclipped jacket, gently creased at edges: a near-fine copy in like jacket.

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.