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The French Lieutenant's Woman is a 1969 postmodern historical fiction novel by John Fowles. The plot 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 French Lieutenant’s Woman, novel by John Fowles, published in 1969. A pastiche of a historical romance, it juxtaposes the ethos of the Victorian characters living in 1867 with the ironic commentary of the author writing in 1967. The plot centres on Charles Smithson, an amateur Victorian.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
This mysterious woman would become the inspiration for Fowles's third novel, The French Lieutenant's Woman (Boston, Toronto, 1969), an international popular and critical success and the most highly acclaimed work from this prolific author.
The French Lieutenant’s Woman contains references to a number of literary and scientific books, including On the Origin of Species (Darwin’s 1859 book proposing evolutionary theory), and the poetry of Tennyson (particularly In Memoriam and Maud) and Matthew Arnold (particularly “To Marguerite”).
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.
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The wealthy and religious Mrs. Poulteney hired the French Lieutenant’s Woman, Sarah Woodruff, as a companion a year before. Mrs. Poulteney is an awful woman who’s afraid of hell, so she hopes that her charity towards Sarah will save her own soul.
The French Lieutenant's Woman. John Fowles. New American Library, 1981 - Fiction - 366 pages. The clash of social systems and ethical standards of Victorian England are epitomized in the love...
