A Maggot by John Fowles

Description

Bibliographic Details

• Author: John Fowles
• Title: A Maggot
• Publisher: ‎ Little, Brown and Company; First Edition (January 1, 1985)
• Language: ‎ English
• Format: Hardcover – 455 pages
• ISBN-10: ‎ 0316289949
• ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0316289948
• Item Weight: ‎ 1.95 pounds
• Dimensions: ‎ 6.5 x 1.3 x 9.6 inches
• Edition: First Edition

Synopsis:

In the spring of 1736 four men and one woman, all traveling under assumed names, are crossing the Devonshire countryside en route to a mysterious rendezvous. Before their journey ends, one of them will be hanged, one will vanish, and the others will face a murder trial.

Out of the truths and lies that envelop these events, John Fowles has created a novel that is at once a tale of erotic obsession, an exploration of the conflict between reason and superstition, an astonishing act of literary legerdemain, and the story of the birth of a new faith.

About the Author:

John Fowles, (born March 31, 1926, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England—died November 5, 2005, Lyme Regis, Dorset), English novelist, whose allusive and descriptive works combine psychological probings—chiefly of sex and love—with an interest in social and philosophical issues.

Fowles graduated from the University of Oxford in 1950 and taught in Greece, France, and Britain. His first novel, The Collector (1963; filmed 1965), about a shy man who kidnaps a girl in a hapless search for love, was an immediate success.

This was followed by The Aristos: A Self-Portrait in Ideas (1964), a collection of essays reflecting Fowles’s views on such subjects as evolution, art, and politics. He returned to fiction with The Magus (1965, rev. ed. 1977; filmed 1968). Set on a Greek island, the book centers on an English schoolteacher who struggles to discern between fantasy and reality after befriending a mysterious local man.

The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969; filmed 1981), arguably Fowles’s best-known work, is a love story set in 19th-century England that richly documents the social mores of that time. An example of Fowles’s original style, the book combined elements of the Victorian novel with postmodern works and featured alternate endings.

Fowles’s later fictional works include The Ebony Tower (1974), a volume of collected novellas, Daniel Martin (1977), and Mantissa (1982). His last novel, A Maggot (1985), centered on a group of travelers in the 1700s and the mysterious events that occur during their journey. Fowles also wrote verse, adaptations of plays, and the text for several photographic studies. Wormholes, a collection of essays and writings, was published in 1998.

In 1998, he was quoted in the New York Times Book Review as saying, "Being an atheist is a matter not of moral choice, but of human obligation."

In 2008 Fowles was named by The Times newspaper of the UK as one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.

In 1990, his first wife Elizabeth died of cancer, only a week after she was diagnosed. Her death affected him severely, and he did not write for a year. In 1998, Fowles married his second wife, Sarah Smith. 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.