John Fowles was born in Leigh-on-Sea, in the south-east of England, as the son of Robert Fowles, a prosperous cigar merchant, and Gladys Richards Fowles. Fowles was educated at Alleyn Court School and Bedford School. Later Fowles regretted that as a captain of prefects at Bedford School he allowed himself to exercise tyranny over the younger boys. During World War II his family evacuated to a small Devonshire village near Dartmoor.

      In England Fowles continued his career as a teacher at Ashridge College (1953-54) and at St. Godric's College (1954-63). He also worked on many writing projects, including a novel, The Magus, that he continued to revise for 13 years. As a novelist Fowles made his debut with The Collector (1963), a mixture of thriller and an analysis of class conflict. Jud Kinberg and John Kohn, former television writers, purchased the screenrights of the book before its publication. William Wyler agreed to direct the picture. "I found I couldn't put the book down," he recalled.
     The Collector gained a huge success and since its publication Fowles devoted himself entirely to writing. The narrative alternates between the viewpoints of the two protagonists, Freddie Clegg, is in his middle twenties, orphaned child, and a collector of butterflies. After winning a national football lottery, he uses his winnings to purchase a secluded Tudor mansion with a fortresslike cellar.
     The French Lieutenant's Woman, set largely in Lyme Regis in the 1860s, re-created the Victorian melodrama and the world of Thomas Hardy. In the story a wealthy amateur paleontologist Charles Smithson, a supporter of Darwin's evolution theory, falls in love with Sarah Woodruff. She is a passionate and imaginative governess, who is believed to have been deserted by a French naval lieutenant. This affair has ostracized her from society. Another woman in Charles's life is Ernestina Freeman, whose conformity contrasts to Sarah's rebelliousness. Fowles moves between past and present, adds footnotes, quotations from Darwin, Marx, and the greats Victorian poets, and comments Victorian politics and customs. This experimental, self-conscious novel has different endings, one heart-warming, another shocking.