Literature
Regal
Regis
The town centre of Lyme Regis
The pretty seaside town of Lyme Regis in Dorset has inspired more than a bustling tourist industry. Jane Austen’s Persuasion, Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones and John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman all drew from Lyme. Mentioned in the 1085 Domesday Book, its narrow streets, cobbed alleyways, old shops and inns also make it an ideal film set. It was here that the iconic scene of Meryl Streep’s character standing on the wind and wave swept Cobb, gazing out to sea in The French Lieutenant’s Woman, was filmed. John Fowles was born into an English merchant family in Leigh on Sea, Essex, on March 31st 1926. His was a conformist, conventional family life – and later said that he had ‘tried
In the latest of her literary-themed excursions Lorna Hogg visits the breath-taking seaside town of Lyme Regis on England’s Dorset coast to escape ever since’. He won a place at the well regarded Bedford School in 1939 where he became Head Boy, and excelled at sport, esecially cricket. After leaving school in 1944, he attended a military training course at Edinburgh University, and was prepared to receive a commission into the Royal Marines. He finished the course on VE day - but then was assigned to do his compulsory Military Service, at Okehampton Camp, in Devon. That service ended in 1947, after which he observed that military life was not for him. A spell at Oxford followed, where he discovered the works of French Existentialism, and writers such as Satrtre and Camus. Armed with a
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degree in French, teaching life awaited him, in London and France. Fowles also taught on the Greek isle of Spetses, which proved powerfully influential. He began to write poetry, and also met his future wife Elizabeth, then aleady married. They parted after an affair, but back in England, met again and married in 1957. By then Fowles had started writing, including The Magus, essentially a quest story. He also began work on the first draft of The Collector which later became a best seller, and allowed him to write full time. He became an acclaimed author, on both sides of the Atlantic. The Aristos, a series of philosophical and artistic musings, followed.
