John Fowles The Collector 1st Edition US w/DJ

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Book Description: Little Brown, 1963, 1963. Cloth. Book Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First American. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Cloth. First American Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. The author's first book. Price is clipped. John Robert Fowles (March 31, 1926 – November 5, 2005) was an English novelist and essayist . Biography Birth and family Fowles was born in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex , England , the son of Gladys May Richards and Robert John Fowles. [1 ] Robert Fowles came from a family of middle-class merchants of London. Robert's father Reginald was a partner of the firm Allen & Wright, a tobacco importer. Robert's mother died when he was 6 years old. At age 26, after receiving legal training, Robert enlisted in the Honourable Artillery Company and spent three years in the trenches of Flanders during World War I leaving him with memories that he had for the rest of his life. Robert's brother Jack died in the war, leaving a widow and three children. During 1920, the year Robert was demobilized, his father Reginald died. Robert became responsible for five young half-siblings and the children of his brother, and though he had hoped to practice law, the obligation of raising an extended family forced him into the family trade of tobacco importing.Gladys Richards belonged to an Essex family originally from London as well. The Richards family moved to Westcliff-on-Sea during 1918, as Spanish Flu swept through Europe, for Essex was said to have a healthy climate. Robert met Gladys Richards at a tennis club in Westcliff-on-Sea during 1924. Though she was ten years younger, and he in bad health from the war, they were married a year later on June 18, 1925. Nine months and two weeks later Gladys gave birth to John Robert Fowles. [ edit ] Early life and education New College, Oxford, w Fowles attended university. Fowles spent his childhood attended by his mother and by his cousin Peggy Fowles, 18 years old at the time of his birth, who was his nursemaid and close companion for ten years. Fowles attended Alleyn Court Preparatory School . The work of Richard Jefferies and his character Bevis were Fowles's favorite books as a child. He was an only child until he was 16 yeas old.During 1939, Fowles won a position at Bedford School , a two-hour train journey north of his home. His time at Bedford coincided with the Second World War . Fowles was a student at Bedford until 1944. He became Head Boy and was also an athletic standout: a member of the rugby-football third team, the Fives first team and captain of the cricket team, for which he was bowler .After leaving Bedford School during 1944, Fowles enrolled in a Naval Short Course at Edinburgh University . Fowles was prepared to receive a commission in the Royal Marines . He completed his training on May 8, 1945 — VE Day . Fowles was assigned instead to Okehampton Camp in the countryside near Devon for two years. [2 ]During 1947, after completing his military service, Fowles entered New College, Oxford , w he studied both French and German , although he stopped studying German and concentrated on French for his BA. Fowles was undergoing a political transformation. Upon leaving the marines he wrote, "I ... began to hate what I was becoming in life—- a British Establishment young hopeful. I decided instead to become a sort of anarchist." [3 ]It was also at Oxford that Fowles first considered life as a writer, particularly after reading existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus . Though Fowles did not identify as an existentialist, their writing, like Fowles', was motivated from a feeling that the world was wrong. [4 ] Teaching career Fowles spent his early adult life as a teacher. His first year after Oxford was spent at the University of Poitiers . At the end of the year, he received two offers: one from the French department at Winchester , the other "from a ratty school in Greece ," Fowles said, "Of course, I went against all the dictates of common sense and to... read more

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