Introduction, Part 2

John Fowles: A Life in Two Worlds
by Eileen Warburton

(Page 2 of 7)

I confess that I was annoyed when I first became aware of this tendency in his interviews with me. But when Anna Christy, Fowles's stepdaughter, wrote me that Fowles was "playing the god-game" with me, I had to laugh. I learned to feel rather honored to sit listening to the great novelist actually weaving his fictions in my presence. I use these interviews in the biography only with caution. But I'm very glad we did them.

The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (HRC) at the University of Texas at Austin, Texas, awarded me an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship, 1998-1999. This enabled me to spend several months among the papers of the John Fowles Collection at the HRC, the major repository for Fowles's documents. I am very grateful to Director Thomas F. Staley and the Ransom Center for this support and for the time, energy, and interest of the exceptional staff there, particularly of Pat Fox. Likewise, I am grateful to University Librarian Alasdair T. Paterson and to Jill Pyne and other very helpful members of staff at the Exeter University Library and at Reed Hall, Exeter University, for their kindness and interest during my 1997 research stay. My warm appreciation goes to the entire staff of the Lyme Regis Philpot Museum over the past twenty-some years of visits and especially to Liz-Anne Bawden, Jo Draper, and John Howells for their kind assistance with collections and archives in 2000. I also wish to thank Head of Special Collections Lori N. Curtis, Sidney F. Huttner, and the Special Collections staff of the McFarlin Library at the University of Tulsa, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for their help during my visit in 1999. I am grateful to John Fowles for permission to publish from these collections.

Except for the Mellon Fellowship, financial support for this project came from my family. Two generous colleagues made it possible for me to continue working with a highly flexible schedule at various stages of the research and writing. I sincerely wish to acknowledge my late friend and teaching partner Patrick J. Keeley, Head of the Humanities Program at Bryant College, and Michael Semenza, Vice-President for Institutional Advancement at Salve Regina University.

Many people made my work possible, but I must begin by thanking three special women. Anna Christy, Elizabeth Fowles's daughter, has been (after Fowles himself) the person who gave the greatest support to this project in England. Besides providing memories and documentation, she has smoothed introductions and eased misgivings about me, encouraged me in a thousand ways, rewarded me with her friendship, and occasionally helped me laugh at myself. There would simply be no biography without Anna. Monica Sharrocks (after spending a morning sizing me up) shook me to the core by sharing more than thirty years of letters preserved from Elizabeth Fowles's intimate correspondence with Monica and Denys Sharrocks. Monica saved Elizabeth's "voice" and perceptions, making it possible for her to be present in this biography. Karen Daw transcribed and retyped the early manuscript volumes of Fowles's diaries, working directly with John Fowles to make out his difficult handwriting. Karen's massive labor, carried out with discretion, sensitivity, and accuracy, gave me and future scholars a key for reading the original manuscript diaries.

John Fowles, I have believed throughout this project, has been exceptionally fortunate in his friends. His oldest friends have immeasurably enriched my understanding, not only of him but of the times they shared and the places and people they knew together. It has been a delight and privilege for me to know Denys Sharrocks, Ronnie Payne, Freddie Porter, and (at great distance) Angus McCallum. I am also grateful to John's sister, Hazel O'Sullivan, for a sense of the Fowles family at Leigh.

Technical support at critical moments was received from Charles Glass, Roger Warburton, Nye Warburton, Richard Benson, and William Mello.

I am grateful to Sarah Fowles, John Fowles's wife since 1998, for her hospitality and patience.

I acknowledge with thanks my fellow biographers in the Providence Biographers' Group: Jane Lancaster, Joan Richards, Adam Nelson, Hadassah Davis. With my husband, Roger, they have been my most scrupulous, faithful readers through every single draft of every chapter. Beyond their friendship, they have given me the priceless gift of colleagueship, trusting me with their work, while they supported mine. My generous friend Judith Rényi helped me tremendously as the painstaking first reader of the finished draft.

Two great mentors inspired my love of biography: the late Kurt Weber, Professor of English at the University of Maryland, and that exceptional biographer Deirdre Bair, my doctoral adviser at the University of Pennsylvania, 1976-1980.

I am grateful for the many years of enthusiastic support from John Fowles's American editor, Ray A. Roberts, who became my editor at Viking Penguin and a good friend; for Tory Klose's thoughtful, careful attention to the manuscript; and for all the help of Clifford Corcoran and Nancy Resnick. I record here my heartfelt thanks for the wise counsel, thoroughness, and hard work of my agent, Melanie Jackson. Tom Maschler, Fowles's British editor, warmly encouraged and supported the project from the first, while his successor at Jonathan Cape, Daniel Franklin, has continued that interest. In my travels and through correspondence I have been blessed with cooperation, enthusiasm, extraordinary kindness, and great hospitality from my contacts. I have heard personal tales from the hearts of the tellers and shared adventures and broken bread with people I shall never forget. Some of these people have become my friends. All of them have been exceedingly generous. Simply saying thanks doesn't seem enough. Yet, in alphabetical order, I wish to express my gratitude to:

James Aubrey, Sarah Ball and the Essex County Council Archives, Liz-Anne Bawden, Peter Benson, Lilette Botassi, Suzie Botassi, Sally Burwood, Eileen Cacace, Anna Christy and Charles Glass, Tess Christy, Joanne Collins, Nigel Cozens and Lymelight Books, James G. P. Crowden, Karen V. Daw, Nicos Dimou and Marianne Betitoubi, Jo Draper, Ann Dyer, Sam and Maydelle Fason, Helen Faulkner for Ashridge Management College, Sarah Smith Fowles, Pat Fox, James C. Gedney, Fay Godwin, Bob "Magusbob" Goosmann, Anne Greenshield, Stephen Hoar, Will Homoky, Sanchia Humphreys, Charlotte and Tony Jackson, Ann Jellicoe and Roger Mayne, Kirki Kefalea, Lily Kefalea, Jud and Monica Kinberg, Maury Klein, John Kohn, Rodney Legg, Tom Maschler, Andrew McCallum, Angus and Patricia McCallum, Heather McCallum, Anne Mitchell, Christopher Moulin, John and Lillian Munby, Hazel and Daniel O'Sullivan, Kevin Padian, Ronald S. Payne and Celia Haddon, Anna Ruszkowski Peebles, Reverend Peter Pickett, Fred Porter, Neil Reid, Jan Relf, Judith Rényi, Mary Scriven, Denys and Monica Sharrocks, Betty Slowinski, Leonora Smith, Thomas F. Staley, Judith Swift, John Sylvester and the Old Bedfordians, Katherine Tarbox, W. Thomas Taylor, Gareth and Elizabeth Thomas, David and Annette Tringham, Elena van Lieshout, Dianne Vipond, Hazel Warburton, Jean Wellings, John Wilcox, Phyllis Wilcox, William Wilcox, and Tom and Malou Wiseman. Thank you all for your trust. Please forgive me if I have omitted anyone. It is not deliberate, and I apologize.

My fondest gratitude goes to my parents, Ed and Ruth Hand, for their love, assistance, and pride and their extraordinary patience and support; to my parents-in-law, Ron and Margaret Warburton, and the extended Warburton family in England for so much kindness, hospitality, and help of many kinds; to my sons, Nye and Rhys, for putting up with this endless project and my absences and doubts, for love, listening, support, and understanding beyond their ages, and for taking JF to their baseball game; and to my friends, old and new, who were patient and wonderfully encouraging.

Most of all, with a full heart, I gratefully acknowledge my husband and best friend, Roger Warburton, who got me through it.

— Newport, Rhode Island
September 2002

© 2005 Viking, a division of Penguin Putnam, used by permission.

About the Author

Eileen Warburton is a scholar who lives in Newport, Rhode Island.