"French Lieutenant's Woman" by John Fowles, published by Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1969.

Hard boards, original publisher's cloth with blind embossed L&B colophon on the front board, silvery lettering and gilt frame on spine; [a little shelf wear]; 5.1/2" x 8.1/2"; 480 pages, very good condition.

"Perhaps the most beloved of John Fowles's internationally bestselling works, The French Lieutenant's Woman is a feat of seductive storytelling that effectively invents anew the Victorian novel." "Filled with enchanting mysteries and magically erotic possibilities" (New York Times), the novel inspired the hugely successful 1981 film starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons and is today universally regarded as a modern classic." [a review]

"What a delicious book! Fowles' faux-Victorian novel works as a story, works as an exploration of Victorian life and literature, and works as a meditation on the nature of fiction. It's a compulsive read -- the author may remind us quite frequently that this is just a story, but the story still kept me turning the pages, and I didn't mind a bit when he went all post-modern at the end. It's also a very enjoyable read, with sparkling minor characters, enlightening looks at Victorian mores and fiction, and witty apercus scattered like confetti.

The story traces the growing passion of the at first conventional Charles for the mysterious Sarah Woodruff, a.k.a. the French Lieutenant's Woman (or Whore). This runs right into his engagement to sweet and shallow (and rich) Ernestina, and eventually into his entire vision of life. Various interesting minor and not-so-minor characters abound, giving the same sense that one has in a "real" Victorian novel -- of a fully populated world, full of people who are interesting for their own sakes, as well as active in the plot. I was reminded of Eliot, Dickens, and so forth (and, more frivolously, of Caryl Brahms' 1940 pastische, "Don't, Mr. Disraeli")." [a review]

US: Priority (c.2-4 days) ------------- $12.50
Canada: 1st Class (c.2-6 weeks) ------ $27.50
World: 1st Class (c.2-8 weeks) ------- $35.50