The French Lieutenant's Woman

The French Lieutenant's Woman

The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969), by John Fowles, is a period novel inspired by the 1823 novel Ourika, by Claire de Duras, which Fowles translated into English in 1977 (and revised in 1994). Fowles was a great aficionado of Thomas Hardy, and, in particular, likened his heroine, Sarah Woodruff, to Tess of the d'Urbervilles, the protagonist of Hardy’s popular novel of the same name (1891).

In 1981, director Karel Reisz and writer Harold Pinter adapted the novel as a film, starring Meryl Streep. During 2006, it was adapted for the stage, by Mark Healy, in a version which toured the UK that year. In 2005, the novel was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the one hundred best English-language novels from 1923 to present.