John Fowles was born in England in 1926 and educated at Bedford School and Oxford University. John Fowles won international recognition with his first published title, THE COLLECTOR (1963). He was immediately acclaimed as an outstandingly innovative writer of exceptional imaginative power and this reputation was confirmed with the appearance of his subsequent works. John Fowles died in 2005.

The novel seeks to explore the nature of reality and creativity, the alienations of art, the evolution of literature to its present self-conscious phase, the relationship between the sexes, and much more