John Fowles (1926-2005) is widely regarded as one of the preeminent English novelists of the twentieth century--his books have sold millions of copies worldwide, been turned into beloved films, and been popularly voted among the 100 greatestnovels of the century.

To a smaller yet no less passionate audience, Fowles is also known for having written The Tree, one of his few works of nonfiction. First published a generation ago, it is a provocative meditation on the connection between the natural world and human creativity, and a powerful argument against taming the wild. In it, Fowles recounts his own childhood in England and describes how he rebelled against his Edwardian father's obsession with the "quantifiable yield" of well-pruned fruit trees and came to prize instead the messy, purposeless beauty of nature left to its wildest.

The Tree is an inspiring, even life-changing book, like Lewis Hyde's The Gift, one that reaffirms our connection to nature and reminds us of the pleasure of getting lost, the merits of having no plan, and the wisdom of following one's nose wherever it may lead--in life as much as in art.

Ever since he first saw her, Frederick Clegg has been obsessed with Miranda Grey. The repressed, introverted butterfly collector admires the beautiful, privileged art student from afar until he wins the Lottery and buys a remote country house, planning to bring her there as his "guest". Having abducted and imprisoned her in the cellar, he soon finds this reality is far from his fantasy and their tense, claustrophobic relationship leads to a devastating climax.

On a remote Greek Island, Nicholas Urfe finds himself embroiled in the deceptions of a master trickster. As reality and illusion intertwine, Urfe is caught up in the darkest of psychological games... John Fowles expertly unfolds a tale that is lush with over-powering imagery in a spellbinding exploration of the complexities of the human mind. By turns disturbing, thrilling and seductive, The Magus is a cerebral feast.

Two years after The Collector had brought him international recognition and a year before he published The Magus, John Fowles set out his ideas on life in The Aristos. The chief inspiration behind them was the fifth century BC philosopher Heraclitus. In the world he posited of constant and chaotic flux the supreme good was the Aristos, 'of a person or thing, the best or most excellent its kind'.'What I was really trying to define was an ideal of human freedom (the Aristos) in an unfree world,' wrote Fowles in 1965. He called a materialistic and over-conforming culture to reckoning with his views on a myriad of subjects - pleasure and pain, beauty and ugliness, Christianity, humanism, existentialism, socialism

Of all John Fowles' novels The French Lieutenant's Woman received the most universal acclaim and today holds a very special place in the canon of post-war English literature. From the god-like stance of the nineteenth-century novelist that he both assumes and gently mocks, to the last detail of dress, idiom and manners, his book is an immaculate recreation of Victorian England. Not only is it the epic love story of two people of insight and imagination seeking escape from the cant and tyranny of their age, The French Lieutenant's Woman is also a brilliantly sustained allegory of the decline of the twentieth-century passion for freedom.

As part of Back Bay's ongoing effort to make the works of John Fowles available in uniform trade paperback editions, two major works in the Fowles canon are reissued to coincide with the publication of Wormholes, the author's long-awaited new collection of essays and occasional writings.

Perhaps the most beloved of 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.

In A Maggot, originally published in 1985, Fowles reaches back to the eighteenth century to offer readers a glimpse into the future. Time magazine called the result "hypnotic....A remarkable achievement. Part detective story, part crackling courtroom drama....An immensely rich and readable novel".

John Fowles' writing life was dominated by trees. From the orchards of his childhood in suburban Essex,to the woodlands of wartime Devon, to his later life on the Dorset coast, trees filled his imagination and enriched his many acclaimed and best-selling novels.Told through his lifelong relationship with trees, blending autobiography, literary criticism, philosophy and nature writing, The Tree is a masterly, powerful work that laid the literary foundations for nature-as-memoir, a genre which has seen recent flourishings in Roger Deakin's Wildwood, Richard Mabey's Nature Cure, Robert Macfarlane's The Old Ways and Helen Macdonald's H is for Hawk.As lyrical and precise as his novels, The Tree is a provocative meditation on the connection between the natural world and human creativity, and also a rejection of the idea that nature should be tamed for human purpose. Now, nearly forty years after its first publication, Little Toller is proud to republish this classic book as a special hardback, featuring a new foreword by William Fiennes and especially commissioned wood engravings,in the spirit of The Man Who Planted Trees.This edition will be an important addition to Fowles' published works and appeal to the growing audience for new nature writing as a classic of the genre.

Hailed as the first modern psychological thriller, "The Collector" is the internationally bestselling novel that catapulted John Fowles into the front rank of contemporary novelists. This tale of obsessive love--the story of a lonely clerk who collects butterflies and of the beautiful young art student who is his ultimate quarry--remains unparalleled in its power to startle and mesmerize.

In Mantissa (1982), a novelist awakes in the hospital with amnesia -- and comes to believe that a beautiful female doctor is, in fact, his muse.

A man trapped in a millionare's deadly game of political and sexual betrayal.

Filled with shocks and chilling surprises, The Magus is a masterwork of contemporary literature. In it, a young Englishman, Nicholas Urfe, accepts a teaching position on a Greek island where his friendship with the owner of the islands most magnificent estate leads him into a nightmare. As reality and fantasy are deliberately confused by staged deaths, erotic encounters, and terrifying violence, Urfe becomes a desperate man fighting for his sanity and his life. A work rich with symbols, conundrums and labrinthine twists of event, The Magus is as thought-provoking as it is entertaining, a work that ranks with the best novels of modern times.

One of the most important British graphic artists of the nineteenth century, George Cruikshank (1792-1878) illustrated over 860 books, including several by Charles Dickens, and produced a vast number of etchings, paintings, and caricatures. The ten essays collected here first appeared in a special limited edition. In a new preface written for this paperback edition, Robert Patten shows how the insights of these seminal essays have been amplified by recent exhibitions and scholarship. The introduction by John Fowles has been retained and an index has been added. In addition to the many Cruikshank illustrations reproduced in the volume, there are original drawings by contemporary artists David Levine and Ronald Searle.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY EVIE WYLD 'There is not a page in this first novel which does not prove that its author is a master storyteller' New York Times Weird, withdrawn, and unloved, Fred is a young collector of butterflies. One day his eye alights on a beautiful stranger, the art student Miranda, and an obsession starts to form. So when Fred wins some money he decides to use the money to compensate for his unfair start and to get what he really wants - Miranda. If she could only get to know him she might start to love him. And so with the meticulous attention to detail of an experienced collector he calmly plans her abduction.

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of the twentieth century.

This daring literary thriller, rich with eroticism and suspense, is one of John Fowles's best-loved and bestselling novels and has contributed significantly to his international reputation as a writer of the first rank. At the center of The Magus is Nicholas Urfe, a young Englishman who accepts a teaching position on a remote Greek island, where he befriends a local millionaire. The friendship soon evolves into a deadly game in which reality and fantasy are deliberately manipulated, and Nicholas finds that he must fight not only for his sanity but for his very survival.

A MAGGOT is not an historical novel in the normal sense. It began as a quirk or obsession (a 'maggot' in the archaic sense of the word) which found its setting in the second wave of Protestant Dissent in England. It took shape as a mystery - a compelling investigation of unaccountable motives and deeds - which led through beguiling paths to a starling vision at its centre.

THE EBONY TOWER is a series of novellas, rich in imagery, exploring the nature of art.

The story of the title - which the OBSERVER described as 'the finest thing Fowles has written' - concerns a journalist visiting a celebrated but reclusive painter. He is intrigued by the complicated erotic relationship between the elderly painter and the beautiful young women who share their lives with him.

The Great War is over. It is the summer of 1920, in rural France. By a dusty road, a girl is sitting under the shade of an apple tree. She sees someone walking towards her. He is a young man, just back from fighting in Syria. He joins her under the tree, and a tragic love story begins. Often compared to Chekhov, and much admired by Harold Pinter, Jean-Jacques Bernard creates a unique emotional landscape of beauty and longing, desire and disappointment. Martine was written in 1922 and John Fowles wrote this translation for a revival at the National Theatre in 1985.

Based on a true story and set during the French Revolution, this novel tells the tale of a Senegalese girl saved from slavery and raised by an aristocratic French family. When she overhears a conversation about her race, she suddenly becomes aware of the color of her skin and the prejudice it produces. Unhappy and physically ill after her revelation, Ourika struggles to come to terms with her African identity in the midst of upper-class wealth and privilege. A bestseller ever since its publication in 1823, this touching story addresses race, class, and the role of women in society with earnest emotion and surprising psychological depth. "Basada en hechos veridicos y con la Revolucion francesa de trasfondo, esta novela narra la historia de una nina senegalesa que fue rescatada de la esclavitud y criada por una familia francesa acomodada. Cuando escucha una conversacion sobre su raza, toma conciencia del color de su piel y del prejuicio que causa. Infeliz y fisicamente enferma luego de esta revelacion, Ourika lucha por aceptar su identidad africana a la vez que esta rodeada por las riquezas y el privilegio de la clase alta. Un exito desde su pubicacion en 1823, esta novela hace frente a las cuestiones de raza, clase y el papel de las mujeres en la sociedad con un sentimiento genuino y con una profundidad psicologica asombrosa."

Set internationally and spanning three decades, Daniel Martin is, in the author's own words, 'intended as a defence and illustration of an unfashionable philosophy, humanism, and also as an exploration of what it is to be English'. It is the richly evoked narrative of a contemporary Englishman's attempt to see himself and his time in the mirrors of his past and present.