John Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman

'Its clothes were black...the figure stood motionless, staring, staring out to sea.' (The French Lieutenant's Woman)

John Fowles is recognised in literary circles as one of the Twentieth Century's greatest writers. The effect of his novel, The French Lieutenant's Woman is testament to this. The opening sequence of the film with Meryl Streep walking along the Cobb at Lyme Regis will be forever imprinted on our minds.

The tour focusses on the landscape that inspired The French Lieutenant's Woman's creator.

Fowles describes Underhill as a 'great complex poem.' In his journals he writes, 'the purity of the sun here: white, silver, gold.'

'I have never been more conscious of it...how the sea changes in texture, colour, transparency.'

Take a walk to Fowles's recent home Belmont and then follow the sunlit clifftops to the Undercliff nature reserve which forms part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The tour includes sites featured in the novel and film, but the best is left till last. We visit the secluded farmhouse that Fowles adored and in which he wrote The French Lieutenant's Woman. We explore the grounds as Fowles would have done, reading and discussing exerpts from his novel and diaries.

We conclude with a visit to John Fowles's quirky work room at Underhill (in the midst of the Undercliff nature reserve), where you can see the views of the sea and Undercliff exactly as Fowles would have enjoyed.

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