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Portrait image of John Fowles Photo: Ulf Andersen / Hulton Archive via Getty Images (1987)

Sample of authors

Fowles, John

John Robert Fowles was born in a middle-class family in the Essex town of Leigh-on-Sea. His father, Robert Fowles, dreamt of a career in the legal profession, but when the First World War broke out he was instead forced to take over the family's tobacco business. His mother, Gladys May, was a housewife. Fowles grew up in the security of a terraced housing estate, but later in life he confessed...

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Literary figures

Mrs. Norris

Gender: Female

Her husband died after they had been married a short time, so Mrs Norris – whose first name is Annie, which is rarely used – moved to Scotland and became the housekeeper for a general. The short and somewhat plump elderly lady becomes involved in murder cases which she solves in novels by Dorothy Salisbury Davis with the help of her ward James ‘Jimmie’ Jarvis and Jasper Tully, the prosecutor’s ass...

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