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Article: The Pre-Raphaelite "pack of satyrs" in John Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman.
- Article from:
- Nineteenth-Century Prose
- Article date:
- December 22, 1990
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1990 Nineteenth-Century Prose. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In the prologue to his 1986 book A Maggot, John Fowles announces, "What follows may seem like a historical novel; but it is not" (n. pag.). The book may not be based on historical events, but Fowles has gone to considerable lengths to make it "seem" historical, narrating an eighteenth-century story by means of supposed court transcripts and archaic language, even inserting between chapters some facsimile pages excerpted from actual issues of The Gentleman's Magazine from 1736. At the end of A Maggot, Fowles invites readers to imagine that the novel's central female character went on to become the historical mother of Ann Lee, founder of the Shakers. In a similar way, ...