The French Lieutenant’s Woman

The events of John Fowles' most famous novel take place in Victorian England, in the town of Lyme Regis, where the author has lived since 1968. Charles Smithson, an imposing and wealthy London gentleman, is engaged to the beautiful Ernestine Freeman, the daughter of a rich and successful businessman. Shortly before the wedding, while walking along the embankment, they notice a lonely female figure staring out to sea. This is the so-called mistress of the French lieutenant, a person whom the local bourgeois consider a little crazy and condemn for allegedly immoral behavior. Having met her gaze, Charles falls into a web of feelings that he himself cannot comprehend, and a future happy marriage now seems wrong and impossible to him. The author leaves the ending open, offering the reader several options for the development of events.