The French Lieutenant's Woman The French Lieutenant's Woman The French Lieutenant's Woman is a 1969 postmodern historical fiction novel by John Fowles. It was his third published novel, after "The Collector" (1963) and "The Magus" (1965). The novel explores the fraught relationship of gentleman and amateur naturalist Charles Smithson and Sarah Woodruff, the former governess and independent woman with whom he falls in love. The novel builds on Fowles' authority in Victorian literature, both following and critiquing many of the conventions of period novels. Following publication, the library magazine "American Libraries," described the novel as one of the "Notable Books of 1969". Subsequent to
The French Lieutenant's Woman as history and literature. Important to her discussion of the genre's post-modern style, "The French Lieutenant's Woman"'s self-reflexive narration bridges different discourses that usually remain separated, such as academic history, literary criticism, philosophy and literature. The text's representations of the past introduce anachronistic perspectives on the time and the characters. For example, in her queer studies-based article, "Historical Romance, Gender and Heterosexuality", Lisa Fletcher argues that "The French Lieutenant's Woman", by relying on a "good love story" as the central means of representing the past, projects a contemporary hetero-normative sexuality on the history of Victorian England. For Fletcher, Fowles' paradoxical