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 Woman Who Was Poor have led Jacques Maritain back to Mother Church will baffle most admirers of that subtle, first-class mind. "Kirkus Reviews" wrote that the novel does not "move with swift and arresting action", but has "passages of great beauty and the character delineation [is] interesting". The critic wrote that the book "is saturated with Catholic thought and allusions, but is by nomeans just a pietistic tract in novel form, for Leon Bloy was an accomplished novelist." The Woman Who Was Poor The Woman Who Was Poor () is an 1897 novel by the French writer Léon Bloy. It follows a woman, Clotilde,