After ruminating on it for almost 15 years, Mr Fowles turned in a work that was full of Shakespearean and Homeric allusion, the story of an English teacher in Greece who falls under the sway of a fabulously wealthy magician, the Magus of the title, and his parallel fantasy universe.

ECONOMIST: John Fowles

Referee Nigel Owens awarded a penalty try after replacement Kings scrum-half Josh Fowles illegally came round to disrupt it on the Lions side, and O'Gara's conversion made it 20-3.

BBC: Southern Kings 8-20 Lions

The French Lieutenant's Woman, written in 1969 and arguably Fowles's most famous novel, was set in Lyme Regis and was made into a film starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons in 1981.

BBC: Author John Fowles's home to be used by student writers

Mr Fowles was born in 1926 in the Essex suburb of Leigh-on-Sea, the son of a cigarmaker and tobacconist.

ECONOMIST: John Fowles