John Fowles, the British writer whose teasing, multilayered fiction explored the tensions between free will and the constraints of society, even as it played with traditional novelistic conventions and challenged readers to find their own interpretations, died on Saturday at his home in Lyme Regis, England. He was 79.
NYTimes

What were your favorites?
Mine :
T he French Lieutenant's Woman and The Collector

I was inspired to read The Magus many moons ago after seeing the movie and enjoyed it again years later. The French Lieutenant's Woman is my favourite, though, and I'm still a fan of Harold Pinter's clever film adaptation. If I remember rightly that book was mostly set in Lyme Regis?

He was an interesting man. He hated fame and publicity. He wanted to tend to his garden, enjoy nature etc.

I guess The French Lieutenant's Woman was my favorite Scarlett.

yes, and Lyme Regis is where I Marilyn and her husband "Phil Flash" visited not so long ago, and even saw the home that was used in the filming of the French Lieutenants Woman..
I vaguely remember the Magus.
I read The Collector a long time ago and then later worked for the husband of Samantha Eggar ( who was in the film) so that story stuck in my mind more ~
His stories were moody and interesting ( I thought).

Oh no! I'm so sorry to hear about this -- can't believe I didn't see it in the newspaper.

John Fowles was one of my favorite writers. I think several of his works are quite brilliant, in particular The French Lieutenant's Woman. I also liked The Ebony Tower a lot.

I don't know his novels but read the NYT obit a few hours ago:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/08/books/08fowles.html

Thought the last bit was funny in even an English sort of way:

As much as it frustrated some of his readers, Mr. Fowles always believed he had done the right thing by leaving the endings of his most celebrated novels open-ended. But he was not above bending his own rules when the occasion called for it.

He once told an interviewer that he had received a sweet letter from a cancer patient in New York who wanted very much to believe that Nicholas, the protagonist of "The Magus," was reunited with his girlfriend at the end of the book - a point Mr. Fowles had deliberately left ambiguous. "Yes, of course they were," Mr. Fowles replied.

By chance, he had received a letter the same day from an irate reader taking issue with the ending of "The Magus." "Why can't you say what you mean, and for God's sake, what happened in the end?" the reader asked. Mr. Fowles said he found the letter "horrid" but had the last laugh, supplying an alternative ending to punish the correspondent: "They never saw each other again."

Hi Scarlett
>John Fowles, the British writer ... find their own interpretations,...<

Very good. Did you write that yourself?

Read it again, ira. I believe Scarlett credits the NYTImes.

ira, I wish!