Warburton, Eileen

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WARBURTON, Eileen

PERSONAL:

Married Roger Warburton (an astrophysicist); children: Aneurin, Rhys (sons). Education: University of Pennsylvania, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Newport, RI. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Penguin Group USA, Viking Publicity, 375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014.

CAREER:

Author, educator, and historian. Taught literature and humanities at the University of Rhode Island, Bryant College, and Salve Regina University. Producer of Rhode Island Shakespeare Theatre and associate director of the Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities. Has frequently appeared as an expert on programs broadcast by the Arts and Entertainment (A&E) network.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Commendation, American Association of State and Local History, 1989, for In Living Memory: A Chronicle of Newport, Rhode Island, 1888-1988.

WRITINGS:

In Living Memory: A Chronicle of Newport, Rhode Island, 1888-1988, introduction by M. A. Benson, Newport Savings and Loan Association/Island Trust (Newport, RI), 1988.

John Fowles: A Life in Two Worlds, Viking (New York, NY), 2004.

Editor of Newport History and author of column for Newport This Week. Also author of Newportraits, the Guide to the Redwood Library.

SIDELIGHTS:

Historian Eileen Warburton applies her academic skills to a careful examination of the rocky life of literary giant John Fowles in John Fowles: A Life in Two Worlds. Jeremy Treglown, writing in the Spectator, stated that Warburton's book is a "well-written, thoroughly researched and even-handed biography … and evidently a labor, if not of love, then of the queasy fascination which will also be most readers' main response." Highly acclaimed for his novels The Collector, The Magus, and The French Lieutenant's Woman—all of which were made into notable films—Fowles was born to a privileged English family in 1926, excelled at school, served in the Marines during World War II, and studied French at Oxford University.

Fowles and Warburton have known each other for years, and in an unprecedented move, he provided her with full access to his extensive journals and personal papers, and encouraged all acquaintances and relatives that Warburton interviewed to be open and forthcoming with their responses. The result is a cooperative biography of a still-living author that does not gloss over the negative and that exhibits great authenticity derived from the candor of the subject and the participants in his life.

While teaching on the island of Spetsai, Greece, Fowles encountered fellow academic Roy Christy. Shortly thereafter, Fowles became involved in a heated affair with Christy's wife, Elizabeth. Fowles urged her to leave Christy, but he also demanded that she abandon her young daughter, Anna, as well, which Elizabeth was not willing to do. Only years later was Anna granted a welcome to the Fowles estate.

Warburton stresses how important Elizabeth was to Fowles and how inseparable she became from his writing. "She became his once and future muse, and would continue to be so until her death, thirty-seven years later," commented Elizabeth Hand in the Washington Post Book World. Hand also stated that Elizabeth "was also often his best reader and editor—it was Elizabeth who pointed out the weaknesses in the original final chapter of The French Lieutenant's Woman, and her insight seems to have inspired the now-famous double endings to the novel." "After she told him that a subsequent effort was hopeless, he stopped showing her his work," noted Richard Eder in the New York Times Book Review. "Warburton's account is painful and excessively detailed, something like a dark version of a family newsletter," Eder concluded.

Although Warburton makes extensive use of the material Fowles gave her, quoting liberally from the documentation, she "is best when on her own" and making her own assessments of Fowles's life and works, commented Christina McCarroll in the Christian Science Monitor. "Her own rare and incisive analysis is a relief, more cogent and satisfying than the plethora of quotations and a far better measure of her skill," added McCarroll. The book is "a hardworking life of a hard-working, justly honored writer, very well told," noted a Kirkus Reviews critic. Booklist contributor Trygve Thoreson remarked, "For anyone interested in Fowles's work and life, this will surely become the definitive biography."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 15, 2004, Trygve Thoreson, review of John Fowles: A Life in Two Worlds, p. 1257.

Christian Science Monitor, May 4, 2004, Christina McCarroll, "A Novelist Who Consumed His Own and Others' Lives; Lost in John Fowles's House of Mirrors," review of John Fowles, p. 16.

Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2004, review of John Fowles, p. 124.

New Leader, March-April, 2004, Brooke Allen, review of John Fowles, p. 23.

New York Times Book Review, March 28, 2004, Richard Eder, "The Uses of Enchantment," review of John Fowles, p. 9.

Publishers Weekly, March 22, 2004, review of John Fowles, p. 81.

Spectator, April 24, 2004, Jeremy Treglown, "A Voracious Collector," review of John Fowles, p. 40.

Washington Post Book World, April 11, 2004, Elizabeth Hand, "The Magic Touch: A Celebrated Writer and His Influential Muse," review of John Fowles, p. 15.