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Portrait image of John Fowles Photo: Ulf Andersen / Hulton Archive via Getty Images (1987)

Sample of authors

Fowles, John

John Robert Fowles was born in a middle-class family in the Essex town of Leigh-on-Sea. His father, Robert Fowles, dreamt of a career in the legal profession, but when the First World War broke out he was instead forced to take over the family's tobacco business. His mother, Gladys May, was a housewife. Fowles grew up in the security of a terraced housing estate, but later in life he confessed...

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Portrait image of Eric Ambler Photo: Ullstein Bild / Getty Images (1982)

Sample of authors

Ambler, Eric

Eric Clifford Ambler was a British author and playwright born in London. His parents were music hall artists, and at the end of the 1920s he joined them on tour. He attended Colfe's Grammar School and studied engineering at University of London between 1925 and 1928. He entered the advertising business in the 1930s, in 1937 he became head of a London advertising agency and a year later he began...

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