“All the time I felt I was being watched, that I was not alone, that I was putting on an act for the benefit of someone…”

 Nicholas Urfe is a young, middle-class chauvinist fresh out of University.  Armed with the cynical confidence of a naïve intellectual, he sets his sight on a teaching job in Phraxos, an idyllic Greek island in the Mediterranean.  But when he encounters the estate of aging recluse Maurice Conchis, Urfe is swept up in an unnerving psychological game of temptation and deceit…

 Revised in 1977, The Magus remains Fowles’ most exhilarating novel, a psychoanalytical page-turner where nothing is quite as it seems.  Its pace and philosophical musings continue to make it a favourite among young adults everywhere, and its conclusion is guaranteed to leave a lasting impression on even the most self-righteous idealist.

 Tom Goulding