Shortly after taken up the teaching position, Urfe discovers a remote villa while exploring the island. I’m not entirely sure why I left it until the final three, other than simply to say I had no reason to read it sooner.įirst published in 1965 by British author John Fowles, The Magus tells the tale of Nicholas Urfe, a young Oxford graduate who, after a short-lived relationship with an Australian called Alison, takes a job teaching at a private boys’ school on a beautiful Greek Island, Phraxos. One of our clients was Harlequin – the publishing house that owns Mills & Boon – and an author on their books told me it was her favourite novel.

The only time The Magus has been on my radar since beginning my challenge, was a number of years ago when I was working for a boutique PR agency in Chiswick. Two of them were sic-fi a genre that I don’t think I’ll ever be a fan of, one of them Ulysses – a book cited by many as one of the most lexically dense novels ever written, and the fourth and final was The Magus, a book I knew almost nothing about. With the exception of Lord of the Rings – a book I hope to enjoy given its top ranking on the list – the remaining four certainly didn’t fill me with joy. I had all but written off the final five of the BBC Big Read.

The magus john