Charles Smithson, a respectable scientist, is engaged to the charming Ernestina Freeman; but a chance encounter with Sarah Woodruff; the most ravishingly beautiful thing he had ever seen changes everything. Sarah is a 'fallen' women, a social outcast; and, in the respectable middle-class society of Lyme Regis in 1867, Charles risks everything in pursuit of her.

John Fowles's compelling narrative, exploring the consequences of this relationship for all who are touched by it, has made 'The French Lieutenant's Woman' a modern classic.