Mantissa — John Fowles

An amnesiac novelist converses with his muse in this “clever and wickedly funny” classic novel by the author of The Collector (Atlantic Monthly).

“A literary delight.” -- Playboy

Literature, love, and lust collide as a writer meets his muse -- and his match -- in John Fowles's most slyly dazzling work of fiction. The writer: Miles Green, a novelist, who awakens in a hospital room, suffering from amnesia. The muse: Erato, who appears alternately as a doctor, a punk, a geisha, a nymph; by turns tender, critical, admiring, and bossy; engaging Miles in a wickedly entertaining and teasingly enigmatic dialogue of words and flesh.

“A jeu d'esprit with a vengeance. . . . Sex and art stare each other down and the contest is a standoff. . . . Fowles raises tantalizing and entertaining questions.” -- Time

“Splendid. . . . It is the best possible evidence of the relationship between John Fowles and his own muse that he can spin a web like this which is so light, and yet so strong.” -- Washington Post Book World

Originally published in 1982.