The classic meditation on creativity and the natural world "For years I have carried this book. . . with me on travels to reread, ponder, envy. In prose of classic gravity, precision, and delicacy, Fowles addresses matters of final importance." -W. S. Merwin, Los Angeles Times Book Review "The Tree is the fullest and finest exploration I've ever read of how the useless delights to be discovered in nature can ripen into the practice of art." -Lewis...

When film actors Mike and Anna play Charles and Sarah, an engaged young Victorian man and the cast-off mistress of a French lieutenant, they find their own relationship paralleling the roles that they play.