Synopses & Reviews
Heralded as the first modern psychological thriller, The Collector is the riveting story of Frederick Clegg, an obscure little clerk with a penchant for butterfly collecting who nets his finest specimen in the form of the soft, lovely, twenty-year-old Miss Miranda Grey. A captivating tale of relentless obsession told from the dual perspectives of captive and captor, this debut novel is a chilling portrait of psychosis from the hand of a living master.
Review
"In loving attention to detail, in the quick snatch of a significant inflection, there is not a page in this first novel which does not prove that its author is a master storyteller." New York Times Book Review
Review
"This extraordinary tour de force may be read as a thriller...or it may be read as a study of morbid psychology." Guardian
Review
"A first novel of much talent and horror...a haunting, memorable book." The London Times Literary Supplement
Review
"Here is a first novel of much talent and horror, and consequently interesting promise....As a novel that is trying to make a serious moral statement and making it seriously and well, The Collector deserves attention, and the more so because Mr. Fowles brings to it the proper gifts of the novelist. His storytelling transcends the difficult and limited structure he has imposed on himself....This is already a haunting and memorable book, and it will be interesting to see how it wears." Times Literary Supplement
Synopsis
The Collector (1963) is disturbing, engrossing, unforgettable the story of an obsessive young man and the girl he kidnaps and holds prisoner in his cellar.
Synopsis
"A superb novel...Evil has seldom been so sinister." --Time
Hailed as the first modern psychological thriller, The Collector is the internationally bestselling novel that catapulted John Fowles into the front rank of contemporary novelists. This tale of obsessive love--the story of a lonely clerk who collects butterflies and of the beautiful young art student who is his ultimate quarry--remains unparalleled in its power to startle and mesmerize.
"A bravura first novel...As a horror story, this book is a remarkable tour de force." --New Yorker
Synopsis
Hailed as the first modern psychological thriller, The Collector is the internationally bestselling novel that catapulted John Fowles into the front rank of contemporary novelists. This tale of obsessive love--the story of a lonely clerk who collects butterflies and of the beautiful young art student who is his ultimate quarry--remains unparalleled in its power to startle and mesmerize.
About the Author
John Fowles's works of fiction include The Collector, The Magus, The French Lieutenant's Woman, Mantissa, and A Maggot. He is also the author of The Aristos: A Self-Portrait of Ideas, Poems, Shipwreck, Islands, and The Enigma of Stonehenge. He lives in Lyme Regis, Dorset, England.