The Collector

by Mark Healey

Overview

John Fowles's classic story of possession, obsession and love is considered one of the great works in modern literature. Frederick Clegg appears to be an ordinary, slightly shabby clerk. Winning a fortune in the lottery he buys a remote country house, and goes about furnishing it with everything he thinks a beautiful woman could desire.1 woman, 1 man

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780573116032
Publisher:	Samuel French Ltd
Publication date:	03/23/2006
Series:	French's Acting Editions
Pages:	74
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.15(d)

About the Author

John Fowles (1926-2005) was educated at Oxford and subsequently lectured in English at universities in Greece and the UK. The success of his first novel, The Collector, published in 1963, allowed him to devote all his time to writing. His books include the internationally acclaimed and bestselling novels The Magus, The French Lieutenant's Woman, and Daniel Martin. Fowles spent the last decades of his life on the southern coast of England in the small harbor town of Lyme Regis.

Read an Excerpt

"Seeing her always made me feel like I was catching a rarity, going up to it very careful, heart-in-mouth as they say. A Pale Clouded Yellow, for instance. I always thought of her like that, I mean words like elusive and sporadic, and very refined-not like the other ones, even the pretty ones. More for the real connoisseur."
—from The Collector

Editorial Reviews

There is not a page in this first novel which does not prove that its author is a master storyteller.

Fowles launched his career with The Collector, which was welcomed with great critical enthusiasm, including that of LJ's reviewer, who found it "a distinguished first novel" (LJ 8/63). Mantissa, on the other hand, was a departure from the author's more popular material and received only a marginal response (LJ 9/1/82).

Library Journal

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

Alan Bryce-Jones

The Collector is a work of art….It both stirs the mind and satisfies.
—New Republic

Honor Tracy

A bravura first novel….As a horror story, the book is a remarkable tour de force.
—New Yorker

Whitney Balliett

What happens is both symbolic and all too real, beautiful and sickening at once…as resonant as a myth.
—National Review

Guy Davenport

Brilliant. An artist of great imaginative power.”
— Sunday Times

From the Publisher