Books

First edition ( the likely first issue, in variant black cloth). Hardcover. Neat ownership signature at the top corner of the front free endpaper, and date (1964) at the bottom corner, otherwise fine in very fine price-clipped dustjacket (the majority of black cloth copies are price- clipped jackets) with a couple tiny professionally closed tears at the head of the spine, wonderfully illustrated in colour by Tom Adams. The author's important first novel, a psychological thriller about a repressed clerk and butterfly collector who spends a fortune won at the football pools on the kidnapping of a female art student (a similar theme has been used subsequently by Thomas Harris in "The Silence of the Lambs", and by scores of modern writers of pyschological thrillers, usually with less emphasis on the pyschology and atmosphere and more on the perverse violence and forensics). Made into a William Wyler film in 1965, starring Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar. This is a copy in charcoal-coloured (black) papered boards, no top edge stain, of which maybe a dozen copies have been noted in the last 60 some years. This was most likely a trial or variant binding, rather than an issue of any substantial number. The charcoal-papered binding was a standard "house cloth" for Cape at the time (used on most of the Ian Fleming 'Bond' books, for example), and it is probable the bindery BEGAN the production of the case in the charcoal colour before directions were given for the rust-coloured binding and matching top edge stain of the standard issue, which is perhaps a slightly better match for the predominately cream-coloured jacket. On the other hand, the variant charcoal-coloured boards match the large key in Adams' illustration, as well as the black lettering of "The Collector" on the front panel and spine of the jacket, so the chance first issue is every bit as aesthetically pleasing as the standard issue. The bibliographical importance of all this is debatable, but the scarcity of the black cloth issue is not in question (in a ratio of maybe 1/100 for the rust-coloured standard version).

The Collector is the debut novel of English author John Fowles. It was first published in 1963 by Jonathan Cape and is about a lonely young man, Frederick Clegg, who works as a clerk in a city hall and collects butterflies in his spare time. Clegg is infatuated with Miranda Grey, a middle-class art student at the Slade School of Art. Unable to make any contact with her but obsessed with his unrelenting desire, Clegg decides to add her to his 'collections' by kidnapping her and holding her captive in the cellar of his rural farmhouse. What follows is a chilling exploration of power, art, freedom, and the consequences of human actions.