Books

The Collector Signed by John Fowles First Edition Jonathan Cape 1963 Variant Black Boards. With the scarce variant black boards. No inscriptions, no foxing or toning. A VG+ book with faint mark to front cover (see image) in the seldom seen black variant boards. In like dust jacket, not price clipped. SIGNED by John Fowles directly to title page without dedication.

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.