The Collector

Frederick Clegg is a lonely, socially isolated clerk who collects butterflies. When he wins a fortune on the football pools, he is freed to pursue a far darker obsession: Miranda Grey, a bright young art student he has watched from a distance for years. He buys an isolated house in the country, prepares a room in the cellar, and kidnaps her — convinced that if he can only keep her long enough, she will come to love him.

The novel unfolds in two voices. First Clegg, chillingly matter-of-fact about his crime; then Miranda's secret diary, which reveals her intelligence, her fear, and her desperate strategies to reach the humanity she hopes lies somewhere in her captor. The gap between how each of them understands the same events becomes the book's engine of dread.

John Fowles's debut is a landmark psychological thriller and a disquieting study of class, control, and the difference between loving someone and wanting to possess them.