The Collector

By: John Fowles

Narrated by: Daniel Rigby, Hannah Murray

Brought to you by Penguin.

Withdrawn, uneducated and unloved, Frederick is a loner who collects butterflies and takes photographs. He is obsessed with a beautiful stranger, the art student Miranda, whom he watches from afar. When he wins the pools, he buys a remote Sussex country house and painstakingly works to make the cellar a comfortable prison. He then calmly abducts Miranda, believing that she will inevitably grow to love him in time if she just gets to know him.

Alone and desperate, Miranda must struggle to overcome her own prejudices and contempt if she is understand her captor and gain her freedom.

Taught and utterly compelling, Fowles' debut novel The Collector was an instant best seller when it was published in 1963. It is regarded as one of the best thrillers of all time with one of the most terrifying villains to have ever been created on the page.

©1963 John Fowles (P)2021 Penguin Audio

One of those books that leave a scar

Fowles' writing style of splitting the book into two halves, one told by the perpertrater and the other by the victim creates great dynamics, however it does feel in parts like listening to same story twice over, which is a bit of a bore. The background story should help to add a bit of intrigue throughout the retelling, but personally I didn't find the backstory to be particularly compelling. Anyway, other times, the split narrative does work well and has you on edge as details of certain scenes are revealed from an alternative perspective. It's clever writing, a decent read. One of those books that leaves a scar.