THE COLLECTOR

First edition with these illustrations. Limited edition. Signed by the illustrator and author of the afterword. Publisher's original black cloth with gilt titles and red insect decoration to the spine, with butterfly illustration stamped in blind to the upper board. Housed in the red and black cloth slipcase. Top edge red. Black satin bookmark. Text printed in black and red. With a two-page fold-out title page, boldly illustrated with wood engravings by Vladimir Zimakov and four further wood engravings by Zimakov throughout. A lovely fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth and gilt bright and fresh. The contents are clean throughout, and without previous owners' inscriptions or stamps. Housed in the fine, structurally sound slipcase.

Issued in an edition of 100 copies, from which this example is numbered 48, and signed by the illustrator Vladimir Zimakov and the author of the afterword Laird Barron in black ink on the colophon. A facsimile of the author John Fowles' signature in black is also present on the colophon. The origins of the French-language epigraph quotation 'Que fors aus ne le sot riens nee' have been traced back to Medieval French manuscripts, and can be roughly translated as 'No one except for the two of them knew anything of it'. First published in 1963, 'The Collector' is John Fowles' debut novel.