John Fowles, The Collector, Mantissa

John Fowles is one of the most distinguished and deservedly popular British writers of the 20th century, a modern classic of the highest caliber, and the author of the international bestsellers "The Magus" and "The Ebony Tower," "Daniel Martin" and "The French Lieutenant's Woman." This collection includes two novels:
"The Collector" is Fowles' first novel, but it already contains everything that has allowed the author to remain a favorite of the public and literary critics for many years, amazingly deftly combining a mass readership with the fame of an intellectual writer: subtle reflections and a tightly twisted plot, psychological realism and a mysterious atmosphere, precision of detail and breadth of generalizations, a detective intrigue underlying the plot, and the heights of a philosophical parable;
"Mantissa" is a novel about a novel, a resonant echo of what has been written and only barely discernible sounds of what is yet to be written... And the main character is a writer, a creator, whose sensual fantasy creates a special world; within it, passions rage, from whose captivity even he himself cannot escape.