The Glass Cage
Published on 8. July 2014
Book
Paperback/Softback
244 pages
978-1-941147-29-0 (ISBN)
Description
"Intelligent psycho-thriller . . . the plot is ingenious, well-turned and never facile. A compulsive damp Saturday afternoon read." - Observer
"Literate and enthralling . . . Far beyond the conventional mystery." - Hollywood Reporter
"I read with something like fascination this extraordinary book about a multiple murderer who accompanies each corpse with a quotation from Blake." - Guardian
"[A] splendid story . . . a gripping thriller about lust and perversion." - Sunday Times (London)
A series of brutal and bizarre murders has London on edge. Near the dismembered corpse of each victim, the killer has scrawled cryptic quotations from the eighteenth-century mystic poet William Blake. Baffled, the police enlist the aid of Damon Reade, a brilliant but reclusive Blake scholar, who reluctantly agrees to help. Reade's combination of instinctive deduction and psychic penetration leads him to Gaylord Sundheim, who may be the murderer. But when Reade befriends Sundheim and becomes convinced he is incapable of having committed the crimes, is he right and Sundheim innocent? Or is Reade falling into a clever psychopath's deadly trap that could make him the next victim?
Colin Wilson (1931-2013) called The Glass Cage (1966) "perhaps my own favourite among my novels". Both a page-turning serial killer mystery and an exploration of Wilson's philosophical ideas, The Glass Cage was praised by critics on its original appearance and remains just as gripping and compulsively readable today. This edition, the first since 1978, includes a new introduction by Geoff Ward.
"Literate and enthralling . . . Far beyond the conventional mystery." - Hollywood Reporter
"I read with something like fascination this extraordinary book about a multiple murderer who accompanies each corpse with a quotation from Blake." - Guardian
"[A] splendid story . . . a gripping thriller about lust and perversion." - Sunday Times (London)
A series of brutal and bizarre murders has London on edge. Near the dismembered corpse of each victim, the killer has scrawled cryptic quotations from the eighteenth-century mystic poet William Blake. Baffled, the police enlist the aid of Damon Reade, a brilliant but reclusive Blake scholar, who reluctantly agrees to help. Reade's combination of instinctive deduction and psychic penetration leads him to Gaylord Sundheim, who may be the murderer. But when Reade befriends Sundheim and becomes convinced he is incapable of having committed the crimes, is he right and Sundheim innocent? Or is Reade falling into a clever psychopath's deadly trap that could make him the next victim?
Colin Wilson (1931-2013) called The Glass Cage (1966) "perhaps my own favourite among my novels". Both a page-turning serial killer mystery and an exploration of Wilson's philosophical ideas, The Glass Cage was praised by critics on its original appearance and remains just as gripping and compulsively readable today. This edition, the first since 1978, includes a new introduction by Geoff Ward.
More details
Edition
Revised ed.
Language
English
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
331 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-941147-29-0 (9781941147290)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Colin Wilson was born in Leicester in 1931. He was a novelist, critic, historian, and philosopher. His novels and essays share a common interest in consciousness and the meaning and purpose of existence. His philosophy, which he called "New Existentialism," is built on an optimistic approach to "Old Existentialism." His first book, The Outsider, was internationally acclaimed and became an instant bestseller. His work has been translated into Spanish, French, Swedish, Dutch, Japanese, German, Italian, Portuguese, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Arabic and Hebrew. He died in Cornwall in 2013.