Colin Wilson, The Glass Cage

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The Glass Cage

(1966), Colin Wilson’s sixth novel, could be called a metaphysical thriller, like his first novel

Ritual in the Dark

(1960) and his fifth,

Necessary Doubt

(1964). Wilson himself has said that in

Cage

he was “deliberately constructing a plot that parallels that of

Ritual”

(Wilson (1969), 159) and that he was “reworking the basic themes” of his first novel “in an attempt to create a clearer contrast between the psychology of the criminal and the mystic” (Wilson (1975), 236). Where

Ritual

centred on the hunt for a modern Jack the Ripper,

The Glass Cage

is driven by the hunt for a serial killer who bears some resemblance to the real-life figure known as “Jack the Stripper” whose eight female victims were found stripped naked, mostly on the foreshore of the…

4304 words

Citation: Tredell, Nicolas. "The Glass Cage". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 June 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=23928, accessed 27 November 2024.]

23928 The Glass Cage 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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