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 …
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Citation: Tredell, Nicolas. "The Glass Cage". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 June 2008 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=23928, accessed 26 November 2024.]