The Collector has been adapted as a film and several times as a play. It's also referred to in various songs, television episodes and books; one example is in Stephen King's book Misery, when the protagonist Paul Sheldon hopes that Annie Wilkes is not familiar with "John Fowles's first novel."
The novel was adapted as a feature film by the same name in 1965. The screenplay was by Stanley Mann and John Kohn, and it was directed by William Wyler, who turned down The Sound of Music to direct it. It starred Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar. The 1980 Tamil language film Moodu Pani, according to its director Balu Mahendra, is partly based on The Collector. The novel was also loosely adapted by Filipino director Mike de Leon into a film titled Bilanggo sa Dilim (Prisoner in the Dark) in 1986. The 1997 Finnish drama film Neitoperho was loosely inspired by the novel, according to the film's director.[16]
A stage adaptation by the actor Brian McDermott (writing as David Parker)[17] was first performed in 1971;[18] among its earliest productions was a West End presentation at the St Martin's Theatre in 1974, with Marianne Faithfull as Miranda and Simon Williams as Clegg.[19] Another adaptation - written, again, by an actor: Mark Healy - was first performed at Derby Playhouse in October 1998,[20] later appearing at Sweden's Gothenburg English Studio Theatre in April 2007.[21] Yet another adaptation, by Tim Dalgleish and Caz Tricks, was written for Bare Bones Theatre Company (of Wolverton, Milton Keynes) in 1997.[22]
In October 2021, Suntup Editions announced a limited 1000 editions of the novel with an introduction by Bradford Morrow and six illustrations by David Álvarez.[23]
