Colin Wilson

Colin Wilson 1931-, English writer, b. Leicester. Born into a working-class family and largely self-educated, Wilson in many of his books exhorts humankind to expand its powers and realize its full potential. He first gained critical attention with The Outsider (1956), the individual who realizes that life is futile and that society conceals this unpleasant truth. Wilson has written more than 100 works, both nonfiction and fiction, and has shown a considerable interest in mystery, murder, and the occult. Among his books are Beyond the Outsider (1965), The Glass Cage (1966), Bernard Shaw: A Reassessment (1969), Order of Assassins (1972), Hesse, Reich, Borges (1974), Life Force (1985), Beyond the Occult (1988), Alien Dawn (1998), and Devil's Party (2000).

Bibliography: See his Autobiographical Reflections (1988); studies by S. R. Campion (1962), J. A. Wiegel (1975), C. P. Bendau (1979), N. Tredell (1982), K. G. Bergström (1983), J. Moorhouse (1989), H. F. Dossor (1990), and G. Lachman (1994); annotated bibliography by C. Stanley (1989).

Wilson, Colin Henry (1931– ), was brought up in Leicester, and left school at sixteen. The Outsider (1956) describes the sense of alienation of the man of genius, using a mixture of texts, from Barbusse, Camus, Sartre, T. E. Lawrence, Hesse, etc. and did much to popularize a version of existentialism in Britain. It earned him the label of Angry Young Man. Wilson has since written many works on mysticism, existentialism, the occult, etc., and published many novels in various genres.