Wilson, Colin (Henry) (1931-)

Popular British novelist and writer on occultism who attracted worldwide attention with his first book, The Outsider. He was born on June 26, 1931, in Leicester, England. He was educated at the Gateway School, Leicester, and worked at a great variety of jobs before becoming a writer. In 1947 he was employed by a wool company, and he subsequently worked as a laboratory assistant at a secondary technical school (1947-48) and as a tax collector (1947-49). He spent time in Germany and France, and while in Paris he worked on Merlin and Paris Review. Wilson was writer-in-residence at Hollins College, Virginia (1966-67) and now resides in Cornwall, England.

While preparing his first book The Outsider (1956), Wilson researched at public libraries, slept outdoors, and wrote in coffee houses. The book was an instant success, and the term "outsider" passed into common use as a romantic way to denote a type of brilliant misfit capable of surveying life in an original way. Assuming that role himself, Wilson has shown originality in his other writings, and in recent years he has achieved the status of an authority on popular occultism for his many writings and reviews in that subject area. His major study The Occult (1971) is a substantive survey of the emerging occult community at the beginning of the 1970s. He has produced several books annually through the 1980s to the present. He has continued to reflect upon the world of psychic experience, the occult, and alternative spirituality. His novel, The Space Vampires (1975), was turned into a movie.

Sources:

Wilson, Colin. Beyond the Outsider. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1965.

——. Enigmas and Mysteries. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976.

——. The Essential Colin Wilson. London: Harrap, 1985.

——. The Geller Phenomena. London: Aldus Books, 1976.

——. Mysterious Powers. Reprinted in the United States as They Had Strange Powers. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1975.

——. The Occult. London: Hodder & Stoughton; New York: Random House, 1971.

——. The Unexplained. Lake Oswego, Ore.: Lost Pleiade Press, 1975.

Wilson, Colin, and John Grant, eds. Directory of Possibilities. Exeter, England: Webb & Bower, 1981.