Wilson, Colin

Wilson, Colin, 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).

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Wilson, Colin (Henry)

(born June 26, 1931, Leicester, Leicestershire, Eng.) British writer. Born into a working-class family, he initially thought of a career in science, then gravitated toward writing. At age 24 he published The Outsider (1957), a study of 20th-century alienation that had phenomenal success. His next book was dismissed as unoriginal or superficial, but Ritual in the Dark (1960) and Adrift in Soho (1961) helped repair his reputation. Many of his more than 70 books deal with the psychology of crime, the occult, human sexuality, and his own existential philosophy. Alien Dawn (1998) discusses the UFO phenomenon.