Wilson, Colin (1931-2013), a British author, achieved international fame at the age of 25 with his first book, The Outsider (1956). The book is a wide-ranging, unorthodox study of nonconformism in culture and society. In The Outsider, Wilson traced alienation through the lives and works of many major intellectual figures of the 1900’s.
Wilson wrote more than 70 books, including many novels as well as nonfiction works on philosophy, sociology, music, literature, sexuality, crime, and the supernatural. His nonfiction works include Religion and the Rebel (1957), The World of Violence (1963), Beyond the Outsider (1964), The Occult (1971), The Geller Phenomenon (1977), Existential Essays (1985), The Musician as “Outsider” (1987), and Poltergeist: A Study in Destructive Haunting (1993). Beginning with Ritual in the Dark (1960), Wilson’s novels include Adrift in Soho (1961), The God of the Labyrinth (also published as The Hedonist, 1979), A Criminal History of Mankind (1984), The Personality Surgeon (1985), and The Magician from Siberia (1988). His fiction deals with outsiders who try to cope with alienation or the absence of meaning in their lives.
Colin Henry Wilson was born on June 26, 1931, in Leicester, England. He wrote an autobiography, Voyage to a Beginning (1969) as well as Autobiographical Reflections (1988). Wilson died on Dec. 5, 2013.
