Colin Wilson, Spider World: Shadowland

Nicolas Tredell (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of Glasgow), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 2003

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Spider World: Shadowland

(2003) is Colin Wilson’s twentieth novel and the fourth in a quartet that, taken as a whole, represents his most sustained attempt to embody his key ideas in fictional form. After finishing the third volume,

Spider World: The Magician

(1992), Wilson had not immediately embarked on a fourth, partly because his publishers did not commission one and partly because, by his own account in his autobiography

Dreaming to Some Purpose

(2004), the effort of writing

Magician

“had left [his] imagination exhausted” (383). But the interest of an American publisher, Frank DeMarco, in the first three volumes encouraged him to write another, which he did in 18 months, finding that his long layoff from the project had allowed his imagination to recover.

Shadowland

appeared 11…

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2752 words

Citation: Tredell, Nicolas. "Spider World: Shadowland". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 May 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=24022, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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