Colin Wilson, The Outsider

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A most unlikely bestseller,

The Outsider

, billed as “An enquiry into the sickness of mankind in the twentieth century”, and in later editions as “The definitive study of alienation, creativity and the modern mind”, nevertheless ran to ten impressions between late May and early October 1956. In 1985, when the book was in its eighteenth impression, the U.K. publishers, Victor Gollancz, announced that 46,000 copies had been sold in hardback alone. It has now been translated into nearly thirty languages and never been out-of-print in English or Japanese.

An “Outsider” is simply defined as “he who cannot accept life as it is” (82)†. So, in a sense, most of us are Outsiders—after all, who has not, at some point, felt that there is more to life than meets the eye? Wilson,

2746 words

Citation: Stanley, Colin. "The Outsider". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 March 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7317, accessed 29 March 2024.]

7317 The Outsider 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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