Colin Wilson was born on June 26, 1931 in the East Midlands city of Leicester—the first child of Arthur and Annetta Wilson. At the age of eleven he attended Gateway Secondary Technical School, where his interest in science began to blossom. Even at this early age he seemed to be blessed with the self confidence and optimistic belief in his own genius that later was often mistaken for arrogance:
“Secretly I admired Newton, for I imagined him as occupying a place in the hierarchy—Archimedes, Galileo, Newton, Planck, Einstein—which would one day include myself.” (Salwak 5)
By the age of 14 he had compiled a multi-volume work of essays covering all aspects of science entitled
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Citation: Stanley, Colin. "Colin Wilson". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 January 2008; last revised 25 April 2019. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4748, accessed 22 January 2021.]
Articles on Wilson's Works
- A Criminal History of Mankind
- Access to Inner Worlds
- Adrift In Soho
- Beyond the Occult
- Beyond the Outsider: the philosophy of the future
- Eagle and Earwig
- Existential Criticism: selected book reviews
- Existentially Speaking: essays on the philosophy of literature
- Frankenstein’s Castle: the double brain, door to wisdom
- Introduction to the New Existentialism
- Lord of the Underworld: Jung and the twentieth century
- Lulu: an unfinished novel
- Man Without a Shadow: the diary of an existentialist
- Mozart’s Journey to Prague: a playscript
- Mysteries
- Mysteries: an investigation into the occult, the paranormal and the supernatural
- Necessary Doubt
- New Pathways in Psychology: Maslow and the post-Freudian revolution
- Origins of the Sexual Impulse
- Poetry & Mysticism
- Religion and the Rebel
- Ritual in the Dark
- Spider World: Shadowland
- Spider World: the Delta
- Spider World: the Magician
- Spider World: the Tower
- Strindberg
- Super Consciousness: the quest for the peak experience
- The Age of Defeat
- The Angry Years: the rise and fall of the Angry Young Men
- The Bicameral Critic
- The Black Room
- The Books in My Life
- The Craft of the Novel
- The Death of God and other plays
- The Essential Colin Wilson
- The Glass Cage
- The God of the Labyrinth (aka The Hedonists)
- The Janus Murder Case
- The Killer (aka Lingard)
- The Magician from Siberia
- The Metal Flower Blossom
- The Mind Parasites
- The Misfits: a study of sexual outsiders
- The Occult
- The Outsider
- The Personality Surgeon
- The Philosopher’s Stone
- The Quest for Wilhelm Reich
- The Return of the Lloigor
- The Schoolgirl Murder Case
- The Space Vampires (aka Lifeforce)
- The Strength to Dream: literature and the imagination
- The Ultimate Colin Wilson: Writings on Mysticism, Consciousness and Existentialism
- The World of Violence
