Wilson was born in Leicester, England, on June 26, 1931 into a working class family, which he says he considers not to be "of any particular importance" except to motivate him to escape from the extreme drabness of such an environment. His father was a "worker in the boot and shoe trade," and Wilson has described him as being rather frustrated with his life, and apparently he and his sons kept their distance from each other out of a mutual irritation. Wilson has said little about his mother, who remained a housewife, although she too seems to have been extremely ordinary in her time and place. Wilson has one sibling, his brother Barry, born one year after him.
Wilson did not learn to read until he was 7 or 8, but once he did he set himself the task of reading everything in sight. Among his earliest influences Wilson has mentioned comics, romance and detective magazines, and P.G. Wodehouse. At his aunt's home he also discovered a number of pulp magazines, including Weird Tales, which he immediately delved into, to the chagrin of his uncle, who never invited him to return after finding them. Wilson says that he spent most of his childhood in a "dream world," extremely bored and dissatisfied with the world around him.
When Wilson was 10, his grandfather gave him his first science fiction magazine. It excited him greatly, and soon afterwards an uncle gave him some copies of a science magazine entitled Armchair Science. Wilson says that this discovery reminded him of when he was 7 and he had been taught about dinosaurs in school - "it seemed incredible that no one had ever before offered me such an important piece of information." Reading now became for Wilson not merely an entertainment, but a means of accumulating knowledge. Soon Wilson knew that he wanted to understand everything. He read voraciously about science, and labored for long hours over his chemistry set. Other things began to interest him, and he frequented the local movie theaters and roamed on his bicycle, exploring the caves at Matlock Bath. His life suddenly began to seem exciting, charged as it now was with the energies of fantasy.
By age 13 Wilson was also beginning to have the first intimations of sexual awareness. He had his first girlfriend at this time, but she soon dropped him in favor of his best friend. Depressed by this, Wilson wrote his first "book" to overcome his misery. At first he tried to summarize everything he knew about science, but as he worked he began to want to include more and more subject areas. He continued to read, and soon he began to move beyond the physical sciences into psychology and philosophy. Soon his little project had succeeded in filling six notebooks. Wilson says that this project was valuable to his development because it taught him "how to work for my own pleasure" and "how to think."
Philosophy puzzled Wilson at first, seeming to have no connection to the world at all, but Joad's rendering of Berkeley's ideas struck a chord with him, particularly Berkeley's idea that color is an invention of the senses. He realized that this implied that the entire universe could simply be an invention of our minds. Such an idea was frightening to the young Wilson.
Also at this time Wilson became interested in Einstein's Theory of Relativity. However, Einstein's ideas also served to shatter Wilson's youthful faith in the objective world. He didn't know how to deal with them. Freud and Adler contributed to his confusion. Wilson became filled with dread at the prospect of "living in a universe without certainties."
Wilson found himself embroiled in the modern predicament even before he had had any experience of life. Reason had failed him. He recalled how, in childhood, he had believed that moments of delight, such as Christmas morning, were somehow more real than the rest of life. Now he could no longer believe that there was any meaning in anything. Every human being seemed to be motivated by nothing but delusion. The acquisition of knowledge was of no value in and of itself. His newly-developed sexual feelings only served to worsen his torment and the sense that he was "out of touch with reality." Life seemed entirely futile.
Wilson decided to leave school at 16 in order to pursue a career as a scientist,but a low grade in math on his matriculation exam made this impossible. He could not return to school as his father insisted that he begin earning money. Wilson ended up taking a job in a wool factory. Wilson hated the job, consoling himself in his free time by reading the works of the great English poets, the only time when he felt truly free.
After only a month at the factory Wilson's old school offered him a position as a laboratory assistant. He retook the math exam and this time received the credit that he needed. However, Wilson's interest was rapidly moving away from science and he had already begun work on a play - a work heavily influenced by George Bernard Shaw's "Man and Superman." He accepted the job and began taking night classes in science, but writing was now Wilson's primary interest. Stuck in a job in which he no longer had any interest, he found himself back in the same predicament of meaninglessness.
Wilson became so frustrated that one day he decided to kill himself. Enrolled in a class in analytical chemistry, he walked into class one evening with every intention of swallowing cyanide. But at the moment he was about to ingest it, he saw himself as two people - one being the depressed Wilson, the other being his real, and as yet unknown, self. Deciding that he couldn't sacrifice the unknown Wilson due to his own depression, he replaced the bottle and felt invigorated with life - for a few days.
After a year Wilson took the exams, and his grades reflected his lack of interest in the subject. The school offered to keep him on, but recognizing the futility of staying, he resigned. He then took a job as a civil servant in a tax office, which needless to say didn't succeed in exciting his interests either. He continued to write, and even sent stories to magazines, but they were invariably rejected.
Wilson was transferred to another tax office in Rugby, finding it no better than Leicester. He continued to read and write. When he turned 18, he was required to register for the National Service, and he decided that he would join the Royal Air Force in order to learn how to fly. Wilson hated the restrictive military lifestyle but he was not bored, and actually enjoyed the structure and activity involved in his training. Once his training was completed, however, he was assigned to Nottingham as a junior clerk for an anti-aircraft unit, and soon he was back where he had started.
His discontentment reached a peak one day when a Flight Lieutenant asked him if he wasn't ashamed of his bad typing. Wilson, fed up, said no. To Wilson's surp rise, instead of disciplining him the officer sympathized with his unhappiness a nd said that if the Medical Officer would certify him as emotionally unstable he could get a transfer to a medical unit. As Wilson had decided that becoming a medical orderly would offer him more freedom, he accepted. He went to the Medic al Officer and explained that he was having difficulties with military life due to his homosexuality. The plan worked better than Wilson had expected. He was questioned by the RAF police, who demanded that he identify all homosexuals in t he camp. Wilson knew of some genuine homosexuals but refused to betray them. The y told him that they would not release him until he cooperated. The officer, up on hearing of Wilson's predicament, sent him home on leave. A few weeks later, he was called in to see a Wing Commander (who Wilson later learned was homosexual) who officially discharged him from the RAF.
His freedom restored, Wilson vowed to never take a boring job again. It was now 1950. He took brief jobs as a farmhand and as a ditch-digger. If not interesting jobs, Wilson had found that physical labor at least prevented boredom. At this time, a reference in a T.S. Eliot poem led Wilson to the Bhagavad-Gita, and he began to practice meditation. Wilson found that meditation helped him to overcome the depression that had plagued him since his teenage years. His life grew infinitely more satisfying.
It was during the summer of 1950 that Wilson had his first sexual experience. This, too, helped to release Wilson from his boredom. However, the girl's determination to marry him alarmed him, and with scarcely any money he left for France. In Paris he befriended a millionaire philosopher, Raymond Duncan, who was espousing the philosophy of "Actionalism." Finding that they had much in common, Duncan offered Wilson a place to stay and to train him as a printer in the "Akademia Duncan." Wilson remained for a few weeks but found the place uninteresting, travelled eastward on his bicycle, but his lack of funds forced him to return to Leicester in December.
Wilson found work in various mundane jobs, and soon found himself stuck in the same, persistent hopelessness. He began to write a novel called Ritual of the Dead, based on Jack the Ripper, and essays on literary themes. He became involved in a relationship with Betty, who was ten years older than he. She became pregnant, and Wilson's parents forced him to marry her. Wilson did and they moved to London. However, as they had very little money, they found it almost impossible to afford a place that was big enough for all three of them. After 18 months of nomadic life, Betty returned to Leicester. It was the end of their marriage.
Wilson worked at various jobs, and returned to France briefly. During a job as a carpet salesman in Leicester, Wilson met Joy Stewart and fell in love with her. After persuading her to break off an engagement to another man, she joined him in London in February 1953. After a few months more of tedious jobs, Wilson at last decided to give up paying rent and ended up sleeping in a waterproof sleeping bag on Hampstead Heath. With just barely enough food to eat, Wilson spent his days in the Reading Room in the British Museum (where Karl Marx and Shaw had composed masterpieces) and worked on his novel, which he now called Ritual in the Dark. He also conducted research.
One day, asking a librarian to help him locate T.S. Eliot's essay "Ulysses, Order and Myth," the problem ended up in the hands of the novelist Angus Wilson, who was the superintendent of the Reading Room at the time. In conversation Colin told Angus what he was working on, and he offered to read the manuscript. Wilson rapidly completed the first part and gave it to him to read over the Christmas holiday.
By now, the weather had grown severe and Wilson was forced to return to work, finding a place to live in New Cross. Over Christmas Wilson began to conceive of another book, which he called The Outsider in Literature, which contained ideas he wanted to put into Ritual in the Dark but which he knew would overload it with theory. Inspired by Henri Barbusse's novel L'Enfer, Wilson was soon at work on the second book.
Wilson ended up working nights as a dishwasher so that he could spend his days in the Reading Room. Angus Wilson read the first part of Ritual and encouraged him to finish it. However, Colin decided to finish The Outsider in Literature first. Having read and been impressed by an anthology of religious mysticism entitled A Year of Grace, edited by the publisher Victor Gollancz, Wilson sent him the first chapter of The Outsider with an outline for the rest. Wilson's mother became ill when he was only halfway done with the manuscript; Wilson submitted the completed half and returned home. When he came back to London, he found an acceptance letter from Gollancz and an advance. Wilson finished the book, and The Outsider finally appeared in May 1956.
By this time, Joy and Wilson were at last able to live together, and they took an apartment in Notting Hill Gate, in a house in which Dylan Thomas had once lived. The appearance of The Outsider caused an uproar. It was almost unanimously hailed by reviewers as a masterpiece, and reviews appeared under such headlines as "He's a major writer, and he's only 24!" Wilson was soon being interviewed by everybody, including Time and Life. The book was a bestseller in both England and America, and within a year it was translated into a dozen languages. The situation overwhelmed Wilson. After the initial rush, however, Wilson began to feel irritated by all the attention, and felt that he was betraying the very principles he had been writing about. "My 'success' itself was an absurd paradox;" he later wrote, "I was being rewarded for telling society how much I detested it." He came to understand that the people interviewing him had no understanding of his work but saw him as some kind of freak.
Coincidentally, a week before the appearance of Wilson's book, the young John Osborne's play "Look Back in Anger" had been performed for the first time, and had a similar reception as Wilson's book. Thus the "Angry Young Man" movement in literature was christened by the press. Wilson found himself the frequent subject of gossip columns and was pestered by reporters on the most banal issues. It got to be so bad that the Daily Express once reported that Wilson had been seen on line at a movie theater.
After a few weeks of wild reception, however, the attitudes towards Wilson's book took a turn for the worse, as serious critics had grown irritated with the banality that had surrounded it and its author. The Sunday Times offered Wilson a job as a regular critic the day after the book's publication, but only printed two of his reviews. Their gossip columnist called The Outsider a coffee table book, more often bought than read. Angus Wilson warned Colin that if such publicity continued, he would never be taken seriously as a writer. This turned out to be the case, as no other writers acknowledged the book at all, except for Arthur Koestler, who called it "bubble of the year."
Early in 1957, the final blow was dealt. One evening Joy and Wilson were having dinner in their apartment with Gerald Hamilton (on whom Mr. Norris in Christopher Isherwood's Last of Mr. Norris is based), a homosexual, when Joy's parents suddenly burst in. Joy's father was armed with a horsewhip, shouting, "The game is up, Wilson!" Joy's parents had always disliked him, but her sister claimed to have read Wilson's diaries and that they proved that he was a homosexual and had several mistresses. What Joy's sister had actually seen were Wilson's notes for Ritual in the Dark. As Joy was over 21, her parents could not force her to do anything, and Wilson called the police. Unfortunately, Gerald Hamilton had decided to alert the newspapers. Within minutes, the Daily Mirror reports were on the scene. Wilson gave them an interview but soon his apartment was besieged with reporters. Joy and Wilson succeeded in sneaking away and left London, but this only added fuel to the fires of gossip. When Wilson returned to London he was contacted by Victor Gollancz, who told him, "For God's sake get out of London or you'll never write another book." Wilson agreed, and he and Joy decided to rent a cottage in Cornwall, where they remain to this day.
Unfortunately, the damage was done, and no one took Wilson seriously anymore. Undaunted, Wilson commenced work on a sequel to The Outsider dealing with religious outsiders which he called The Rebel. He argued that the Outsider does not need to be an exile from society but can also be an important force for change within it. Gollancz persuaded Wilson to change the title to Religion and the Rebel and it was published in the autumn of 1957. It was as unanimously rejected as The Outsider had been praised. The world was sick of both Wilson and the Anrgy Young Men in general. Wilson was called an intellectual fraud.
Wilson was upset by these reviews, but he was also relieved that no one was interested in him anymore. A few weeks after the appearance of his second book, he went to give a lecture in Oslo, Norway. He expected the worst, but instead he discovered that the Norwegians cared nothing about his personal life but wanted to know only about his ideas. The trip renewed his confidence. Wilson decided that his failure had been an important lesson, and that now he must attempt to prove the ideas that he had set forth in his books, showing that the Outsider could indeed work alone. His success had been a false success that had led him astray; now he could pursue his true goal.
If nothing else, success had given Wilson one important thing: money. Despite the bad publicity, Wilson's books were continuing to sell well. He was now secure from the endless drudgery which had dogged his youth. They weren't living a life of luxury, but he and Joy were living comfortably and happily. They even had enough money to purchase a larger house in Cornwall, one large enough to house Wilson's massive collection of books and records.
Wilson continued to work on Ritual in the Dark, and it was finally published in 1960. Wilson went on to write the other four books in the Outsider Cycle (see the bibliography for the others), but the critics continued to ignore him. Still, the books sold well enough that Wilson and Joy were able to eke out a precarious existence. Wilson was contacted by the psychologist Abraham Maslow, who was intrigued with Wilson's work, and he related the discoveries he had made which strongly paralleled Wilson's own conclusions. The basis of his work is the idea of "key experiences" - moments of sudden and extreme happiness. Maslow, as Wilson, believed that truly happy people have these experiences on an ordinary basis, and that if people were more aware of them, they could have them all the time. This concept is a cornerstone in both writers' work.
Wilson grew more and more intrigued with this concept, and began to believe that peak experiences were brought about when reality is grasped by the mind rather than by the automatic responses which get us through everyday life. This ability which enables people to grasp reality consciously was labelled "Faculty X" by Wilson. As Wilson was developing these theories, Wilson was approached by a publisher who wished him to write a book on the occult. Wilson accepted, as he realized that his researches were leading him in the direction of the paranormal.
The book, The Occult, was printed in 1971. Suddenly, many of the reviewers who had been attacking Wilson since 1956 began to give him a warmer reception. The book was a financial success. Wilson also began to realize that, despite the critical failure of his books, he had acquired a large and regular audience of readers, and he discovered that there was even a Colin Wilson Society in London.
Of Wilson's life since that time, he has said little. But considering the enormous output of his work, which persists up to the present day, an account of that period would no doubt be more of an intellectual than a biographical story, which is what this piece aims to be. I have derived the above account from Wilson's own 1988 book Autobiographical Reflections. A more thorough and lengthy autobiography, although significantly older, is Voyage to a Beginning. There are also a number of biographies of Wilson available, the most recent being Howard F. Dossor's Colin Wilson: The Man and His Mind.
Back to the Colin Wilson Page.