Remembering Colin Wilson
(June 26, 1931–December 5, 2013)

619 words

Colin Henry Wilson (June 26, 1931–December 5, 2013) was an extraordinarily prolific English author of well over 100 books, both fiction and non-fiction, including volumes on philosophy, literature, psychology, religion, crime, sex, music, mysticism, and the paranormal, as well as a number of biographies and memoirs. From a working-class home and largely self-educated, Wilson left school at age 16. He worked odd jobs, drifted from city to city, and was sometimes homeless, all in pursuit of a dream. A prolific and ambitious writer even in his youth, Wilson became famous when Gollancz published his first book, The Outsider,  in 1956.

The Outsider deals with alienation in the works of such artists and philosophers as Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, Blake, Camus, Sartre, Gurdjieff, Kafka, Eliot, Hesse, and van Gogh, as well as T.  E. Lawrence. The Outsider was a resounding success with both critics and readers, became a best-seller, and has never gone out of print. It launched Wilson as a professional writer. The Outsider dealt primarily with “existentialist” themes. Wilson thought of himself primarily as a philosopher. He called himself a phenomenologist and an existentialist. He called his worldview the “new existentialism,” which he sought to infuse with a Nietzschean vitalism and “optimism.”

You can buy North American New Right vol. 2 here

I have read many of Wilson’s books over the years. I felt we were kindred spirits. He had a fundamentally open and inquiring character, a vivid imagination, a love of the humorous and bizarre, and a winning way with anecdotes. I also found inspiration in his career as a self-educated and self-employed intellectual.

Colin Wilson was a quiet man of the Right for most of his life. Briefly an anarchist in his youth, as he grew older he became more openly conservative, although this was rarely evident in his writing, as he considered it inappropriate for creative individuals to engage with politics at all. (A rare exception was a 1987 anthology of essays by other authors, including Margaret Thatcher, that he co-edited with his friend Ronald Duncan entitled Marx Refuted.) His conservatism likewise never constrained his fundamental openness and curiosity. Thus he maintained friendships with such figures of the radical Right as Bill Hopkins and Sir Oswald Mosley.

Over the years, Counter-Currents has published a number of works on Wilson, and we would like to publish many more. Thus it is appropriate to add Wilson to our pantheon of birthday commemorations. If you would like an overview of Wilson’s life and work, I recommend that you begin with John Morgan’s tribute, “A Heroic Vision for Our Time: The Life & Ideas of Colin Wilson,” written upon his death. John actually knew Wilson and has read far more of his work than I have.

About Colin Wilson

• Jonathan Bowden, “Colin Wilson and Bill Hopkins.”
• Margot Metroland, “Colin Wilson’s The Angry Years.”
• John Morgan, “A Heroic Vision for Our Time: The Life & Ideas of Colin Wilson” (revised and expanded version, including more information on Colin’s political views, was published in North American New Right, vol. 2).
• John Morgan, “Meeting to Some Purpose: The Second International Colin Wilson Conference.”
• John Morgan on Colin Wilson: Podcast
• Sir Oswald Mosley, “Colin Wilson’s The Outsider.”
• James J. O’Meara, “Neville & the Rebel: Reflections on Colin Wilson & Neville Goddard,” Part I, Part 2.
• James J. O’Meara, “The Plot Against the Hero: Colin Wilson’s Absurd Magick.”

Dealing in Part with Wilson

• Jonathan Bowden, “Bill Hopkins and the Angry Young Men,” audio and transcript.
• Jonathan Bowden, “Interview with Bill Hopkins.”
• Julius Evola, “Youth, Beats, & Right-Wing Anarchists, Part 1: A Sympathetic Critique of the Beat Rebellion.“
• Margot Metroland, “The Prophet of Exhaustion: Being Yet Another Remembrance of Bill Hopkins (1927–2012),” Part 1, Part 2
• James J. O’Meara, “The Devil Made Me Dream It! Neville for Radicals.”

Also, Colin Wilson is frequently tagged at Counter-Currents.