Colin Wilson (1931-2013)

Writer Colin Wilson, 82, died December 5, 2013.

Wilson wrote more than 150 books of fiction, criticism, philosophy, and assorted non-fiction during his career. His first core SF novel was The Mind Parasites (1967). Other novels of particular genre interest include The Glass Cage (1967); The Philosopher’s Stone (1969); The Space Vampires (1976; as Lifeforce, 1985), adapted for film as Lifeforce in 1985; The Personality Surgeon (1985); and the four-volume Spider World series (1987-2003). 

Wilson’s most famous book is debut The Outsider (1956), a non-fiction study of social outcasts and outsiders in literature and culture. He also wrote extensively on crime and the paranormal.

Colin Henry Wilson was born June 26, 1931 in Leicester, Leicestershire, England. He left school at 16 and educated himself while working in a wool warehouse, and worked as a lab assistant, civil servant, and magazine salesman before becoming a full-time writer in 1954. 

For more, see Wilson’s entry in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.

See the January issue of Locus for a complete obituary.