Discover new books on Goodreads

See if your friends have read any of Colin Wilson's books

Colin Wilson’s Followers (1,298)

Colin Wilson

Born

in Leicester, Leicestershire, England

June 26, 1931

Died

December 05, 2013

Website

http://www.colinwilsonworld.net

Genre

Literature & Fiction, Nonfiction, Philosophy

Influences

George Bernard Shaw, George Gurdjieff, Friedrich Nietzsche, Edmund Hus ...more

edit data

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Colin Henry Wilson was born and raised in Leicester, England, U.K. He left school at 16, worked in factories and various occupations, and read in his spare time. When Wilson was 24, Gollancz published The Outsider (1956) which examines the role of the social 'outsider' in seminal works of various key literary and cultural figures. These include Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, Hermann Hesse, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William James, T. E. Lawrence, Vaslav Nijinsky and Vincent Van Gogh and Wilson discusses his perception of Social alienation in their work. The book was a best seller and helped popularize existentialism in Britain. Critical praise t Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Colin Henry Wilson was born and raised in Leicester, England, U.K. He left school at 16, worked in factories and various occupations, and read in his spare time. When Wilson was 24, Gollancz published The Outsider (1956) which examines the role of the social 'outsider' in seminal works of various key literary and cultural figures. These include Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, Hermann Hesse, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William James, T. E. Lawrence, Vaslav Nijinsky and Vincent Van Gogh and Wilson discusses his perception of Social alienation in their work. The book was a best seller and helped popularize existentialism in Britain. Critical praise though, was short-lived and Wilson was soon widely criticized.

Wilson's works after The Outsider focused on positive aspects of human psychology, such as peak experiences and the narrowness of consciousness. He admired the humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow and corresponded with him. Wilson wrote The War Against Sleep: The Philosophy of Gurdjieff on the life, work and philosophy of G. I. Gurdjieff and an accessible introduction to the Greek-Armenian mystic in 1980. He argues throughout his work that the existentialist focus on defeat or nausea is only a partial representation of reality and that there is no particular reason for accepting it. Wilson views normal, everyday consciousness buffeted by the moment, as "blinkered" and argues that it should not be accepted as showing us the truth about reality. This blinkering has some evolutionary advantages in that it stops us from being completely immersed in wonder, or in the huge stream of events, and hence unable to act. However, to live properly we need to access more than this everyday consciousness. Wilson believes that our peak experiences of joy and meaningfulness are as real as our experiences of angst and, since we are more fully alive at these moments, they are more real. These experiences can be cultivated through concentration, paying attention, relaxation and certain types of work. ...more

Combine Editions
Colin Wilson’s books

Average rating: 3.91 · 37,251 ratings · 3,272 reviews · 453 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Outsider by Colin Wilson, Friedrich Nietzsche (Contributor), Rainer Maria Rilke (Contributor) 4.03 avg rating — 4,621 ratings — published 1956 — 98 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Occult 3.91 avg rating — 2,137 ratings — published 1971 — 74 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Mind Parasites: The Supernatural Metaphysical Cult Thriller 3.71 avg rating — 1,696 ratings — published 1967 — 61 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Space Vampires 3.29 avg rating — 1,029 ratings — published 1976 — 42 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Criminal History of Mankind 3.91 avg rating — 790 ratings — published 1985 — 18 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Philosopher's Stone 3.91 avg rating — 762 ratings — published 1969 — 33 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	From Atlantis to the Sphinx 3.80 avg rating — 580 ratings — published 1996 — 19 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Serial Killers: a Study in the Psychology of Violence [Paperback] by Colin Wilson, Donald Seaman 3.66 avg rating — 572 ratings — published 1990 — 24 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Tower 4.02 avg rating — 511 ratings — published 1987	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Mysteries 4.10 avg rating — 497 ratings — published 1978 — 16 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Colin Wilson…

Series by Colin Wilson

The Outsider Cycle (7 books)
by

Colin Wilson

4.00 avg rating — 5,744 ratings

Occult Trilogy (3 books)
by

Colin Wilson

3.94 avg rating — 2,894 ratings

Spider World (6 books)
by

Colin Wilson

3.97 avg rating — 1,852 ratings

Gerard Sorme (3 books)
by

Colin Wilson

3.70 avg rating — 882 ratings

Мир Пауков Колина Уилсона (14 books)
by

Colin Wilson,

Net Prickley

3.93 avg rating — 463 ratings

More series by Colin Wilson…

Quotes by Colin Wilson (?)

“Life itself is an exile. The way home is not the way back.”
― Colin Wilson

146 likes

“The average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow standing in the rain.”
― Colin Wilson

134 likes

“Imagination should be used, not to escape reality, but to create it.”
― Colin Wilson

tags: colin-wilson, creativity, imagination, life

98 likes

See all Colin Wilson's quotes »

Polls

Let us vote for our February 2018 reading :-)

Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes

3 votes, 33.3%

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

3 votes, 33.3%

Black Boy by Richard Wright

1 vote, 11.1%

The Outsider by Colin Wilson

1 vote, 11.1%

Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin

1 vote, 11.1%

The Waste Land by The Waste Land

0 votes, 0.0%

Room at the Top by John Braine

0 votes, 0.0%

Mr Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood

0 votes, 0.0%

9 total votes

3 comments

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
The Seasonal Read...: 25.4 - Nicole OH's Task - Happy Birthday to Me!	104	271	Jul 31, 2010 10:10AM
What's the Name o...: Looking for a vampire's in the future book [s]	7	49	Jul 01, 2011 04:31PM
Language & Grammar : Author Alphabet	1889	428	Jun 01, 2012 02:35AM
The Next Best Boo...: The Title Game	20218	14623	May 30, 2013 12:53PM
Heathens, Pagans ...: Enlightening Quotes	50	240	Jan 17, 2014 12:10AM
Chaos Reading: Valancourt Books	1	16	Aug 17, 2014 12:52PM
Valancourt Books: Necessary Doubt (1964) by Colin Wilson	7	19	Jan 09, 2015 06:38AM
Beyond Reality: 2014 Favorites	10	45	Jan 22, 2015 01:20PM
The Seasonal Read...: Winter 2014 Completed Tasks: Do Not Delete Posts	4131	774	Mar 11, 2015 04:43AM

More…

Colin Wilson’s Followers (1,298)

Colin Wilson

Combine EditionsColin Wilson’s books

Series by Colin Wilson

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

Combine Editions
Colin Wilson’s books