Colin Wilson’s “The Outsider”

This appreciation of Colin Wilson by Colin Amery first appeared in 2001. I have written about the debt of gratitudeI owe him. This story is typical of such debts, I think.

 Colin Wilson’s The Outsider

by Colin Amery

 In l956 Wilson’s Outsider was an overnight success, and later went into twelve impressions, the youthful looking 26 year-old was hailed by the critics as a new Lord Byron. With his large horn rims and high-neck woollen sweater, author Kenneth Allsop dubbed him one of the ‘angry young men’ of that period. I had just started attending that left wing hot bed the London School of Economics to study law. Mick Jagger was there at the same time but not yet a rock star. To prepare him for his future career he was studying economics. I heard rumours that Colin Wilson was pulling expressos in a Chelsea coffee bar off the King’s Road. I never got to that particular haunt, but in 1958 I frequented the Royal Court Theatre nearby where John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger was playing to packed houses. These highly original thinkers helped shape the future direction of my life. For the first time I felt the possibility of a framework within which to be truly myself and evolve a philosophy by which I could live. Continue reading Colin Wilson’s “The Outsider”