British Novelist and Philosopher. He is remembered for his best-selling book "The Outsider" (1956), an examination of alienation in modern society through the study of creative icons from Vincent van Gogh to Franz Kafka. A prolific author, he wrote over 150 books about serial killers, alien abductions, criminology and the occult; with science fiction novels such as "The Spider World" trilogy and "The Space Vampires" (1976), giving him a loyal cult following. Born Colin Henry Wilson, his father was a factory worker. He left school at the age of 16 and worked at several jobs, including a civil servant, and had a passion for reading. When he was called up for national service, he spent six months working as a clerk for the British Royal Air Force and managed to get discharged by falsely claiming that he was gay. He then moved to London, England to establish himself as a writer and authored "The Outsider" in the Reading Room of the British Museum while living in a sleeping bag on Hampstead Heath. The book sold 20,000 copies in two months, earning him a place among the "Angry Young Men" movement of British literature, alongside the likes of Kingsley Amis and John Osborne. He contributed to "Declaration," an anthology of manifestos by writers associated with the movement, and was also anthologized in a popular paperback sampler "Protest: The Beat Generation and the Angry Young Men" (1987). By the late 1960s he devoted his attention to metaphysical and occult themes. In 1971, he published "The Occult: A History" that featured interpretations on various magicians, spiritualists, and occultists, including Aleister Crowley, George Gurdjieff, Helena Blavatsky, Franz Mesmer, Grigori Rasputin, Daniel Dunglas Home, and Paracelsus, among others. He also penned non-fiction books on crime, ranging from encyclopedias to studies of serial killing. He had an ongoing interest in the life and times of the notorious British serial killer Jack the Ripper and in sex crime in general. His other works include "Adrift in Soho" (1961), "The Mind Parasites" (1967), "A Casebook of Murder" (1969), "The Killer" (1970), "The Schoolgirl Murder Case" (1974), "Poltergeist!: A Study in Destructive Haunting" (1981), "A Criminal History of Mankind" (1984), "Jack the Ripper: Summing Up and Verdict" (1987, with Robin Odell), "The Misfits: A Study of Sexual Outsiders" (1988), "The Mammoth Book of True Crime" (1988), and "From Atlantis to the Sphinx" (1996). In June 2012 he suffered a stroke and lost his ability to speak. He died of pneumonia at the age of 82.