The classic study of alienation, creativity and the modern mind

The classic study of alienation, creativity and the modern mind
'Excitingly written, with a sense of revelation' GUARDIAN

THE OUTSIDER was an instant literary sensation when it was first published in 1956, thrusting its youthful author into the front rank of contemporary writers and thinkers. Wilson rationalised the psychological dislocation so characteristic of Western creative thinking into a coherent theory of alienation, and defined those affected by it as a type: the outsider. Through the works and lives of various artists, including Kafka, Camus, Hemingway, Hesse, Lawrence, Van Gogh, Shaw, Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, Wilson explored the psyche of the outsider, his effect on society and society's on him.

Nothing that has happened in the decades since has made THE OUTSIDER any less relevant; it remains the seminal work on this most persistent of modern-day preoccupations.

"Few first authors have burst upon the world of serious books with such stunning and immediate success" - DAILY EXPRESS

"Excitingly written, with a sense of revelation" - GUARDIAN

"The most remarkable book on which the reviewer has ever had to pass judgement" - LISTENER

"Exhaustive, luminously intelligent" - OBSERVER

"A major writer" - LONDON EVENING NEWS