Wilson, Sir Angus

Wilson, Sir Angus, 1913–91, English novelist, b. South Africa. As a novelist, he attempted to delineate a society in which traditional values have lost their force and human relationships are corrupted by pretension and sham. After the publication of two volumes of short stories his first novel, Hemlock and After (1952), appeared. It was followed by Anglo-Saxon Attitudes (1956), considered to be his major achievement, The Middle Age of Mrs. Eliot (1958), Late Call (1965), No Laughing Matter (1967), and Setting the World on Fire (1980). Wilson taught for many years at the Univ. of East Anglia, and was knighted in 1980. Wilson's other writings include Death Dance: 25 Stories (1969) and studies of Zola (1952), Dickens (1970), and Kipling (1977).

See studies by K. W. Gransden (1969), P. Faulkner (1980), and A. Gardner (1985).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

See more Encyclopedia articles on: English Literature, 20th cent. to the Present: Biographies