Sir Angus Frank Johnstone-Wilson,

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(11 August 191331 May 1991) was an English novelist and short story writer. He was one of England's first openly gay authors. He was awarded the 1958

James Tait Black Memorial Prize The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Uni ...

for ''

The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot ''The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot'' is a novel by Angus Wilson, first published in 1958 in literature, 1958. It won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for that year, and has been regularly reprinted ever since. It describes the fortunes of Meg Eli ...

'' and later received a

knighthood A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...

for his services to literature.

Biography

Wilson was born in Bexhill, Sussex, England, to an English father, William Johnstone-Wilson, and South African mother, Maude (née Caney), of a wealthy merchant family of

Durban Durban ( ) ( zu, eThekwini, from meaning 'the port' also called zu, eZibubulungwini for the mountain range that terminates in the area), nicknamed ''Durbs'',Ishani ChettyCity nicknames in SA and across the worldArticle on ''news24.com'' from ...

.Angus Wilson, Averil Gardner, Twayne Publishers, 1985, pg 4Angus Wilson, Jay L. Halio, Oliver & Boyd, 1964, pg 1 Wilson's grandfather had served in a prestigious Scottish army regiment, and owned an estate in

Dumfriesshire Dumfriesshire or the County of Dumfries or Shire of Dumfries (''Siorrachd Dhùn Phris'' in Gaelic) is a historic county and registration county in southern Scotland. The Dumfries lieutenancy area covers a similar area to the historic county. I ...

, where William Johnstone-Wilson (despite being born at

Haymarket Haymarket may refer to: Places Australia * Haymarket, New South Wales, area of Sydney, Australia Germany * Heumarkt (KVB), transport interchange in Cologne on the site of the Heumarkt (literally: hay market) Russia * Sennaya Square (''Hay Squ ...

) was raised, and where he subsequently lived. Wilson was educated at

Westminster School (God Gives the Increase) , established = Earliest records date from the 14th century, refounded in 1560 , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , head_label = Hea ...

and Merton College, Oxford, and in 1937 became a librarian in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

's Department of Printed Books, working on the new General Catalogue. Previous employment included tutoring, catering, and co-managing a restaurant with his brother. During World War II, he worked in the Naval section at the code-breaking establishment,

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes ( Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...

, translating Italian Naval codes. A wearer of large, brightly coloured bow-ties, he was one of the "famous homosexuals" at Bletchley. The work situation was stressful and led to a nervous breakdown, for which he was treated by Rolf-Werner Kosterlitz. A Wren, Dorothy Robertson, was taught traffic analysis by him and another instructor. She recalled him as: He returned to the Museum after the end of the War, and it was there that he met Tony Garrett (born 1929), who was to be his companion for the rest of his life. Years later their life together was sympathetically portrayed in the BBC2 film "Angus and Tony" (1984), directed by Jonathan Gili. It was one of the first depictions of the life of a gay couple on British television. Wilson's first publication was a collection of short stories, ''The Wrong Set'' (1949), followed quickly by the daring novel ''Hemlock and After'', which was a great success, prompting invitations to lecture in Europe. He worked as a reviewer, and in 1955 he resigned from the British Museum to write full-time (although his financial situation did not justify doing so) and moved to Suffolk. He was instrumental in getting

Colin Wilson Colin Henry Wilson (26 June 1931 – 5 December 2013) was an English writer, philosopher and novelist. He also wrote widely on true crime, mysticism and the paranormal, eventually writing more than a hundred books. Wilson called his phil ...

's first novel published in 1956 and from 1957 he gave lectures further afield, in Japan, Switzerland, Australia, and the USA. He was appointed a

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(CBE) in the

1968 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 1968 were appointments in many of the Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. They were announced in supplements to the '' Lo ...

, and received many literary honours in succeeding years. He was made a

Knight Bachelor The title of Knight Bachelor is the basic rank granted to a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not inducted as a member of one of the organised orders of chivalry; it is a part of the British honours system. Knights Bachelor are the ...

in the

1980 Birthday Honours The Queen's Birthday Honours 1980 were appointments in many of the Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The appointments were made to celebrate ...

, and was President of the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...

from 1982 to 1988. His remaining years were affected by ill health, and he died of a stroke at a nursing home in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, on 31 May 1991, aged 77. His writing, which has a strongly

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...

vein, expresses his concern with preserving a liberal humanistic outlook in the face of fashionable doctrinaire temptations. Several of his works were adapted for television. He was Professor of English Literature at the

University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution f ...

from 1966 to 1978, and jointly helped to establish their creative writing course at masters level in 1970, which was then a groundbreaking initiative in the United Kingdom. His medals, then in private ownership, were shown on the BBC Television programme ''

Antiques Roadshow ''Antiques Roadshow'' is a British television programme broadcast by the BBC in which antiques appraisers travel to various regions of the United Kingdom (and occasionally in other countries) to appraise antiques brought in by local people (g ...

'' in August 2018.

Bibliography

Novels

*'' Hemlock and After'' (1952) *'' Anglo-Saxon Attitudes'' (1956) *''

'' (1958) *''

The Old Men at the Zoo ''The Old Men at the Zoo'' is a novel written by Angus Wilson, first published in 1961 by Secker and Warburg and by Penguin books in 1964. It was adapted, with many changes—nuclear bombing of London, not present in the novel, is added—into ...

'' (1961) *''Late Call'' (1964) *''No Laughing Matter'' (1967) *''As If By Magic'' (1973) *''Setting the World on Fire'' (1980)

Short story collections

*''The Wrong Set'' (1949) *''Such Darling Dodos'' (1950) *'' A Bit Off the Map'' (1957) *''Death Dance'' (selected stories, 1969)

Play

*''The Mulberry Bush'' (1955)

Others

*''For Whom the Cloche Tolls: a Scrapbook of the Twenties'' (1953) *''The Wild Garden or Speaking of Writing'' (1963) *''The World of Charles Dickens'' (1970) *''The Naughty Nineties'' (1976) *''The Strange Ride of Rudyard Kipling: His Life and Works'' (1977) *''Diversity and Depth in Fiction: Selected Critical Writings of Angus Wilson'' (1983) *''Reflections In A Writer's Eye: travel pieces by Angus Wilson'' (1986)

References

Bibliography

* Conradi, Peter,

Isobel Armstrong Isobel Armstrong, (born 1937) is a British academic. She is professor emerita of English at Birkbeck, University of London and a senior research fellow of the Institute of English Studies at the University of London. She is a fellow of the Br ...

and Bryan Loughrey (editors), "''Angus Wilson''", Northcote House, 1997, . * Drabble, Margaret. ''Angus Wilson: A Biography''.London: Secker & Warburg, 1995. (Hardcover) (Paperback) *Halio, Jay, "''Angus Wilson''", Oliver & Boyd, London, 1964. *Stape, John Henry and Anne N. Thomas. ''Angus Wilson: A Bibliography 1947–1987''. London & New York: Mansell Publishing, 1988. .

External links

* *
Evaluation
by

D. J. Taylor David John Taylor (born 1960) is a British critic, novelist and biographer. After attending school in Norwich, he read Modern History at St John's College, Oxford, and has received the 2003 Whitbread Biography Award for his biography of Geo ...

in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

''
Finding aid to Joseph Kissane correspondence with Angus Wilson at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Angus 1913 births 1991 deaths English people of Scottish descent People educated at Westminster School, London Alumni of Merton College, Oxford Academics of the University of East Anglia English short story writers English satirists Bletchley Park people People from Bexhill-on-Sea Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Knights Bachelor James Tait Black Memorial Prize recipients English LGBT novelists 20th-century English novelists 20th-century British short story writers Presidents of the Royal Society of Literature English gay writers 20th-century LGBT people