Stuart Holroyd (born 10 August 1933) is a British writer.''Contemporary Authors'' (Thomson Gale, 1 January 2004) Born in

Bradford Bradford is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in West Yorkshire, England. It became a municipal borough in 1847, received a city charter in 1897 and, since the Local Government Act 1972, 1974 reform, the city status in the United Kingdo ...

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

, he first came to prominence for the philosophical and critical works produced during his close association with the writers

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

and Bill Hopkins, but has since written prolifically on

parapsychology Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, teleportation, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry (paranormal), psychometry) and other paranormal cla ...

, contacts with

extraterrestrial life Extraterrestrial life, or alien life (colloquially, aliens), is life that originates from another world rather than on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been scientifically conclusively detected. Such life might range from simple forms ...

sexual love Human sexual activity, human sexual practice or human sexual behaviour is the manner in which humans experience and express their sexuality. People engage in a variety of sexual acts, ranging from activities done alone (e.g., masturbation) t ...

and other topics.

Life

The son of Thomas Holroyd and Edith (King) Holroyd, Stuart Holroyd attended

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

(1957–58) but left without completing his degree. He published his first book, '' Emergence from Chaos'', in 1957 at the age of twenty-three. The same publisher,

Victor Gollancz Sir Victor Gollancz (; 9 April 1893 – 8 February 1967) was a British publisher and humanitarian. Gollancz was known as a supporter of left-wing politics. His loyalties shifted between liberalism and communism; he defined himself as a Christian ...

, had recently published '' The Outsider'', the first book by Holroyd's friend

. Wilson and Holroyd, along with the novelist Bill Hopkins, were associated with the literary movement known as the Angry Young Men. In the same year, Holroyd, Wilson and Hopkins each contributed an essay to '' Declaration'' – an anthology of statements by writers and artists then labelled, rightly or wrongly, as Angry Young Men (the contributors included not only

John Osborne John James Osborne (12 December 1929 – 24 December 1994) was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor, and entrepreneur, who is regarded as one of the most influential figures in post-war theatre. Born in London, he briefly worked as a jo ...

and

Kingsley Amis Sir Kingsley William Amis (16 April 1922 – 22 October 1995) was an English novelist, poet, critic and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, short stories, radio and television scripts, and works of social crit ...

but

Doris Lessing Doris May Lessing ( Tayler; 22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013) was a British novelist. She was born to British parents in Qajar Iran, Persia, where she lived until 1925. Her family then moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where ...

and the director

Lindsay Anderson Lindsay Gordon Anderson (17 April 1923 – 30 August 1994) was a British feature-film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and of the British New Wave. He is most widely remembered fo ...

). On 9 March 1958, Holroyd's play, ''The Tenth Chance'' was produced at the

Royal Court Theatre The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a West End theatre#London's non-commercial theatres, non-commercial theatre in Sloane Square, London, England, opene ...

; disturbances in the audience during the single performance, and a subsequent confrontation in a nearby public house involving

Kenneth Tynan Kenneth Peacock Tynan (2 April 1927 – 26 July 1980) was an English theatre critic and writer. Initially making his mark as a critic at ''The Observer'', he praised John Osborne's ''Look Back in Anger'' (1956) and encouraged the emerging wave ...

Christopher Logue Christopher Logue, CBE (23 November 1926 – 2 December 2011)Mark EspineObituary: Christopher Logue ''The Guardian'', 2 December 2011 was an English poet associated with the British Poetry Revival, and a pacifist. Life Born in Portsmouth, ...

and

were widely reported. ''Emergence from Chaos'' was a literary/psychological study of several modern poets. Holroyd's next book, ''Flight and Pursuit'' (1959) was an autobiographical examination of the author's search for "spiritual values". In 1961, Holroyd married Susan Joy Bennett. (He was earlier married to Anne Elizabeth Freeman, they married in 1950 and divorced in 1958.) With the exception of a textbook on English literature (''The English Imagination''), Holroyd did not publish another book for fourteen years. ''Contraries; A Personal Progression'', which appeared in 1975, was a memoir of the "angry" years of the late 1950s, containing portraits of Wilson and Hopkins. Holroyd thereafter turned his attention to different subjects, writing a series of books on the

paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...

, encounters with extraterrestrial life,

gnosticism Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek language, Ancient Greek: , Romanization of Ancient Greek, romanized: ''gnōstikós'', Koine Greek: Help:IPA/Greek, �nostiˈkos 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced ...

and the philosophy of Krishnamurti—work which he later described as "whoring" in the literary market place.''His Dear Time's Waste'', Pronoia, 2013: introduction, His publication, ''His Dear Time's Waste'' (Pronoia Books, 2013) is described as "a 1950s literary and love life memoir", a re-issue of the amended text of ''Contraries'', with substantial additions derived from journals, correspondence and other early writings, together with reflections from a present point of view.

Bibliography

Books

* '' Emergence from Chaos'' (1957) * ''Flight and Pursuit'' (1959) * ''The English Imagination'' (1969) * ''Contraries: A Personal Progression'' (1975) * ''Magic, Words, and Numbers'' (1975) * ''Dream Worlds'' (1976) * ''PSI and the Consciousness Explosion'' (1977) * ''Prelude to the Landing on Planet Earth'' (1977) * ''Mysteries of the Inner Self'' (1978) * ''Alien Intelligence'' (1979) * ''Briefing for the Landing on Planet Earth'' (1979) * With Susan Holroyd ''The Complete Book of Sexual Love'' (1979) * ''Quest of the Quiet Mind'' (1980) * ''Krishnamurti: The Man, the Mystery & the Message'' (1991) * ''The Elements of Gnosticism'' ( Element Books Ltd. 1994) * ''His Dear Time's Waste'' (2013)

Plays

* ''The Tenth Chance'' (1958)

Critical essays

* "A Sense of Crisis" in '' Declaration'' (Edited by Tom Maschler, MacGibbon & Kee, 1957) * "Revolt and Commitment: Thoughts at Twenty-Five" in '' Encounter'', April 1959

Books about

* "Stuart Holroyd: Years of Anger and Beyond" by Antoni Diller. Nottingham: Paupers' Press, 2012. .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Holroyd, Stuart 1933 births Living people British parapsychologists Writers from Bradford English writers on paranormal topics 21st-century English writers 20th-century English non-fiction writers