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Articles

Colin Wilson As Hydra

Vaughan Rapatahana examines the many heads of the English Existentialist.

On June 26, 2011, the writer Colin Wilson turned 80. I believe he has been seriously underrated and undervalued in his homeland, as a philosopher, as a novelist, as a critic, and as a polymath explorer into the sometimes eldritch realms of human potential. Part of the reason for this lack of academic and popular recognition within Britain and the US – he is certainly vitally popular elsewhere – is because Colin Wilson is something of a Hydra.

In Greek mythology, the Hydra had seven or nine heads, stemming from one massive body. If one were to slice off any head it would grow back.

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