Wilson, Angus (Frank Johnstone) (1913–1991)

English novelist, short-story writer, and biographer. His acidly humorous books include Anglo-Saxon Attitudes (1956) and The Old Men at the Zoo (1961). In his detailed portrayal of English society, he extracted high comedy from its social and moral grotesqueries. He was knighted in 1980.

Wilson was born in Bexhill, East Sussex, and studied at Oxford University. He was deputy superintendent of the British Museum Reading Room from 1949–55, then worked as a full-time writer. He was professor of English literature at the University of East Anglia from 1966–78.

His first published works were the short-story collections The Wrong Set (1949) and Such Darling Dodos (1950). His other major novels include Late Call (1964), No Laughing Matter (1967), and Setting the World on Fire (1980). He also published the critical works Emile Zola (1952), The World of Charles Dickens (1970), and The Strange Ride of Rudyard Kipling (1977).