 | |
| Author | Colin Wilson |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Victor Gollancz Ltd |
Publication date | 1960 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Pages | 416 |
Ritual in the Dark is the 1960 debut novel of the English writer Colin Wilson. It follows the would-be writer Gerard Sorme as he befriends a wealthy homosexual aesthete, Austin Nunne, who commits sadistic murders with a rationale about striving for freedom. The story took inspiration from the Jack the Ripper case. [1]
Time wrote that Wilson should shelve his attempt to become a novelist. [2] Kirkus Reviews wrote about the novel's components, which include murder and existentialist philosophy: "Beyond its echoes of Oscar Wilde, Huysmans, Graham Greene, is the voice of current protest, and, with its subject and its author, this makes a powerful combination—sex and sexuality, perversions". [3]
Sorme was loosely based on Wilson, who wrote two more novels about him: Man Without a Shadow (1963) and The God of the Labyrinth (1970). [4]
