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Mitchell A. Wilson (July 17, 1913 in New York - February 25, 1973) was an American novelist and physicist.

Life and career

Before becoming a writer, Wilson was a research scientist (for a time as an assistant to Enrico Fermi) and instructor in physics at the university level. Science, invention, and the ethical problems of modern atomic science are the subjects for some of his works. He also wrote non-fiction on scientific matters for the general reader.

At the height of the Cold War, he was considered a major novelist in the Soviet Union, while in his native United States his reputation was considerably less elevated.

His novels include Live with Lightning, Meeting at a Far Meridian, and My Brother, My Enemy. A 1945 novel None So Blind was adapted for the 1947 film The Woman on the Beach directed by Jean Renoir. His non-fiction includes American science and Invention, a Pictorial History and Passion to Know. At the start of his career, he collaborated on a mystery novel The Goose is Cooked with Abraham Polonsky, written under the joint pseudonym of Emmett Hogarth.

At the time of his death, Wilson was married to acting coach Stella Adler. His first marriage was to Helen Weinberg Wilson which produced two daughters: Erica Silverman, a literary agent, and Victoria Wilson, editor and publisher at Alfred A. Knopf.

Books

NON-FICTION

• American Science and Invention: A Pictorial History (1954)
• The Human Body: What It Is and How It Works(1959)
• The Body in Action: The Parts of the Body and How They Work (1962)
• Energy (1963) (Series: LIFE Science Library)
• Passion to know: The scientists of today's world, who they are, what they are doing, and why! (1972)

FICTION

• The Goose is Cooked (1940) (with Abraham Polonsky as Emmett Hogarth)
• Footsteps Behind Her (1942)
• Stalk the Hunter (1945)
• None So Blind (1945)
• The Panic Stricken (1946)
• Live With Lightning (1949)
• My Brother, My Enemy (1952)
• The Lovers (1954)'
• Meeting at a Far Meridian (1961)
• The Huntress (1966)

References

1. Wilson, Mitchell (1954). American science and invention. New York: Simon and Schuster. p. 438.
2. "Obituary: Mitchell Wilson". Physics Today. 26 (5): 83. May 1973. doi:10.1063/1.3128071. Archived from the original on 2013-09-27.
3. "Book Review: Passion to Know: The World's Scientists by Mitchell Wilson". Kirkus Reviews. 21 April 1972.

• Oxford Companion to American Literature
• American National Biography

External links

• Mitchell Wilson (December 1969). "How Nobel Prizewinners Get That Way". The Atlantic.

• 20th-century American novelists
• American male novelists
• 1913 births
• 1973 deaths
• 20th-century American male writers