Mitchell A. Wilson

{{Infobox writer | name = Mitchell A. Wilson | birth_name = | image = | birth_date = {{birth date|1913|7|17}} | birth_place = New York City, New York | death_date = {{death date and age|1973|2|25|1913|7|17}} | death_place = | pseudonym = Emmett Hogarth | occupation = Novelist, physicist | yearsactive = | spouse = Helen Weinberg Wilson<br>Stella Adler | children = 2, including Victoria Wilson | parents = }} '''Mitchell A. Wilson''' (July 17, 1913 – February 25, 1973)<ref>{{Cite book|last=Wilson|first=Mitchell|title=American science and invention|publisher=Simon and Schuster|year=1954|location=New York|pages=438}}</ref> was an American novelist and physicist.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Obituary: Mitchell Wilson|journal=Physics Today|date=May 1973|volume=26|issue=5|pages=83|url=http://www.physicstoday.org/resource/1/phtoad/v26/i5/p83_s2?bypassSSO=1|doi=10.1063/1.3128071|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130927091956/http://www.physicstoday.org/resource/1/phtoad/v26/i5/p83_s2?bypassSSO=1|archive-date=2013-09-27|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

==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 his work received little recognition in the United States.{{Citation needed|date=March 2026}}

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''.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Book Review: ''Passion to Know: The World's Scientists'' by Mitchell Wilson|journal=Kirkus Reviews|date=21 April 1972|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/mitchell-wilson-4/passion-to-know-the-worlds-scientists/}}</ref> 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) *''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== {{reflist}} *''Oxford Companion to American Literature'' *''American National Biography''

==External links== *{{cite journal|author=Mitchell Wilson|title=How Nobel Prizewinners Get That Way|date=December 1969|journal=The Atlantic|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1969/12/how-nobel-prizewinners-get-that-way/305479/}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Mitchell A.}} Category:20th-century American novelists Category:American male novelists Category:1913 births Category:1973 deaths Category:20th-century American male writers