William Corlett

William Corlett born 8 October 1938 (d. 2005)

William Corlett was an English children's writer and novelist, best known for his quartet of novels, The Magician's House, published between 1990 and 1992, and for his gay-themed novel Now and Then.

Corlett was born in Darlington, Co Durham. He was educated at Fettes College, Edinburgh, then trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He worked as an actor while embarking on a literary career during the 1960s, and wrote plays and adult novels as well as the children's novels for which he is particularly remembered. Several of his works were adapted for the screen.

Later in life he came out as gay, and it was from his partner, a Welshman, that he gained some of his inspiration for The Magician's House.

He wrote two novels with overtly gay themes. Now and Then (1995) describes 50-year-old Christopher Metcalfe returning to his childhood home after his father's death. While there he remembers the passion he once had at school for another boy, concluding that this great love and the difficulties it led to had a crippling effect upon him during his adult life. Two Gentlemen Sharing (1997) is more in the nature of gay slapstick, when male lovers Rick and Bless move into the big house of a small English village, provoking a predictably suspicious reaction before peace prevails.

William Corlett died of cancer at Sarlat in France in 2005.