First novels With spare time in the evening and access to plenty of pens and paper through his job at the
Inland Revenue Service, Smith turned back to his love of writing. After a number of further acceptances, he wrote his first novel,
The Gods First Make Mad, but received 20 rejections. Reviewing what he had written, Smith could see that he had a novel of 180,000 words: it was too long, badly written, had too many characters, and tried to express opinions on everything from politics and racial tension to women.
When the Lion Feeds tells the stories of two young men, twins Sean and Garrick Courtney. The characters' surname was a tribute to Smith's grandfather, Courtney Smith, who had been a transport rider during the
Witwatersrand gold rush in the late 1880s, had commanded a
Maxim gun team during the
Zulu Wars. He had also hunted elephant both as sport and to provide meat for his family. In 2012, Smith said
When the Lion Feeds remained his favourite because it was his first to be published. Film rights were bought by
Stanley Baker but no movie resulted. However, the money enabled Smith to quit his job in the South African taxation office, calculating he had enough to not have to work for two years. Smith's second published novel was
The Dark of the Sun (1965), a tale about mercenaries during the
Congo Crisis. Film rights were sold to
George Englund and
MGM and it was filmed in 1968 starring
Rod Taylor. Smith did not originally envision the Courtney family from
When the Lion Feeds would become a series, but he returned to them for
The Sound of Thunder (1966), taking the lead characters up to after the
Second Boer War. At the time he was writing
The Sound of Thunder in a caravan in the
Inyanga mountains in November 1965
Ian Smith unilaterally declared
Rhodesian independence. The resulting political violence forced Smith to return to the relative safety of Salisbury where he continued working on the novel during the day, while serving at night as a member of the reserve of the Rhodesian
British South Africa Police.
The Diamond Hunters (1971) was set in contemporary West Africa, later filmed as
The Kingfisher Caper (1975). Around this time, Smith also wrote an original screenplay,
The Last Lion (1971) which was filmed in South Africa with
Jack Hawkins; it was not a success.
The Sunbird Smith admitted to being tempted by movie money at this stage of his career but deliberately wrote something that was a complete change of pace,
The Sunbird (1972). It was a very important book for me in my development as a writer because at that stage I was starting to become enchanted by the lure of Hollywood. There had been some movies made of my books and I thought "whoa, what a way to go… All that money!" and I thought "hold on—am I a scriptwriter or am I a real writer?" Writing a book that could never be filmed was my declaration of independence. I made it so diffuse, with different ages and brought characters back as different entities. It was a complex book, it gave me a great deal of pleasure but that was the inspiration—to break free.
Eagle in the Sky (1974) was more typical fare, as was
The Eye of the Tiger (1975). Film rights for both were bought by
Michael Klinger who was unable to turn them into movies; however, Klinger did produce films of
Gold (1974) and
Shout at the Devil (1976).
Cry Wolf (1976) was a return to historical novels, set during the
Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. He then returned to the Courtney family of his first novel with
A Sparrow Falls (1977), set during and after World War I.
Hungry as the Sea (1978) and
Wild Justice (1979) were contemporary stories—the latter was his first best seller in the USA.
Move to Pan Macmillan He embarked on a new series of historical novels, centering around the fictitious Ballantyne family, who helped colonise Rhodesia:
A Falcon Flies (1980),
Men of Men (1981),
The Angels Weep (1982) and
The Leopard Hunts in Darkness (1984).
The Burning Shore (1985) saw him return to the Courtney family, from World War I onwards. He called this a "breakthrough" book for him "because the female lead kicked the arse of all the males in the book." In 1985, following publication of
The Burning Shore,
Charles Pick retired from Heinemann. As Smith did not want to lose Pick's input and needed someone to oversee his contract and develop his readership, he asked Pick to become his literary agent. Pick agreed, setting up in business as Charles Pick Consultancy. Pick secured a better contract for Smith, which involved Smith moving to
Pan Macmillan, who had previously only been his paperback publisher. The first of the co-written novels was
Golden Lion (2015), a Courtney novel.
Predator (2016) was contemporary.
Pharaoh (2016) brought him back to Ancient Egypt. In 2021 Picadilly Press published two books for young readers by Wilbur Smith, co-written with Chris Wakling –
Cloudburst and
Thunderbolt.
Move to Bonnier Zaffre In 2017 Smith moved again, this time joining
Bonnier Zaffre, which gave them language rights to eight new books, together with the English language rights to 34 of Smith's backlist titles. His new publisher announced at the time of the signing that they would continue the existing release schedule, instigated by HarperCollins, of two titles per year with a number of co-authors, including Corban Addison, David Churchill, Tom Harper and
Imogen Robertson. In 2018, he published his autobiography
On Leopard Rock. ==Awards==