John Cowper Powys

John Cowper Powys , 1872-1963, British author and lecturer. In addition to his widely admired novels Wolf Solent (1929), and A Glastonbury Romance (1932), Powys also wrote poetry and lectured on literature. His essays and criticisms, noted for their acute observations, include The Meaning of Culture (1929) and A Philosophy of Solitude (1933).

Bibliography: See his autobiography (1934); studies by H. P. Collins (1966) and G. Cavaliero (1973).

Powys was one of an extraordinary family of writers. His brother Theodore Francis Powys, 1875-1953, was also a novelist, setting works such as Black Bryony (1923) and Mr. Weston's Good Wine (1927) in the Dorsetshire village where he lived. He also wrote a number of short stories.

Bibliography: See studies by H. Coombes (1960) and M. Buning (1986).

Another brother, Llewelyn Powys, 1884-1939, was also an author. His rational yet poetic outlook is reflected in his writings, which include Black Laughter (1924) and Earth Memories (1938).

Bibliography: See his autobiographical The Verdict of Bridlegoose (1926) and Love and Death: An Imaginary Autobiography (1939). See also K. Hopkins, The Powys Brothers (1967) and study by M. T. Buning (1986)

Powys, John Cowper (1872–1963), brother of Llewelyn and Theodore Powys, was brought up in the Dorset–Somerset countryside which was to become of great importance in his later writing. He became a prolific writer of poetry and of essays on philosophy and religion, and produced a remarkable Autobiography (1934), but he is remembered for his novels which include Wood and Stone (1915, NY; 1917, London), Rodmoor (1916), and Ducdame (1925). His first major novel was Wolf Solent (1929), a crowded work set in the West Country. A Glastonbury Romance (1932, NY; 1933, London), his best-known novel, is a work on a huge scale, in which Glastonbury and its legends exert a supernatural influence on the life of the town—on the religious revival led by Johnny Geard, on the hard commercial interests of Phil Crow, on the Communist workers, and on the complex loves, both sacred and sexual, of the town's inhabitants. Weymouth Sands (1934, NY) is set against a sombre background of Portland and the sea; the human struggle centres on Jobber, his love for Perdita and his hatred of Dog Cattistock, and on the final relinquishing of dream in favour of the possible. Maiden Castle (1936, NY; 1937, London), set in Dorchester, follows the interlocking loves of several couples, no longer young. Most of the later novels, written after Powys had settled in Wales, share an extravagance of subject and style and strong elements of the supernatural. They include Morwyn (1937); Owen Glendower (1940, NY; 1941, London), a historical novel; Porius (1951); and Atlantis (1954), containing Powys's most extreme flights of imagination, in which Odysseus, returned from Troy, sets out again to discover the continent of America, where he settles.

Powys, Llewelyn (1884–1939), essayist and journalist, brother of John Cowper and Theodore Powys. His many books include Skin For Skin (1925), a sombre account of the course of his tuberculosis with idyllic Dorset interludes; Apples be Ripe (1930), a novel; Impassioned Clay (1931), a personal account of the human predicament; Earth Memories (1934) and Dorset Essays (1935), both volumes of essays; and Love and Death (1939), an eloquent ‘imaginary autobiography’, on the theme of his lost first love and his approaching death. Damnable Opinions (1935) presented many of the radical, iconoclastic views he shared with his brothers.