John Cowper Powys
John Cowper Powys (1872—1963) was the author of many novels and works of philosophy, criticism, and autobiography. A descendent of the poets Donne and Cowper, he was born in England, but spent twenty-five years in America, where he wrote his masterpieces. George Steiner has described him as the only English novelist to rival Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, and his novels often are compared to those of Thomas Hardy and D.H. Lawrence.
"The Wessex novels of John Cowper Powys—WOLF SOLENT (1929), A GLASTONBURY ROMANCE (1933), Jobber Skald (also published as WEYMOUTH SANDS, 1935) and MAIDEN CASTLE (1937)—must rank as four of the greatest ever to be written in our language. Even those who do not feel ready for the 1,000-page novel based on Arthurian Britain, PORIUS (1951) which some consider to be the master work, it should be clear that here we have a truly major figure. Every now and again there is an attempt at a revival. A brave publisher will reissue one of the novels and print on the jacket the plaudits which Powys has received: 'The only novels produced by an English writer that can fairly be compared with the fictions of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky', wrote George Steiner. 'To encounter Powys' (Henry Miller this time) 'is to arrive at the very fount of creation'. Angus Wilson, Margaret Drabble, Iris Murdoch and Simon Heffer are among the faithful. But many university students taking a course in the English literature of the 20th century could achieve their degree without so much as hearing Powys's name. And yet he is an author whom, once you have discovered him, you will go on reading for the rest of your life. He has lowered his bucket deeper than most into the mystery of things. He is able to write not only about the experience of memory, love, obsession, sex and childhood experience. More than that, he has his ear cocked to the life of the universe itself.... Central to Powys's writings, fictional and non-fictional, is that we all have what he calls a life-illusion, which, if we can cultivate it aright, will enable us to overcome all our psychological inadequacies, all our fears and angers and look upon life in a healthy, cheerful, defiant mood. Powys was bold enough to write a book called THE ART OF HAPPINESS and he seems to his admirers to be someone who has mastered that art and passed it on to others. For that, and for the books he wrote, we shall always be grateful."—A. N. Wilson, The Spectator, February 13, 2008.
MAIDEN CASTLE (The Overlook Press, 2001)