John Cowper Powys

One Hundred Best Books (Dodo Press) John Cowper Powys

John Cowper Powys (1872-1963) was a British writer, lecturer, and philosopher. He studied at Sherborne School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and became a teacher and lecturer; as lecturer, he worked first in England, then in continental Europe and finally in the USA, where he lived in the years 1904-1934. While in the United States, his work was championed by author Theodore Dreiser. He made his name as a poet and essayist, moving on to produce a series of acclaimed novels distinguished by their uniquely detailed and intensely sensual recreation of time, place and character. The best known of these distinctive novels are Wolf Solent (1929) and A Glastonbury Romance (1933). Having returned to the UK, he lived in England for a brief time, and then moved to Corwen in Wales, where he wrote historical romances and magical fantasies. His other works include: Odes and Other Poems (1886), Poems (1899), Visions and Revisions: A Book of Literary Devotions (1915), Rodmoor (1916), The Complex Vision (1920), Ducdame (1925), In Defiance of Sensuality (1930), A Philosophy of Solitude (1933), Weymouth Sands (also titled Jobber Skald) (1934) and Maiden Castle (1936).