John Cowper Powys

John Cowper Powys could never be straightforward or orthodox but here he sets off with a useful purpose. 'The aim of this book,' he declares, 'is to narrow down a vague and somewhat evasive conception, which hitherto, like ''aristocracy'' or ''liberty'', has come to imply a number of contradictory and even paradoxical elements, and to give it, not, of course, a purely logical form, but a concrete, particular, recognizable form, malleable and yielding enough and relative enough, but with a definite and quite unambiguous temper, tone, quality, atmosphere, of its own.' The book is in two Analysis of Culture which deals with, in separate chapters, Philosophy, Literature, Poetry, Painting and Application of Culture which covers Happiness, Love, Nature, The Art of Reading, Human Relations, Destiny and Obstacles to Culture. John Cowper Powys hoped 'that the fine word ''culture'' . . . might lend itself to an easy, humane and liberal discussion - a sort of one-man Platonic symposium - and even turn out to contain, among its various implications, no unworthy clue to the narrow path of the wise upon earth.' He succeeds completely, in his own idiosyncratic way, in achieving that. 'Mr Powys is to be congratulated on having written a book of the kind that most needs writing and most deserves to be read . . . Here in a dozen chapters of glowing and eloquent prose, Mr Powys describes for very reader that citadel which is himself, and explains to him how it may be strengthened and upheld and on what terms it is most worth upholding. . .' Manchester Guardian

First published in 1929, John Cowper Powys's novel of Eros and ideas was compared with works by Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, and D.H. Lawrence. Wolf Solent remains wholly unrivaled in its deft and risky balance of mysticism and social comedy, ecstatic contemplation of nature and unblinking observation of human folly and desire. Forsaking London for Ramsgard, Wolf Solent discovers a world of pagan splendor and medieval insularity, riddled by ancient scandals and resentments. And there this poetic young man meets two women—the sensuous beauty Gerda and the ethereal gamine Christie—who will become the sharers of his body and soul. "A novelist of great, cumulative force and lyrical intensity. . . . Out of his rhapsodic style and keen attentiveness to nature, he builds a tower of prose to match the firmament.”— Washington Post Book World

First published in 1932, here is John Cowper Powys's masterwork, an epic novel of terrific cumulative force and lyrical intensity. In it he interweaves the ancient with the modern as he probes the mystical and spiritual ethos of the small English village of Glastonbury and the effect upon its inhabitants of a mystical tradition from the most remote past of human history - the legend of the Grail - to create a book of astonishing scope and beauty. Panoramic in design, charged with scenes of great vividness and informed by Powys's own towering genius, A Glastonbury Romance is still astounding readers.

Chronicles the intertwined lives of the residents of the seaside town of Weymouth, England, including the secret desires burning inside protagonist Jobber Skaid

"Porius stood upon the low square tower above the Southern Gate of Mynydd-y-Gaer, and looked down on the wide stretching valley below." So begins one of the most unique novels of twentieth-century literature, by one of its most "extraordinary, neglected geniuses," said Robertson Davies of John Cowper Powys. Powys thought Porius his masterpiece, but because of the paper shortage after World War II and the novel's lengthiness, he could not find a publisher for it. Only after he cut one-third from it was it accepted. This new edition not only brings Porius back into print, but makes the original book at last available to readers. Set in the geographic confines of Powys's own homeland of Northern Wales, Porius takes place in the course of a mere eight October days in 499 A.D., when King Arthur - a key character in the novel, along with Myrddin Wyllt, or Merlin - was attempting to persuade the people of Britian to repel the barbaric Saxon invaders. Porius, the only child of Prince Einion of Edeyrnion, is the main character who is sent on a journey that is both historical melodrama and satirical allegory. A complex novel, Porius is a mixture of mystery and philosophy on a huge narrative scale, as if Nabokov or Pynchon tried to compress Dostoevsky into a Ulyssean mold. Writing in The New Yorker, George Steiner has said of the abridged Porius that it "combines [a] Shakespearean-epic sweep of historicity with a Jamesian finesse of psychological detail and acuity. Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!, which I believe to be the American masterpiece after Melville, is a smaller thing by comparison." This new, and first complete, edition of the novel substantiates both Steiner's judgement and Powys's claim for Porius as his masterpiece.

Following the death of his frigid ex-wife, Dud No-man, a historical novelist, allows a circus performer named Wizzie Ravelston to live in his house. By the author of A Glastonbury Romance and Weymouth Sands.

'I have tried to write my life as if I were confessing to a priest, a philosopher, and a wise old woman. I have tried to write as if I were going to be executed when it was finished. I have tried to write it as if I were both God and Devil.' One is tempted to say only John Cowper Powys could have written that, and, beyond doubt, only John Cowper Powys could have written the idiosyncratic and spellbinding work we have here. Yes, he was influenced by Yeats and Rousseau, especially the latter's Confessions, but there is no other work quite like this. It seems almost too pedestrian to say it covers the first sixty years of his life (he lived for another thirty years) and to say anything about them, as J. B. Priestley memorably put it, 'would be like turning on a tap before introducing people to Niagara Falls.' J. B. Priestley also said 'It is a book which can be read, with pleasure and profit, over and over again. It is in fact one of the greatest autobiographies in the English language. Even if Powys had never written any novels, this one book alone would have proved him to be a writer of genius.'

Traces the exploits of the medieval Welsh hero, noting the rescue of a rebel priest and his companion by a young Oxford scholar whose fate is tied to the last prince of Wales.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Ducdame was John Cowper Powys' fourth novel published in 1925. It is set in Dorset. The protagonist, Rook Ashover (a wonderfully Powysian name) is an introverted young squire with a to go on loving his mistress, Netta Page, or, make a respectable marriage and produce an heir. Of his early novels (pre- Wolf Solent) this one is often considered to be the most carefully constructed and best organized. Like them all it contains a gallery of rich, complex characters and glorious writing.

1933: by John Cowper Powys - 233 pages - This book is the 3rd printing.

In this panoramic novel of Friar Roger Bacon, John Cowper Powys displays his genius at its most fecund. First published in 1956, this novel, set in thirteenth-century Wessex, is an amalgam of all the qualities that make John Cowper Powys unique.The love-story of Lil-Umbra and Raymond de Laon, and the quest of the Mongolian giant, Peleg, for Ghosta, the girl seen, loved, and lost on the battlefield, are intermingled with the historical, theological and magical threads which form the brocade of this novel.Dominating all is the mysterious creation of Roger Bacon one of the boldest as well as most intricate of Powys' world-changing inventions. Professor G. Wilson Knight called this 'A book of wisdom and wonders'.

Powys presents a set of literary devotions of great figures in Literature who have obsessed him. He attempts not so much a reasoned critique or any attempt to categorise these figures but rather, as he describes in the Preface: "to give [himself] up, absolutely and completely, to the various visions and temperaments of these great dead artists." Powys delivered popular lectures throughout the United States and was able to hold audiences in rapt attention for hours while speaking about great literature and writers, this book from the earlier part of his writing career gives us a little glimpse into what those lectures must have been like.

THE VENGEANCE OF GOD...During a raging storm one night on the Welsh mountains, thunder roars, lightning sears across the sky, the ground heaves and a deep black cave yawns open. Still alive, the mysterious and nameless narrator of this chilling tale and his beloved Morwyn are engulfed by the rock and plunged into the gaping cavern. The subterranean void is part of a hell inhabited by the spirits of cruel fanatics who enjoyed a life of inflicting pain on others - such infamous characters as the Marquis de Sade, Gilles de Rais, the Emperor Nero and Torquemada. The narrator and Morwyn meet all these spirits during their strange adventure and witness a trial at which the evil-doers are charged with their crimes. Do these wicked souls deserve to suffer the vengeance of God?MORWYN has an original introduction by Dennis Wheatley.

Wood and Stone was John Cowper Powys' first novel published in 1915. It is no prentice-work however - the author was already in his forties.The novel is set in the area of south Somerset that John Cowper Powys grew up in. The village of Nevilton is based on Montacute where his father was vicar for many years. When he wrote it Powys was living in the USA and it is perhaps this absence that accounts for the heightened vividness of the descriptive writing.Powys deploys a large and wonderfully delineated cast of characters. They are loosely divided between 'the well-constituted' and 'the ill-constituted'. Characteristically Powys favours the latter.

"Rodmoor is, unusually for a John Cowper Powys novel, set in East Anglia, Rodmoor itself being a coastal village. The protagonist, Adrian Sorio, is a typically Powys-like hero, highly-strung with only precarious mental stability. He is in love with two women - Nance Herrick and the more unconventional Phillipa Renshaw.This was Powys second novel, published in 1916. It deploys a rich and memorable cast of characters." quoted from publisher's web site

. Village Press 1974, clean copy, no markings, light fading to covers, Professional booksellers since 1981

General Books publication 2009 Original publication 1916 Original G.A. Shaw French literature English literature Literary Criticism / General Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Literary Criticism / European / French This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. THE ART OF DISCRIMINATION THE world divides itself into people who can discriminate and people who cannot discriminate. This is the ultimate test of sensitiveness; and sensitiveness alone separates us and unites us. We all create, or have created for us by the fatality of our temperament, a unique and individual universe. It is only by bringing into light the most secret and subtle elements of this self- contained system of things that we can find out where our lonely orbits touch. Like all primordial aspects of life the situation is double-edged and contradictory. The further we emphasise and drag forth, out of their reluctant twilight, the lurking attractions and antipathies of our destiny, the nearer, at once, and the more obscure, we find ourselves growing, to those about us. And the wisdom of the difficult game we are called upon to play, lies in just this very antinomy, -- in just this very contradiction -- that to make ourselves better understood we have to emphasise our differences, and to touch the universe of our friend we have to travel away from him, on a curve of free sky. The cultivation of what in us is lonely andunique creates of necessity a perpetual series of shocks and jars. The unruffled nerves of the lower animals become enviable, and we fall into moods of malicious reaction and vindictive recoil. And yet, -- for Nature makes use even of what is named evil to pursu...

Three stories make use of surrealism to tell the stories of two armchairs, the strange people of the Go Peninsula, and Yok Pok and his younger sister

Published in 1954, John Cowper Powys called this novel, a long romance about Odysseus in his extreme old age, hoisting sail once more from Ithaca . As usual there is a large cast of human characters but Powys also gives life and speech to inanimates such as a stone pillar, a wooden club, and an olive shoot. The descent to the drowned world of Atlantis towards the end of the novel is memorably described, indeed, Powys himself called it the best part of the book . Many of Powys themes, such as the benefits of matriarchy, the wickedness of priests and the evils of modern science which condones vivisection are given full rein in this odd but compelling work.

In Defence of Sensuality was first published in 1930. The author's own foreword to the book is worth quoting in'The author feels that perhaps some explanation is due tot eh reader for the rather unusual employment of the ''Sensuality'' which serves as the title of this work. The advantage given to the author by the use of this particular expression is that it enables him to proceed from rock-bottom upwards as far as he likes. A more refined title would have cut him off, in his method of developing his idea, from the physical roots of existence; for while it is easy to indicate the overtones and undertones of Sensuality it would be hard to bring a gentle, vague word, like the word ''sensuousness'' down to the bare, stark, stoically-stripped Life-Sensation which is the subject of this book.How far has the individual the right to be what is called ''selfish''? How far has he the right to concentrate on his own solitary awareness of existence and make this alone his life-purpose? Is there such a thing at all as a Religion of Nature or a Cosmic Ethic? Such are the questions the author attempts to answer; and he finds that in his discussion of the root-sensations of life the word Sensuality, taken in an unusually comprehensive sense, serves his purpose better than any other word.'In Defence of Sensuality is one of the self-help books John Cowper Powys wrote that owe their genesis to the free-lance lecturing he did in America. In addition to this one, Faber Finds are reissuing The Meaning of Culture , A Philosophy of Solitude and The Art of Happiness .

"After My Fashion" was the third novel written by John Cowper Powys. For various reasons it was never published at the time of its writing in 1919. This Picador Paperback, issued by Pan Books is thus the First Edition. It was issued in 1980 in London. The book, published posthumously as it was, has a foreword by John Cowper's brother, Francis Powys (T. F. Powys).The novel's protagonist, Richard Storm, is obviously styled after John Cowper Powys himself, and the protagonist's object of desire, a dancer named Elsie, was inspired by Isadora Duncan, whom Powys knew when he was living in Greenwich Village, New York. The setting of the story is Greenwich - amidst the bohemian artists and writers there, and the rural Sussex countryside in England. Descriptively the novel is very rich ... and , as stories go ... it is quite satisfying.

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).

Shipped from UK, please allow 10 to 21 business days for arrival. Signed 1st Edition, Cassell 1938, with author's signature on ink-framed paper tipped in to pastedown. Thick Royal 8vo. vi + 670pp. Light sporadic foxing to fly leaf and to fore-edges of leaves not intruding or detracting, hinge cracking to half-title, else very good clean tight sound square, no bookplate, inscriptions or ownership marks of any kind. In bright gilt embossed black cloth featuring gilt title label and publisher tail-piece to spine. A good addition to the library of reader, scholar and collector alike, and appropriate to buy from Wales.

(from publshers website)Synopsis:'What I've tried to do in this tale is to invent a group of really mad people who have the fantastic and grotesquely humorous extravagance that, afer all, is an element in life'.So wrote John Cowper Powys himself in his prefatory note to this novel first published in 1952. In this 'wild book' Powys creates a 'Philosophy of the Demented' expressing fundamental truths about madness and sanity. Most of the novel, though, like so much of his later fiction, it is more a fantasy, takes place in Glint Hall, a lunatic asylum. The two main characters are John Hush and Tenna Sheer. They fall in love. The rapidly developing, psychologically complex narrative centres on 'Hush's organization of a conspiracy of revolt amongst the most fantastically crazy of the inmates'. It makes for a strange, disturbing, and yet, at times, funny read.

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Excerpt from The Religion of a Sceptic The old controversy between Fundamentalists and Modernists has recently broken out again, as bitter and malignant as ever; and it does seem advisable at this juncture to give a few plain hints to these disputants as to exactly how their theological bickerings affect the nerves of ordi nary outsiders! About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.