John Cowper Powys

John Cowper Powys (/ˌdʒɒn ˌkuːpər ˈpoʊ.ɪs/; 8 October 1872 –17 June 1963) was a British novelist, lecturer, philosopher, literary critic, and poet. Although Powys published a collection of poems in 1896 and his first novel in 1915, he did not gain success as a writer until he published the novel Wolf Solent in 1929. He was influenced by many writers, but he has been particularly seen as a successor to Thomas Hardy, and Wolf Solent, A Glastonbury Romance (1932), along with Weymouth Sands (1934) and Maiden Castle (1936), are often referred to as his Wessex novels. As with Hardy's novels, the landscape plays a major role in Powys's works, and an elemental philosophy is important in the lives of his characters. In 1934 he published his important Autobiography. Powys was also a highly successful itinerant lecturer, first in England and then from 1905 until the early 1930s in the USA.