John Cowper Powys

Born in Shirley, Derbyshire, on October 8, 1872, he grew up in a large, literary family and became one of several Powys siblings to make names in writing. He studied at Cambridge and spent many years as a lecturer, especially in the United States, before his reputation as a novelist fully took hold.

His best-known books include Wolf Solent (1929), A Glastonbury Romance (1932), and Owen Glendower (1940). Readers often remember his fiction for its great length, vivid landscapes, and unusual mix of inner life, mysticism, history, and everyday human struggle.

Powys also wrote poetry, criticism, philosophy, and autobiography, making him one of the most wide-ranging British writers of his generation. He died on June 17, 1963, in Blaenau Ffestiniog, Wales, leaving behind a body of work that still feels bold, eccentric, and deeply serious about what it means to be alive.