Overview

A classic being restored to print for the first time in more than a decade, AUTOBIOGRAPHY is a vital and uninhibited self-portrait by one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century. With unparalleled wit, candour, and lyricism, Powys, at the age of sixty, set out to chronicle his life. He wrote: '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 it 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 the Devil.' AUTOBIOGRAPHY conveys Powys's contagious excitement of his discovery of books and men and his unceasing discovery of himself, as well as fascinating reminiscences of the remarkable journeys, both geographic and intellectual, of his life. John Cowper Powys's works have been described as 'the only novels produced by an English writer that can fairly be compared to the fictions of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky...with an immensity to which only Blake could provide a parallel in English literature' (George Steiner, The New Yorker). Best known for A Glastonbury Romance ('The book of the century', Margaret Drabble, The Telegraph), Powys also wrote nine other novels, including weymouth Sands, Wolf Solent, Maiden Castle, and Porius. His AUTOBIOGRAPHY is a work that stands alone in autobiographical literature and is the one of the most admired of his books.

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9780715634141

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Reviews

Powys was a powerful writer, a great eccentric' - Saul Bellow 'AUTOBIOGRAPHY I still believe to be the greatest, the most magnificent of all biographies' - Henry Miller 'A rich and fascinating document' - V.S. Pritchett 'In John Cowper Powys we had a major writer, an original, a genius, who was quite shockingly undervalued, often completely neglected... It is in fact one of the greatest autobiographies in the English language. Even if Powys had never written any novels... this one book would have proved him to be a writer of genius' - J.B. Priestley 'A book authenticating its author's claim to something like terrifying and formidable genius' - Times Literary Supplement 'A masterpiece, Coleridgian in its introspective scruple, but also of a lyric breadth' - George Steiner 'AUTOBIOGRAPHY is a great and disturbing book; unlike any other published in our time' - The World Review 'AUTOBIOGRAPHY is not a portrait of a man seen from the outside, but seen from the inside... That it is the greatest autobiography in the English language I have not the smallest doubt' - Kenneth Hopkins

Author Information

John Cowper Powys (1872-1963) lived in England and the United States. He wrote ten novels, including A Glastonbury Romance, Weymouth Sands, and Maiden Castle, as well as many works of criticism and philosophy. He was the son of a vicar and a descendant of the poets Donne and Cowper.

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