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Theodore Francis Powys (1875-1953) 

Author of a remarkable Trinity of Novels: Mr. Weston's Good Wine, Unclay, and Kindness in a Corner as well as the extraordinary Fables

 

"Powys's unorthodox version of Christianity reveals strands of mysticism, quietism, and pantheism, but the major influence upon him was the Bible, and he claimed that Religion 'is the only subject I know anything about'. Sometimes savage, often lyrical, his novels and stories explore universal themes of Love, Death, Good and Evil within the microcosm of the rural world. In spite of the apparent realism of his settings, Powys is a symbolist and allegorist". From the Preface to God's Eyes A-Twinkle by Charles Prentice.

 

"Though not of the Church, I am of the Church. Though not of the faith, I am of the faith. Though not of the fold, I am of the fold; a priest in the cloud of God, beside the Altar of Stone. Near beside me is a flock of real sheep; above me a cloud of misty white embraces the noonday light of the Altar. I am without a belief; — a belief is too easy a road to God." From Soliloquies of a Hermit.

The greatest value of his work is in showing that it is still possible to write about the primordial human experiences to which religion is a response...Very few 20th-century authors have the knack of writing convincingly of first and last things. - John Gray, New Statesman

 

T.F. Powys's best known fiction

Mr Weston's Good Wine is the unusual tale of the struggle between the forces of good and evil in a small Dorset village. Its action is limited to one winter's evening when Time stands still and the bitter-sweet gift of awareness falls upon a dozen memorable characters. During the book a child knocked down by his car is miraculously brought back to life; the sign 'Mr Weston's Good Wine' lights up the sky; and the villagers soon discover that the wine he sells is no ordinary wine.

Generally considered his masterpiece - Washington Post

On the evening of November 20, 1923, an old Ford car stops on a hill overlooking Folly Down, a village in western England. Within the car Mr. Weston, a wine merchant, confers with Michael, his assistant, about possible customers in the village. They have a large book that list the names of the inhabitants, and Michael has detailed knowledge about them, which only a supernatural being could possess. As they talk, their coming is forecast to the village of Folly Down by an electrical sign displayed atop the car...

Grimly brilliant - John Carey, Sunday Times

Mr Weston's Good Wine is a book without parallel. It is an allegory, it is a bucolic farce, it is a religious (or anti-religious?) masterpiece. - A N Wilson

 

     

UNCLAY, the author’s last novel and final masterpiece is a work of great originality and imagination.

"The most affectively powerful of Powys's novels, much bleaker than MR. WESTON'S GOOD WINE (and less popular in consequence) but at least equal to it in literary worth." – Barron

 

From Chapter Four of Unclay:

‘Tell me your name,’ asked Mr Hayhoe, who began to think that the poor man must have escaped from a madhouse, ‘so that, if I have the good fortune to discover your property, I may be able to restore to you what you have lost.’

‘My name is Death,’ answered the man.

‘A Suffolk family?’ rejoined Mr Hayhoe, ‘for I know a village in that county where your name is common, and I have seen it too written upon a tombstone in this neighbourhood. But I trust you will not think me rude if I ask you to tell me your Christian name too?’

‘I have never had one,’ replied Death simply, ‘though in coming here this morning I met a little girl who made fun of my beard and called me “John".’

 

From the opening chapter of Innocent Birds:

 'A village is like a stage that retains the same scenery throughout all the acts of the play. The actors come and go, and walk to and fro, with gestures that their passions fair or foul use them to.

Sometimes the human beings who occupy the stage, that is, the farms and village cottages, remain the same—or almost the same—for many years; sometimes they change more quickly.

A country village has a way now and again of clearing out all its inhabitants in one rush, as though it were grown tired of that particular combination of human destinies, and shakes itself free of them as a tree might do of unwelcome leaves.

This shake comes perhaps like the last trump, with a loud noise; as when Farmer Mew set afire his gunpowder, and so caused the people to go off in all directions: some far and some near, but all bent on going.'

 

Major Works of T. F. Powys

 

Soliloquies of a Hermit (1918)

The Left Leg (1923)

Black Bryony (1923)

Mark Only (1924)

Mr Tasker’s God’s (1925)

Mockery Gap (1925)

Innocent Birds (1926)

Mr Weston’s Good Wine (1927)

The House with the Echo (1928)

Fables (1929)

Kindness in a Corner (1930)

The White Paternoster (1930)

The Only Penitent (1931)

Unclay (1931)

The Two Thieves (1932)

Captain Patch (1935)

Bottle’s Path (1946)

God's Eyes A-Twinkle (1947) Anthology

PUBLISHED POSTHUMOUSLY:

Rosie Plum (1966)

Father Adam (1990)

The Market Bell (1991)

Mock’s Curse (1995)

The Sixpenny Strumpet (1997)

Selected Early Works (2005)

OF BIOGRAPHICAL INTEREST:

Cuckoo in the Powys Nest by Theodora Gay Scutt (2000)

T. F. Powys: Aspects of a Life by J. Lawrence Mitchell (2003)

A man who rarely left home or travelled in a car, who claimed to love monotony, and who 'never gave so much as a sunflower-seed for the busy, practical life' - this was Theodore Francis Powys. He ran his own farm, White House Farm at Sweffling, Suffolk (1895 -1901) before "retiring" to Dorset, determined to write. In 1904, he settled in East Chaldon, 'the most hidden village in Dorset', and there he remained until 1940, when the war drove him inland to Mappowder. In 1905, he married Violet Rosalie Dodds, a local girl; they had two sons and an adopted daughter.

Powys's unorthodox version of Christianity reveals strands of mysticism, quietism, and pantheism, but the major influence upon him was the Bible, and he claimed that Religion 'is the only subject I know anything about'. Sometimes savage, often lyrical, his novels and stories explore universal themes of Love, Death, Good and Evil within the microcosm of the rural world. In spite of the apparent realism of his settings, Powys is a symbolist and allegorist. Key works include The Soliloquy of a Hermit, Mr Weston's Good Wine, and Unclay; his Fables and short stories are also much admired.

           

Currently in print: Mr Weston's Good Wine, Kindness in a Corner, Unclay, Father Adam,

The Market Bell, Mock’s Curse, The Sixpenny Strumpet, Selected Early Works of T. F. Powys

Mr Powys is not a writer for everybody, but I am sure he is a writer for posterity. - Sylvia Townsend Warner 

This website is © The Powys Society 2010.

Permission must be asked before using any material from this site.

 

GOAT GREEN

T.F. Powys

 

A Powys Society Meeting

Mr Weston's Good Wine is the unusual tale of the struggle between the forces of good and evil in a small Dorset village. Its action is limited to one winter's evening when Time stands still and the bitter-sweet gift of awareness falls upon a dozen memorable characters. During the book a child knocked down by his car is miraculously brought back to life; the sign 'Mr Weston's Good Wine' lights up the sky; and the villagers soon discover that the wine he sells is no ordinary wine.

MR WESTON'S GOOD WINE

T.F. Powys

ASPECTS OF A LIFE

J. Lawrence Mitchell
 
 

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