The Powys Society's Newsletter is published thrice yearly (March, July and November)  and is packed with news, information, reviews, details of forthcoming publications and events, previously unpublished Powys letters, extracts from Powys journals and much more besides. A delightful range of photographs, book jacket images and illustrations embellish its pages. Edited by Kate Kavanagh who is always pleased to receive news and short articles. You can contact her here.

Among the highlights of the 48 page November 2009 issue of The Powys Society Newsletter (No.68): 'Lucifer, Keats and Paganism'; JCP's Preface to Lucifer; 'Drinks, drugs and defiance in the novels of John Cowper Powys' by Tim Blanchard, Letters between T. F. Powys and Lady Ottoline Morrell; a report on this year's Conference by Kate Kavanagh; 'Conference Walks' by Chris Thomas; an account of the 'Llewelyn Walk: 125th Anniversary' by Chris Gostick; an essay by Llewelyn Powys and 'A Letter from England' by Alyse Gregory.

 

Among the highlights of the 52 page July 2009 issue of The Powys Society Newsletter (No.67), are articles on Powys and Sufism, John Cowper Powys in Los Angeles, the aristocrat and poet Alfred de Kantzow, letters from Peter Powys Grey (only son of Marian Powys) to Mary (his cousin) and Gerard Casey, two letters from JCP to his great-nephew Stephen Powys Marks, labyrinths, poems, reports and 'The Greatest Novelist in the World'.

Newsletter Editorial

March 2009

Langollen beckons again from its dim violet valley (see the verse on page 8, translated by our former Chairman's grandfather). Cloudless or Cimmerian this tme? A selection of Porius-themed walks is planned, and talks ranging from Dostoievsky to Tea.

The Newsletter brings one into interesting paths: our cover picture having led to he sympathetic biography of Ottoline Morrell by Miranda Seymour, Lady O's Bloomsbury caricature is now replaced by a charming eccentric sympathetic & generous woman, whose extravagant self-created persona, part actress part cultural missionary, really did help and inspire two generations of creative artists. TFP would seem the world's least likely person to be persuaded to visit her bohemian country-house salon at Garsington, but OM clearly recognised his wisdom and integrity. She may well have yearned for a friend who would have sympathised with her unconventional religious feelings - and who could be relied on not to gossip maliciously behind tier back. We hope to see their letters one day.

Llewelyn's famous charm is nowhere more evident than in flirtatious letters like those to Naomi Mitchison. JCP appears in different aspects: as philosophical anarchist through most of his life; in Corwen after the War ('deep as a Welsh pool', as Stevie Smith described him); and twenty years earlier as journalist in America, producing what must have been a quickly-written tribute after the death of Hardy, craftily tailored to a magazine of history. On the technical side we have interesting insights into the realm of Digitization, and names given to the exotic machines which we see carrying the young Phyllis with her little Playter niece - ending with letters from Phyllis to this niece in later life. (Kate Kavanagh)

CONTENTS:

Two Meetings  

AGM notice, Committee Nominations and Conference Programme       

Engravings for Uncle Dottery      

The Powys Society Collection      

Meeting Llewelyn           

Olden Llangollen: Two views       

Obituaries: Janet Pollock (Stephen Powys Marks, Glen Cavaliero, Peter J. Foss, Frank Warren)   

A Silent Place    

T.F.Powys and Lady Ottoline Morrell     

T.F.Powys to Elizabeth Wade White

'On Chaldon Down', R. B. Russell

Llewelyn Powys to Naomi Mitchison    

Notes and Letters          

'Obstinate Cymric' Discussion meeting, Nov 29th     

A Sense of Direction      

Bela Hamvas and John Cowper Powys    

John Cowper Powys, Anarchism & Max Stirner     

'Thomas Hardy & his Times', by John Cowper Powys

Reviews

An Elephant in the Library

Horseless Carriages        

 

You can also view the useful NEWSLETTER FINDING AID compiled by Stephen Powys Marks by visiting the page here.

 

The small selection of articles from Newsletters below is currently being updated and expanded so do check back.

 

      John Cowper Powys: On writing 'A Glastonbury Romance'

      Llewelyn Powys: The Religion of Poetry

      Louis Wilkinson on Llewelyn Powys 

      David Gervais: T.F. Powys's 'Fables'  

     Glen Cavaliero: Revisiting JCP: Novelist (1973)

      Theodora Scutt: Uncle Littleton (Littleton Powys)

     Cicely Hill reviews 'The Blackthorn Winter' by Philippa Powys

      John Cowper Powys: The Magic of Detachment 

      John Williams reviews 'Selected Early Works of T.F. Powys'

      Rafael Squirru: The Ichthyian Leap – or the duty of happiness

      John Hodgson reviews 'The Art of Forgetting the Unpleasant' and 'Powys on Hardy'

      Kate Kavanagh revisits 'After My Fashion'

      John Williams: A lecture on T.F. Powys

      Glen Cavaliero: Llewelyn Powys's Diary for 1908

      John Hodgson: T.F. Powys in Russia

      Eunice Theaker: The poems of John Cowper Powys

      Marko Gregorić: Impressions (Conference 2007)

    Will Durant: Adventures in Genius

      Cicely Hill: 'The Ridge' and the Other

      John Dunn reviews 'Powys and Emma Goldman' edited by David Goodway pub. by Cecil Woolf

      Marcella Henderson-Peal reviews 'The Letters of John Cowper Powys and Dorothy Richardson'

      Chris Gostick on Llewelyn’s Birthday Meeting 2008