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Llewelyn Powys |
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Powys Society Publication List Powys titles currently in print Llewelyn Powys Walk 2009 -- 125th Anniversary Llewelyn Powys Walk 2010 — 126th Anniversary Review of The Sailor's Return by Llewelyn Powys
Llewelyn Powys's catalogued contents in The Powys Collection: (Each file will open as a PDF file in a new window.)
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Llewelyn Powys (1884-1939) 'A Philosophical Poet'
"No sight that the human eyes can look upon is more provocative of awe than is the night sky scattered thick with stars. But this silence made visible, this silence made audible, does not necessarily give rise to a religious mood. It may evoke a mood that neither requires nor postulates a God. On frosty January nights when I walk over the downs I feel myself to be passing through a lofty heathen temple, a temple without devil-affrighting steeple bells, without altars of stone or altars of wood. Constellation beyond constellation, the unaltering white splash of the Milky Way, and no sign of benison, no sign of bane, only the homely hedgerow shadows and the earth's resigned stillness outstretched under the unparticipating splendour of a physical absolute."
Llewelyn Powys was born in Dorchester, Dorset, spent his childhood at Montacute, Somerset, and as an adult lived for varying periods in Kenya, the United States, Dorset and Switzerland. His twenty-six books include a novel, Apples be Ripe, a biography, Henry Hudson, essays descriptive and polemical, memoirs and reminiscences. Of all the Powys brothers, Llewelyn was recognized as the most cheerful, the most at ease with existence: the only one for whom a title such as Glory of Life could hold not a shadow of the ironic. Llewelyn's epicurean philosophy is intimately related to the tuberculosis with which he struggled for thirty years.
Among Llewelyn's best books are Black Laughter, about life in Africa, Skin for Skin, a memoir of his first attack of tuberculosis and residence in a Swiss sanatorium, Impassioned Clay, a statement of his philosophical outlook, the essays collected in Earth Memories, Dorset Essays, Somerset Essays and Swiss Essays, and the fictionalized autobiography Love and Death. In their blend of the descriptive, the reminiscent, and the polemical, Llewelyn's best writings have retained both their urgency of appeal and their charm of evocation. Malcolm Elwin, his first biographer, described Llewelyn Powys as 'a philosophical poet relating the pleasures of his senses in the purest prose of his time'.
Llewelyn Powys in New York, 1928. Photo by Doris Ulmann (Courtesy of Stephen Powys Marks)
Additionally, three booklets of diaries published by Cecil Woolf and edited by Peter J. Foss, and the same author’s Bibliography of Llewelyn Powys. All are currently in print. STINSFORD CHURCHYARD by Llewelyn Powysread by Chris Wilkinson (7 mins 41 secs)Please click on the icon below to hear Chris Wilkinson read an essay from Dorset Essays reprinted in Durdle Door to Dartmoor (The Sundial Press)[ Please allow a few seconds for buffering, depending on your connection speed]
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This website is © The Powys Society 2010. Permission must be asked before using any material from this site.
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EARTH MEMORIES Llewelyn Powys |
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Essay by K. Hopkins |
THOMAS BEWICK by Llewelyn Powys |
IMPASSIONED CLAY Llewelyn Powys |
A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF LLEWELYN POWYS by Peter J. Foss |
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U.K. Registered Charity no. 801332 • ©2009 The Powys Society |
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