ABSTRACT
In spite of an achievement praised by Angus Wilson, George Steiner, and P.J.Kavanagh, Powys is still neglected by academic critics. One problem is the fact that he has been subjected to a number of esoteric interpretations focusing on so-called “mystical “elements in his work. He has too often been seen as an isolated eccentric. This is why GRAVES’s study of the Powys brothers is particularly helpful. He provides a useful context for the novelist, not only within his family, but within a group of writers that includes Sylvia Townsend Warner, Theodore Dreiser, and Dorothy Richardson. (Powys’s study of his friend and fellow innovator, Dorothy M.Richardson, is still to be found in bibliographies of her work.) Graves’s careful research makes this work a necessary companion to Powys’s Autobiography, which does not include women.
