Often described as one of the great apocalyptic novels of our time, WOLF SOLENT is the story of a young man returning from London to work near to the school at which his father had been history master. Complex, romantic and humorous, it is a classicwork combining a close understanding of man's everyday experience with a delicate awareness of the spiritual.

In a Roman fort in Wales at the turn of the sixth century, Porius, the son of a reigning prince, is aided by Merlin the magician, Nineue, and Medrawd in a battle for cultural survival.

'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 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 Devil.' One is tempted to say only John Cowper Powys could have written that, and, beyond doubt, only John Cowper Powys could have written the idiosyncratic and spellbinding work we have here. Yes, he was influenced by Yeats and Rousseau, especially the latter's Confessions, but there is no other work quite like this. It seems almost too pedestrian to say it covers the first sixty years of his life (he lived for another thirty years) and to say anything about them, as J. B. Priestley memorably put it, 'would be like turning on a tap before introducing people to Niagara Falls.' J. B. Priestley also said 'It is a book which can be read, with pleasure and profit, over and over again. It is in fact one of the greatest autobiographies in the English language. Even if Powys had never written any novels, this one book alone would have proved him to be a writer of genius.'

Drawing on his own vivid childhood memories of the seaside town of Weymouth, Powys creates a striking collection of human oddities, through which he shows his deep sympathy for the variety, eccentricity and loneliness of human beings.

A collection of literary essays.

'Mr. Powys is to be congratulated on having written a book of the kind that most needs writing and most deserves to be read...Here in a dozen chapters of eloquent and glowing prose, Mr. Powys describes for every reader that citadel which is himself, and explains to him how it maybe strengthened and upheld and on what terms it is most worth upholding.. The virtue of his book is that it is freshly and clearly focussed to meet the present situation to encourage and establish developing experience in growing minds' Manchester Guardian