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Morwyn
THE VENGEANCE OF GOD...
During a raging storm one night on the Welsh mountains, thunder roars, lightning sears across the sky, the ground heaves and a deep black cave yawns open. Still alive, the mysterious and nameless narrator of this chilling tale and his beloved Morwyn are engulfed by the rock and plunged into the gaping cavern. The subterranean void is part of a hell inhabited by the spirits of cruel fanatics who enjoyed a life of inflicting pain on others - such infamous characters as the Marquis de Sade, Gilles de Rais, the Emperor Nero and Torquemada. The narrator and Morwyn meet all these spirits during their strange adventure and witness a trial at which the evil-doers are charged with their crimes. Do these wicked souls deserve to suffer the vengeance of God?
MORWYN has an original introduction by Dennis Wheatley.
During a raging storm one night on the Welsh mountains, thunder roars, lightning sears across the sky, the ground heaves and a deep black cave yawns open. Still alive, the mysterious and nameless narrator of this chilling tale and his beloved Morwyn are engulfed by the rock and plunged into the gaping cavern. The subterranean void is part of a hell inhabited by the spirits of cruel fanatics who enjoyed a life of inflicting pain on others - such infamous characters as the Marquis de Sade, Gilles de Rais, the Emperor Nero and Torquemada. The narrator and Morwyn meet all these spirits during their strange adventure and witness a trial at which the evil-doers are charged with their crimes. Do these wicked souls deserve to suffer the vengeance of God?
MORWYN has an original introduction by Dennis Wheatley.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1937
About the author
John Cowper Powys
183 books193 followersPowys was born in Shirley, Derbyshire, where his father was vicar. His mother was descended from the poet William Cowper, hence his middle name. His two younger brothers, Llewelyn Powys and Theodore Francis Powys, also became well-known writers. Other brothers and sisters also became prominent in the arts.
John studied at Sherborne School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and became a teacher and lecturer; as lecturer, he worked first in England, then in continental Europe and finally in the USA, where he lived in the years 1904-1934. While in the United States, his work was championed by author Theodore Dreiser. He engaged in public debate with Bertrand Russell and the philosopher and historian Will Durant: he was called for the defence in the first obscenity trial for the James Joyce novel, Ulysses, and was mentioned with approval in the autobiography of US feminist and anarchist, Emma Goldman.
He made his name as a poet and essayist, moving on to produce a series of acclaimed novels distinguished by their uniquely detailed and intensely sensual recreation of time, place and character. They also describe heightened states of awareness resulting from mystic revelation, or from the experience of extreme pleasure or pain. The best known of these distinctive novels are A Glastonbury Romance and Wolf Solent. He also wrote some works of philosophy and literary criticism, including a pioneering tribute to Dorothy Richardson.
Having returned to the UK, he lived in England for a brief time, then moved to Corwen in Wales, where he wrote historical romances (including two set in Wales) and magical fantasies. He later moved to Blaenau Ffestiniog, where he remained until his death in 1963.
John studied at Sherborne School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and became a teacher and lecturer; as lecturer, he worked first in England, then in continental Europe and finally in the USA, where he lived in the years 1904-1934. While in the United States, his work was championed by author Theodore Dreiser. He engaged in public debate with Bertrand Russell and the philosopher and historian Will Durant: he was called for the defence in the first obscenity trial for the James Joyce novel, Ulysses, and was mentioned with approval in the autobiography of US feminist and anarchist, Emma Goldman.
He made his name as a poet and essayist, moving on to produce a series of acclaimed novels distinguished by their uniquely detailed and intensely sensual recreation of time, place and character. They also describe heightened states of awareness resulting from mystic revelation, or from the experience of extreme pleasure or pain. The best known of these distinctive novels are A Glastonbury Romance and Wolf Solent. He also wrote some works of philosophy and literary criticism, including a pioneering tribute to Dorothy Richardson.
Having returned to the UK, he lived in England for a brief time, then moved to Corwen in Wales, where he wrote historical romances (including two set in Wales) and magical fantasies. He later moved to Blaenau Ffestiniog, where he remained until his death in 1963.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 12, 2015
The thought crossed my mind that I've never read, in any of these authors who derive such pleasure from describing cruelty, any description of how the face of the sadist himself looks- how their own face looks- when they are writing these passages!
I couldn't see these people's face but I could see quite clearly the faces of certain students in the horrible scene at which they were gazing; and it would have been a revelation to any great pathologist to note the manner in which the frenzy of scientific curiosity was so delicately mingled- like the colours in 'shot' silk or in 'lustre' ware- with the subtle undertones of the other mania.
A falling star loses a walking-party to the lost-world of cruelty. Judgement spites reason for sadists; vivisectionists make/made an altar of triumphant gleam. Cosmic clouds sweep under the stone rug. It's not their hell. Subterranean life pity doesn't permeate sympathy. Marquis of Sade blooms in incorporeal form, its his/their system-of-things. Nero floats, Torquemada sinks, Gilles De Rais swims. Are they cruel when they are no longer living themselves? Does their I'm Doing It In The Name Of Science become any less vain now? If they were headless monsters pumping stolen blood to their heartless weapon hands all along. The philosophy was just talk to me. The struck down by outer world rock vivisectionist will be happy to be there. (It strangely didn't strike me that the four living went down because of the one asshole among them. But what are the odds of an asteroid hitting the Earth AND there's a sadist in the group trip to hell?) To condemn animal torture in hell is what hell if they are going to bask in this prison sun-fire? (I like that Powys' underworldian inmates turn to "Let me torture this soul!" fucked up reasoning same as they were for Science up to the point of wanting to get the Heck double hockey sticks out of there.)
Dead man's walking companion is an old captain reciting his claustrophobic line between pregnant lust and not wanting it anymore to his son. His son is far away in his own reason. I couldn't match him up to the teller. He's easily a figment to have the convenient opposite views as an excuse for old man to rail on his.
I'm not just tired of this from Powys but I am especially sick of it from him. She looked much younger than her seventeen years when he met her. She looks seventeen now that she's twenty. What does it matter if anyone else would find her pretty, let alone his son? You aren't going to win an award because you want to fuck the body another man might overlook. The point is that no other man is in her orbit except for her father the vivisectionist. Maybe her features really are lit up with pure love for him. The positioning for the right conditions to not ruin the obsession isn't doing it for me. That's what it is all about with him. I don't believe all of these teenage girls want to fuck wrinkled bags of flesh. But they wouldn't do the nasty anyway. Too much like No-Man in Powy's Maiden Castle he will not give her any release. I get looking for something to take up some room in the hollow rattling but THIS makes me feel hollow. A thin arm, young. Almost a boy's body, always on the way to another almost. Pretty or not pretty, I don't care. It's a personal dream photograph held over a physical space and then exhausting keep it alive at all times, no matter what. Powys is hard for me. He can be the hell of it's-all-just-about-getting-my-mental-dick-hard empty. He's also the soul's burn on the table, hopes dreams nightmare dash uplift a life dimensional ghost you look through. 'Morwyn' is a tough one. A lot of times I was desperately sick of reading it. I pretty much don't want to meet any more famous sadists from history. It would have been better as a short story. The old man notes that there aren't any persons with his own vice in hell is the thing. I wish he had just given in to his vices. Forget the son to "argue" with in a one-sided letter. What would he look like if he actually screwed young Morwyn? Forget the stars align conditions (so so so sick of this. The seed in life to feed art is murdered this way). But this time I don't think that was what Powys really wanted to do. I know he claimed in his autobiography that he beat his sadistic urges. I think this is worse. I work with this guy who loves to tell me about something perverted another man said about very young girls, pretending he is condemning it. He gets this twist in his mouth. I don't ever look in his eyes but the mouth twist gives met his feeling like they must be savoring the words. I wish he'd just say the things in his own voice. What interest does Powys get when a living beating pulse is in pain? Does it edge towards the alive-pain or is it the living past death pain? It's a body turning inside out on the way to be something else. If I wanted a hell for torturers they'd be empty. If they were going to answer to anything past what every thing living has to do..... It would have worked for me if it felt like living at all. They should be alive and inside out. I don't give a shit about theory. If it is dream love or dream answer to. What do they look like when it is happening?
I don't know about Morwyn. It irritated the crap out of me how she holds onto the hands of her Monsieur Sade, hides in "he was my father" on their quest to do something for hell-spent vivisectionist daddy. When she was living with him on the hell or heaven on earth did she ever have to be torn about anything he did? What did she think if daddy wanted to cut up her dog Bessie? Or did she really just get to hide behind "he was my father"? I can't deal with this. It's not like that. Your parents are real people. You don't get to do that if you have to live as a real person yourself. But she's really not. She's a thin arm to be coveted by the old man. An arm for him, a living girl for the dead sadists. Wait at the mouth for her to fulfill their seeds. Old man's spaniel Black Peter was simpler in the real way of not simple. Trembling in fear, agonizing in sympathy. Black Peter stretching for affection, leaping in telepathic jealousy of the adult tensions was more real to me than The Girl. He had a mind of his own, that dog, a real tuning fork of experience. Black Peter wouldn't bore you to helpless tears with justification babble.
May 1, 2019
a lot of people don't seem to like this book compared very much to his other works, but its actually pretty cool. it's a big ol argument against vivisection, and involves the characters descending into hell, which is populated exclusively by vivisectors and torturers, and they even meet some famous people like the marquis de sade and nero. i thought that the rest of the book would be a sort of dystopian satire of hell and how it all works, but it takes an odd turn when they escape to the ocean at the bottom of hell and find the resting place of merlin the wizard. a lot of this part of the book brings in some of the symbolism and cosmological stuff that he uses later on in Porius, including the association of merlin and cronos and the coming of a golden age, but we also get mostly the same impassioned arguments against vivisection repeated many times. he explicitly links the vivisection of animals to both the burning of heretics by the inquisition and racial killings like lynchings and pogroms, which sort of surprised me since i don't really think of him as an overtly political author. there's also a lot of the obsessive psychological meanderings that he likes to put in his other work, and lots of the sexual stuff too if you like that kind of thing. it's also pretty cool that he gives you a really ambiguous and sort of a downer ending, but then the ghost of rabelais shows up to try and cheer up the protagonist. probably not a good place to start with powys but recommended if you like the symbolism and ideas floating around in his other books.
August 26, 2026
sheer madness.
If this is not his worst novel, it is certainly his most unhinged. Yet, I couldn't stop reading. Morbid fascination.
JCP might've had an interesting concept, but he didn't stay on the rails. Plot was never a primary concern. Rather, he prefers deep dives into character psyches. Our main character, referred to as Captain, can be loathsome at times, but his sole refrain is vituperation. He is not overly concerned with his injuries, with their seemingly inescapable plight, their death in life, nor the goings on with his lady love, the eponymous Morwyn. All of these concerns are subordinate to his main obsession, which he rightly calls his obsession. This is of course, his pet topic, vivisection. He also addresses his son continually, as if he were telling this story at the fireside. But who would listen to such a wandering, absurd story unless one were forced to?
The story starts out promisingly. The narrator ascends a cliff with Morwyn and someone annoyingly named Mr. ---. (The name seems to have been redacted in the final draft.) His dog's name is Black Peter. These all accompany him into Hell, after they are flung into it by some 'living star' in a vague way. It is at times called a meteorite. It represents the devil, who was called the Morning Star.
The motto in Hell is "do as you will." This is interpreted variously.
To the detriment of the novel, Morwyn is given almost no lines of dialogue. She remains a mystery because we can't trust any of the ridiculous things the narrator says and thinks.
For this book, JCP choses the cumbrous term "System-of-Things," as a stand-in for God. Other characters employ the same term, sometimes switching to "God," to add to the inconsistencies. This is essentially a return of the First-Cause Syndrome from Glastonbury Romance.
he just so happens to meet Rabelais a few pages after discussing the writer with Socrates. Socrates knows the French author well, is familiar with his books and personality. And what topic do they start in on without preamble? Why, vivisection, of course. What a coincidence.
The fabric of the novel is riddled with mistakes: he "taps out" a message on Morwyn's back, so that he may not be overheard by their companions. The message is characteristically loquacious, and is around half-a-page long. How does he tap this out? Morse code? Of course, the language of Hell, called Leprosid, is a silent language, a sort of thought emanation, understood by all (except Socrates for some unexplained reason.) So why bother to tap it out?
The unconvincing meeting with Socrates reveals that the sophic philosopher has knowledge of such things as 'insulin,' and his rants are not in keeping with his historic persona.
It is strange how our main character knows who these shades are before they introduce themselves. Some of them never say who they are, but he becomes aware of their identity: especially Nero, Marquis de Sade, and Taliesen. He makes too many assumptions, especially about Morwyn's feelings and state of mind. Does she actually desire him? There is little evidence of it.
The Marquis de Sade describes himself as a 'sadist.' This made me laugh out loud. The famous Frenchman delivers his philosophical views at length. Like all the characters in this novel, he is a mouthpiece for the author's views and their opposite. The discussions are circular, touching on human relationships, spiritual capacities, extreme forms of individualism, human progress, the inevitability of cruelty, etc.
The depictions of torture are colorful. One is tempted to call them compelling. The scenes in the airships are preposterous. Where do these air ships and television screen come from? Who manufactures them and ships them to Hell? This was published in 1937. Televisions were not in wide commercial use yet. He was prescient in predicting that they would convey horrid images directly to the masses.
Unfortunately, there is no world-building in this book. Things just happen. I was drawn to this title because I am interested in tales of Katabasis. But this portrait of Hell is hardly Dantean. The suffering seems all virtual. It is not crowded. There's an abundance of space and plentiful entertainment. Very little is described, sadly. JCP neglects his gifts for physical description in favor of pseudo-scientific jeremiads.
Instead of panicking, the characters have stilted conversations. They leisurely stroll for hours at a time, take long rides on highly accessible airships. Powys' style is profoundly odd, rhythmic and easy to read. The whole scenario feels like a wild dream, not a sensical journey. The descent into the depths mirrors the plummet into human nature offered by our m. c.'s psychological insights.
He describes a titan immobilized, immortalized, pecked to pieces by birds of prey, which is reminiscent of Prometheus' fate. Prometheus brought knowledge of fire to mankind. JCP denounces the exploration of forbidden knowledge in the realm of science, while practicing his own form of mysticism. Knowledge must not come at the expense of human or animal life. His main argument.
His references to Milton, Goethe, Homer, Shakespeare and others lent the whole a mock-epic quality. It had the makings of an epic, though he fumbles the form and subject early on, writing perhaps the first things that come into his head instead of carefully composing a lasting work worthy of his legacy.
The morality speeches are sometimes rapturous, always didactic, and occasionally unbearable. The condemnations are worth enduring. The rest of the dreamlike nonsense doesn't sit well, leaves this reader mightily unsatisfied.
If this is not his worst novel, it is certainly his most unhinged. Yet, I couldn't stop reading. Morbid fascination.
JCP might've had an interesting concept, but he didn't stay on the rails. Plot was never a primary concern. Rather, he prefers deep dives into character psyches. Our main character, referred to as Captain, can be loathsome at times, but his sole refrain is vituperation. He is not overly concerned with his injuries, with their seemingly inescapable plight, their death in life, nor the goings on with his lady love, the eponymous Morwyn. All of these concerns are subordinate to his main obsession, which he rightly calls his obsession. This is of course, his pet topic, vivisection. He also addresses his son continually, as if he were telling this story at the fireside. But who would listen to such a wandering, absurd story unless one were forced to?
The story starts out promisingly. The narrator ascends a cliff with Morwyn and someone annoyingly named Mr. ---. (The name seems to have been redacted in the final draft.) His dog's name is Black Peter. These all accompany him into Hell, after they are flung into it by some 'living star' in a vague way. It is at times called a meteorite. It represents the devil, who was called the Morning Star.
The motto in Hell is "do as you will." This is interpreted variously.
To the detriment of the novel, Morwyn is given almost no lines of dialogue. She remains a mystery because we can't trust any of the ridiculous things the narrator says and thinks.
For this book, JCP choses the cumbrous term "System-of-Things," as a stand-in for God. Other characters employ the same term, sometimes switching to "God," to add to the inconsistencies. This is essentially a return of the First-Cause Syndrome from Glastonbury Romance.
he just so happens to meet Rabelais a few pages after discussing the writer with Socrates. Socrates knows the French author well, is familiar with his books and personality. And what topic do they start in on without preamble? Why, vivisection, of course. What a coincidence.
The fabric of the novel is riddled with mistakes: he "taps out" a message on Morwyn's back, so that he may not be overheard by their companions. The message is characteristically loquacious, and is around half-a-page long. How does he tap this out? Morse code? Of course, the language of Hell, called Leprosid, is a silent language, a sort of thought emanation, understood by all (except Socrates for some unexplained reason.) So why bother to tap it out?
The unconvincing meeting with Socrates reveals that the sophic philosopher has knowledge of such things as 'insulin,' and his rants are not in keeping with his historic persona.
It is strange how our main character knows who these shades are before they introduce themselves. Some of them never say who they are, but he becomes aware of their identity: especially Nero, Marquis de Sade, and Taliesen. He makes too many assumptions, especially about Morwyn's feelings and state of mind. Does she actually desire him? There is little evidence of it.
The Marquis de Sade describes himself as a 'sadist.' This made me laugh out loud. The famous Frenchman delivers his philosophical views at length. Like all the characters in this novel, he is a mouthpiece for the author's views and their opposite. The discussions are circular, touching on human relationships, spiritual capacities, extreme forms of individualism, human progress, the inevitability of cruelty, etc.
The depictions of torture are colorful. One is tempted to call them compelling. The scenes in the airships are preposterous. Where do these air ships and television screen come from? Who manufactures them and ships them to Hell? This was published in 1937. Televisions were not in wide commercial use yet. He was prescient in predicting that they would convey horrid images directly to the masses.
Unfortunately, there is no world-building in this book. Things just happen. I was drawn to this title because I am interested in tales of Katabasis. But this portrait of Hell is hardly Dantean. The suffering seems all virtual. It is not crowded. There's an abundance of space and plentiful entertainment. Very little is described, sadly. JCP neglects his gifts for physical description in favor of pseudo-scientific jeremiads.
Instead of panicking, the characters have stilted conversations. They leisurely stroll for hours at a time, take long rides on highly accessible airships. Powys' style is profoundly odd, rhythmic and easy to read. The whole scenario feels like a wild dream, not a sensical journey. The descent into the depths mirrors the plummet into human nature offered by our m. c.'s psychological insights.
He describes a titan immobilized, immortalized, pecked to pieces by birds of prey, which is reminiscent of Prometheus' fate. Prometheus brought knowledge of fire to mankind. JCP denounces the exploration of forbidden knowledge in the realm of science, while practicing his own form of mysticism. Knowledge must not come at the expense of human or animal life. His main argument.
His references to Milton, Goethe, Homer, Shakespeare and others lent the whole a mock-epic quality. It had the makings of an epic, though he fumbles the form and subject early on, writing perhaps the first things that come into his head instead of carefully composing a lasting work worthy of his legacy.
The morality speeches are sometimes rapturous, always didactic, and occasionally unbearable. The condemnations are worth enduring. The rest of the dreamlike nonsense doesn't sit well, leaves this reader mightily unsatisfied.
December 28, 2013
I yield to none in my longstanding admiration for Wolf Solent, Maiden Castle, and Weymouth Sands, but this anti-vivisection rant, thinly and carelessly dressed up as fiction, boasts none of their mighty virtues. At times reminding me of A Voyage to Arcturus, but without its extremes of imagination, Powys takes us on a post-Dantesque trundle through a version of hell. At the opposite pole from his minutely observed, objective novels mentioned above, it's repetitive, short and yet tedious, with a frankly shoddy throwaway ending.
September 1, 2021
John Cowper Powys ruins his book with his weird sexual comments which are so mind-bogglingly inappropriate you wonder if his publisher even cared what he was printing. The author also projects his own personal sadism obsession into an endless diatribe on vivisection. It’s so obviously about him.
Otherwise, some kind of interesting “under” world-building with his own personal hell. The spirits of the dead are convincingly portrayed. Some stuff is very creative and the Gods in the center of the earth are sort of neatly done.
In his diaries JCP sincerely thought Morwyn was his greatest book he’d written and he was devastated by the poor reviews. I think the book is clearly insane, and almost entirely unreadable. Unlike Maiden Castle which I thought had some value to a Powys scholar, Morwyn I don’t feel can be recommended to anyone.
May 14, 2008
Absolutely brilliant! My first Powys book, but I'm looking forward to starting A Glastonbury Romance immensely. Don't let the "Dennis Wheatley Library of the Occult" banner put you off - this is wonderful Edwardian chthonic adventuring written by a real Rabelaisian wit with a bee in his bonnet about vivesection!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews