Plaque to John Cowper Powys is in High East Street, Dorchester

HIGH EAST STREET, DORCHESTER

JOHN Cowper Powys could be known as one of the country's forgotten novelists.

This clergyman's son from Dorset lived in Dorchester for a short time in 1936 while he wrote Maiden Castle, relocating there from Chaldon after moving from America with his American partner Phyllis Playter.

Cowper Powys finished Maiden Castle when he was living in North Wales. The novel, the last of Powys' so-called Wessex novels, is about the difficult relationship of a historical novelist and a young circus acrobat.

He died in 1963 aged 90 in Blaenau Ffestiniog, Wales.