British author and poet John Cowper Powys was born in Shirley, Derbyshire, England, on October 8, 1872. He was a university lecturer for about forty years, thirty of them in the United States, during which time he wrote four novels. He retired in 1930 and turned to full time writing. He returned to Great Britain in 1934 and died on June 17, 1963 in Wales. Biographical information available in The Oxford companion to English literature. 5th ed., p. 783-784.