John Cowper Powys Thomas Hardy, and these novels are set in Somerset and Dorset, part of Hardy's mythical Wessex. American scholar Richard Maxwell describes these four novels "as remarkably successful with the reading public of his time". "Maiden Castle", the last of the Wessex novels, is set in Dorchester, Thomas Hardy's Casterbridge, and which he intended to be a "rival" to Hardy's "Mayor of Casterbridge". All the same, despite his indebtedness to the Victorian novel and his enthusiasm for Hardy and Walter Scott, as well as for lesser figures such as Ainsworth, Powys was clearly a modernist, and has affinities also with Fyodor
David Conway (author) David Conway (author) David Conway (born 1963) is an Irish author and former musician. He was the original vocalist of the alternative rock band My Bloody Valentine, which he formed in 1983 with guitarist Kevin Shields and drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig. In 1987, during their minor underground success, Conway left the band and was replaced by Bilinda Butcher. Since 1991, Conway has written four novels, including 2009's "Tokyo Gothic" and 2010's "Celebrity Bedlam", published numerous short stories and contributed his writing to a selection of comic books. His writings are published by Radical Robot Books—his own publishing company—and Double Dragon