Maiden Castle (novel) Maiden Castle (novel) Maiden Castle by John Cowper Powys was first published in 1936 and is the last of Powys so-called Wessex novels, following "Wolf Solent" (1929), "A Glastonbury Romance" (1932), "Weymouth Sands" (1934). Powys was an admirer of 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" is set in Dorchester, Dorset Thomas Hardy's Casterbridge, and which Powys intended to be a "rival" to Hardy's "Mayor of Casterbridge". Glen Cavaliero describes Dorchester
Roger Taylor (author) Roger Taylor (author) Roger Taylor is an English fiction and non-fiction author. He was born in Heywood, Lancashire, and now lives in the Wirral. He is a chartered civil and structural engineer, a pistol, rifle and shotgun shooter, aikido instructor/student, and an enthusiastic but inaccurate piano player. He is the author of thirteen epic fantasy novels and a book on martial arts philosophy. The first four books are collectively known as the Chronicles of Hawklan, the following seven are set in the same world following the events in the Chronicles, and the twelfth, 'The Return of the Sword', is the