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
Æthelberht, King of Wessex and S 336) Æthelred makes grants as king of the West Saxons and Æthelberht is not mentioned. In Keynes's view, Æthelberht may have delegated some power in Wessex, perhaps in his own absence. However, a charter of Æthelberht dated December 863 (S 333) is attested by Æthelred and Alfred as "filius regis" (king's son). Æthelberht granted immunity from royal and judicial services to Sherborne church in honour of the souls of his father Æthelwulf and his brother Æthelbald. Unlike most charters, which were in Latin, this one is in the Old English, and historians disagree whether this reflects a trend