SOURCE: "John Cowper Powys as Humorist," in Contemporary Review, Vol. 222, No. 1285, February, 1973, pp. 78-83.

In the following review, Knight highlights humorous excerpts from the works of Powys.

We could say that there are three main myths in modern Europe: the Faust myth, the Don Juan myth and the Prometheus myth; the first covering evil and tragedy, the second sex and comedy, and the third something ahead of us, Nietzsche's superman, an extension of human consciousness. Powys's fictions cover the first two, his philosophical books, In Spite Of especially, lay foundations for the third. Here I discuss, primarily, the play of humour suffusing, and at times dominating, his writings.

His letters are rich with it. It is usually a humour turned against himself, as when he imagines a publisher saying: 'Oh, that terrible heavy-weather John Cowper—What I say is, he's the only one of these buggers I know...