A Glastonbury Romance

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A Glastonbury Romance is a novel by John Cowper Powys, published in 1932. Usually considered Powys' most famous work, the novel is part of his "Wessex Novels," also including Wolf Solent, Maiden Castle, and Weymouth Sands. This very long chronicle details the lives of inhabitants of the Somerset village of Glastonbury over approximately a years' time.

Plotline

Much of the novel focuses on the relationship between the modern world and Glastonbury, hub of numerous Grail legends and (according to some legends) the original Isle of Avalon. Early in the novel mystic John Geard becomes mayor of Glastonbury and attempts to turn it into the centre of a Grail-worshipping religion for the 20th century. At the same time an alliance of Anarchists, Marxists, and Jacobins try to turn Glastonbury into a commune while capitalist Phillip Crow mines the legendary Wookey Hole mines for tin and tries to industrialise the village. Other plotlines include those of the vicar Mat Dekker and his son Sam, jaded outsider John Crow, and the seemingly bipolar Welsh antiquarian Owen Evans. By the end of the novel the commune has been established and Mr Geard has turned the city into a hub of tourism promoting his Grail-based religion. However, in the last chapter a flood submerges the village and Mr Geard allows himself to drown in order to gain a dying vision of the Grail.

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