Richard Cowper

Richard Cowper was the pen name of John Middleton Murry Jr. (1926-2002), an English writer who published early literary fiction as Colin Murry before turning to science fiction and fantasy under the Cowper name in the 1960s and 1970s. He is best known for The White Bird of Kinship trilogy, comprising The Road to Corlay, A Dream of Kinship, and A Tapestry of Time, a lyrical post-apocalyptic sequence set in a flooded future England reshaped by religious mysticism and psychic gifts, alongside the earlier novella The Twilight of Briareus. Cowper's fiction was noted for its direct, unironic emotional intensity, unusual among genre writing of the period, and for prose informed by his background in mainstream literary writing. He retired from fiction in 1986 to pursue painting and furniture restoration.