Background
Murry was the son of the writer John Middleton Murry and his second wife, the former Violet Le Maistre. His mother contracted pulmonary tuberculosis when Murry was 8 months old, and died just before his fifth birthday.
(Pocket Books hardcover, published exclusively for and by ...)
Pocket Books hardcover, published exclusively for and by the Science Fiction Book Club. Not available new in stores. First printing Dec. 1979 (code J47), 211 pages, cover art by Gary Viskupic. 8vo (8.5" x 5.75") 1980 Locus Poll Award, Best SF Novel (Place: 7). Nominated, 1979 British Fantasy Award, August Derleth Fantasy Award; 1979 Nebula Award; 1980 Balrog Award. Includes as a prologue the story Piper at the Gates of Dawn, originally published separately (nominated, 1976 Nebula Award; 1977 British Fantasy Award; 1977 Ditmar Award; 1977 Hugo Award. 1977 Locus Poll Award, Best Novella (Place: 2).) This story is only present in US editions. The novel's first edition was a Gollancz hardcover, published in 1978 in the UK, followed by a 1979 paperback published by Pan (also UK). This was followed by a Sept. 1979 Pocket Books mass paperback edition, and this Dec. 1979 Pocket Books / Science Fiction Book Club hardcover. This is the first (and only) US hardcover edition. This book is first in a series, followed by A Dream of Kinship and A Tapestry of Time (only published in mass paperback by Pocket in the US.) Richard Cowper is a pen name of English author John Middleton Murray, Jr.
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Murry was the son of the writer John Middleton Murry and his second wife, the former Violet Le Maistre. His mother contracted pulmonary tuberculosis when Murry was 8 months old, and died just before his fifth birthday.
Murry attended Rendcomb College, a progressive school in Gloucestershire. After the war, he read Anglo-Saxon and English at Brasenose College, Oxford from which he graduated in 1949. His first novel, the autobiographical The Golden Valley, was finished in 1954 but not published until 1958 as by Colin Murry.
He enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1944 and applied to join the Fleet Air Arm as a pilot, but was turned down on the grounds of poor eyesight and was never in combat. The couple had two daughters. Publication was delayed because of the harsh criticism he had received from his father after he showed it to him following its completion.
Three more novels as Colin Murry followed, the last appearing in 1972.
Responses to his work in the genre were mixed, with readers liking his subtle, lyrical and moving stories, but some San Francisco critics responded harshly. Martin Amis wrote a series of harsh reviews of the Cowper books, which Murry shrugged off, saying "He grew up with a famous father too!" He retired from writing in 1986, stating that he had nothing more to say, and turned to painting and repairing Victorian chairs.
(Pocket Books hardcover, published exclusively for and by ...)
His writing often aimed at direct, intense feeling, with little or none of the irony and cynicism characteristic of much twentieth-century literature.