T.F. Powys: A Modern Allegorist is a study of an unusual kind. It has a double focus: on the one hand it is an examination of changing attitudes towards allegory, from the early nineteenth century until the present day; on the other, it is a study of the Dorset novelist, fabulist, and short story writer Theodore Francis Powys, an early twentieth century writer of allegorical fiction. The link between these two subjects is the theory of allegory propounded by Angus Fletcher, which the present study takes to be the most helpful and appropriate methodology for examining Powys's achievement. The high reputation that Powys enjoys has hitherto been attended by critical disagreement as to the exact nature of his use of allegory. Marius Buning contends that in this respect Powys has been misunderstood, largely because of the inadequacy of most contemporary responses to allegory, as the opening chapter makes clear. The two chapters devoted to his most celebrated novels Mr. Weston's Good Wine and Unclay provide invaluable guidelines for future scholars and persuasively vindicate the literary subtlety of Powys's art. Marius Buning's book is a ground-braking experiment in meta-critical thinking and intertextual dialogue, which is both valuable for its own sake and illuminating in its treatment of the many critics whom the author so enthusiastically discusses.