William Cowper was the most famous poet of his day. Jane Austen was foremost among his fans, Wordsworth knew his work by heart and William Blake ranked him alongside Milton. But Cowper is all but forgotten today. Obsessed with God and suicide, loved by many women, his life was tragically cut short by the profound mental illness that dogged his every day. Yet despite the obsessions that made him a virtual recluse, William Cowper lived out a love-story as intense as any in English literature. Brian Lynch, much like William Cowper, is a much-praised poet himselv. Now, in his first novel, Lynch has achieved an astonishing piece of fiction based on the life of this legendary English poet. The Winner of Sorrow brings to life a forgotten giant. Intense, exhilarating and masterful in its evocation of the period, this is literary fiction at its finest.