Memoir of the Early Life of William Cowper, Written by Himself

If you know William Cowper from the hymn “God Moves in a Mysterious Way” — or from his poetry — this is the story behind it, in his own words. Written by himself and published in 1816, the memoir recounts his descent into suicidal despair and the grace that restored him.

It's the firsthand source behind the later accounts of the poet's life and faith — here in a clean modern edition, with the original linked free.

Memoir of the Early Life of William Cowper, Written by Himself (published posthumously in 1816) is the conversion narrative of one of the most celebrated English poets and hymnwriters. In the manner of Bunyan's Grace Abounding, Cowper records his descent into suicidal despair and the grace that found him at the bottom.

It traces his anxious youth, a severe breakdown in 1763 with repeated suicide attempts, his committal to Dr. Cotton's asylum at St Albans, and his gradual restoration and evangelical conversion around 1764. Cowper writes with rare candor about mental anguish and about the comfort he finally found in Scripture.

Cowper went on to write some of the best-loved hymns in English — “God Moves in a Mysterious Way,” “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood,” and others in the Olney Hymns he produced with his friend John Newton. This memoir is the firsthand story behind them.

William Cowper (1731–1800) was one of the foremost English poets of the eighteenth century and, with John Newton, a central figure of the Olney Hymns. Trained for the law, he was tormented by anxiety and depression for much of his life.

His conversion came not in triumph but out of the depths: after a breakdown and suicide attempts in 1763, he was cared for at an asylum where, reading Romans, he came to a sense of pardon and peace around 1764. His later life mixed remarkable poetic achievement with recurring melancholy, and his hymns and poems remain treasured.