English Fiction & Prose Literature - General & Miscellaneous - Literary Criticism, Welsh Literature - Literary Criticism, British Authors - General & Miscellaneous - Literary Biography, Welsh Authors - Biography

T. J. Llewelyn Prichard

Name: T. J. Llewelyn Prichard
Author: Sam Adams
ISBN: 9780708316450

by Sam Adams

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Overview

T. J. Llewelyn Prichard should be regarded as more than just a curiosity in the history of literature in Wales. He was one of the first to consider himself an Anglo-Welsh writer, and was the first Welsh writer to pen a novel - the much pirated and retold The Adventures and Vagaries of Twm Shon Catti (1828)." "Much of the story of his life must be conjectural. It is certain that he was born in Builth Wells, fairly certain that he spent part of his childhood in Breconshire. He was an actor in London, probably under the stage name of Mr Jeffries, before he turned to writing. After returning to Wales to sell his first substantial book of poems, Welsh Minstrelsy, he lived a largely hand-to-mouth existence, writing and mostly selling his books by subscription or from door to door. Twm Shon Catti briefly brought him a measure of fame and a little money, but commercial failure followed and he became a lonely derelict living in Swansea, where he died as a result of burns from his own fire." "This first book-length study of Prichard is based on original research and sheds new light on his mysterious life and varied literary output.