Emyr Humphreys

M. Wynn Thomas

Description

Published to mark the centenary of his birth in 2019, this is the first comprehensive and authoritative study of the life and work (excluding only work for television) of the major Welsh writer Emyr Humphreys. During the course of a career spanning half a century, and dating back to the 1950s when he collaborated with the likes of Graham Greene, Patrick Heron, Saunders Lewis, Richard Burton, Siân Phillips and Peter O’Toole, Humphreys has published some two dozen works of fiction (including Outside the House of Baal, the greatest novel of anglophone Welsh literature) as well as highly distinctive poetry, seminal essays, and a visionary cultural history of Wales. In addition to offering a critical and interpretative survey of this remarkable, distinguished body of work, the present volume also sets Humphreys’s output in the context of the dramatic, transformative decades in recent Welsh history during which it was produced.

Prefatory Note Key to Abbreviations
The Life
Preoccupations
Protestant novelist
Fiction: first phase
Poems, essays, cultural history
Fiction: last phase
Conclusion
Notes Select Bibliography Index

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Poetry

Informations

• Publié par: University of Wales Press
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781786832979
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 11 Mo

Extrait

Writers of Wales

Emyr Humphreys

Editors: Jane Aaron M.Wynn Thomas Andrew Webb

Honorary Series Editor : R. Brinley Jones † Meic Stephens

Other titles in the Writers of Wales series: Christopher Meredith(2018), Diana Wallace B. L. Coombes(2017), Bill Jones and Chris Williams Owen Rhoscomyl(2016), John S. Ellis Dylan Thomas(2014), Walford Davies Gwenlyn Parry(2013), Roger Owen Welsh Periodicals in English(2013), Malcolm Ballin Ruth Bidgood(2012), Matthew Jarvis Dorothy Edwards(2011), Claire Flay Kate Roberts(2011), Katie Gramich Geoffrey of Monmouth(2010), Karen Jankulak Herbert Williams(2010), Phil Carradice Rhys Davies(2009), Huw Osborne R. S.Thomas(2006),Tony Brown Ben Bowen(2003),T. Robin Chapman James Kitchener Davies(2002), M. Wynn Thomas

Writers of Wales

Emyr Humphreys

M.Wynn Thomas

University of Wales Press 2018

© M. Wynn Thomas, 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Applications for the copyright owner ’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, University Registry, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3NS.

www.uwp.co.uk

British Library CataloguinginPublication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781786832962 eISBN 9781786832979

The right of M. Wynn Thomas to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77, 78 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

The publisher acknowledges the financial support of the Welsh Books Council.

Typeset in Wales by Eira Fenn Gaunt, Cardiff Printed by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, Wiltshire

Prefatory Note

Key to Abbreviations

 1

The Life

 2 Preoccupations

 3

Protestant novelist

 4 Fiction: first phase

 5 Poems, essays, cultural history

 6 Fiction: last phase

 7 Conclusion

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index

Contents

vii

i

x

2

3

6

1

2

9

3

103

125

157

164

173

177

Prefatory Note

Some parts of the discussion that follows are heavily revised versions of materials of mine on Emyr Humphreys previously published in the following places:

Emyr Humphreys(Penygroes: Gwasg Pantycelyn, 1989).

Two essays inInternal Difference: TwentiethCentury Writing in Wales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1992).

Chapter inIn the Shadow of the Pulpit: Literature and Nonconformist Wales(Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2010).

Two essays inAll That is Wales: Collected Essays(Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2017).

Introduction toConversations and Reflectionsand interviews in that volume (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2002).

Interviews in Arwel Jones (ed.),Dal Pen Rheswm(Caerdydd: Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru, 1999).

Abbreviations

LKThe Little Kingdom(London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1946) VSThe Voice of a Stranger(London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1949) CHA Change of Heart(London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1951) HFHear and Forgive(London: Macdonald, 1952) MAMan’s Estate A (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1955) IWThe Italian Wife(London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1957) TEY Tri Llais(Llandybie: Llyfrau’r Dryw, 1958);A Toy Epic (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1958) GThe Gift(London: Eyre and Spottiswood, 1963) OHBOutside the House of Baal(London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1965) NNatives(London: Secker and Warburg, 1968) NWNational Winner(London: Macdonald, 1971) FBFlesh and Blood(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1974) BFThe Best of Friends(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1978) ATThe Anchor Tree(London: Dent, 1980) TTThe Taliesin Tradition(London: Black Raven Press, 1983) JJones(London: Dent, 1984) SESalt of the Earth(London: Dent, 1985) AHAn Absolute Hero(London: Dent, 1986) OSOpen Secrets(London: Dent, 1988) BABonds of Attachment(London: Macdonald, 1991) USUnconditional Surrender(Bridgend: Seren, 1996) GDThe Gift of a Daughter(Bridgend: Seren, 1998)