Jane Williams (Ysgafell)

Jane Williams (Ysgafell) was a writer with a long and varied list of publications: poetry, fiction, a riposte to the 1847 Blue Books, the autobiography of Betsi Cadwaladr, a history of Wales, a biography of the historian and patriot Carnhuanawc, and a history of women’s writing in English. In her writing and her life she crossed and re-crossed boundaries-national, social, literary, linguistic, and cultural-and carved out her own path. As a nineteenth-century woman whose writing career spanned fifty years and many genres, including serious nonfiction and texts in English on Wales and Welsh matters, Williams is unique. This book is the first full-length study of her life and work, built on detailed original research from which Gwyneth Tyson Roberts has drawn a picture of a remarkable and impressive woman writer.