Welsh Women's Classics: Gladys of Harlech

Disgrifiad Cymraeg / Welsh Description

Nofel wedi'i gosod yn ystod Rhyfel y Rhosynnau yng nghanol y 15fed ganrif yw Gladys of Harlech , ac mae'n adrodd hanes Gladys, wyres ceidwad olaf castell Harlech a'i theulu. Fe'i cyhoeddwyd gyntaf yn ddi-enw yn 1858.

Disgrifiad Saesneg / English Description

Gladys of Harlech was first published anonymously in 1858. The novel is set during the Wars of the Roses in the mid-15th century and tells the story of Gladys, granddaughter of the last Welsh keeper of Harlech, and her family.

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Bywgraffiad yr Awdur / Author Biography

Louisa Matilda Spooner (1820-1886) was born in Maentwrog, the fifth of ten children, to English parents. The Cambrian Journal praised her first novel, Gladys of Harlech, for its 'true spirit of patriotism' at a time when few novels were 'illustrative of Welsh manners and customs, that a genuine Cymro could for a moment tolerate'. Two years later, her second novel, Country Landlords (1860), followed. This time, Spooner challenged ideas of local government as she linked the nationalist movement in Italy of the 1830s with social reforms undertaken at home in north Wales. In her final novel, The Welsh Heiress (1868), greed, murder, insanity and alcoholism creep into Victorian Merionethshire. Spooner never married. She lived with her elder brother, the railway engineer Charles Easton Spooner, and his family at Bron-y-Garth in Porthmadog. Today, the Spooner family name lives on in the town in connection with the Ffestiniog Railway.

Adolygiad y Cyhoeddwr / Publisher Review

The Cambrian Journal praised it for it's 'true spirit of patriotism [which] penetrates... Gladys of Harlech, and gives life and vigour..., which is refreshing to contemplate.' • Latest in the Welsh Women's Classic series. • An author of historical and social novels, Louisa Matilda Spooner is a largely forgotten author of north Wales, whose life and work has been overshadowed by the family legacy surrounding the Ffestiniog Railway in the Porthmadog area. • Written in the decade following the Blue Books, Spooner’s Gladys is part of a national revival in which the historical novel functions as a corrective to the vilification of Welsh women in the Reports. • All three of Spooner’s novels have a strong local connection as they are set in her native Merionethshire.