A popular classic reborn

The Library of Wales series, published by Parthian, is making important works of English-language Welsh literature available again. Series editor Kirsti Bohata told Jenny White about the republication of Alexander Cordell’s Rape of the Fair Country

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THE struggles of the Chartist movement in Wales are brought to life within the context of a family saga in Rape of the Fair Country, a novel by Alexander Cordell that was a huge hit in its time and has now been republished by Parthian as part of its Library of Wales series.

Cordell (1914-97) was a highly successful novelist who became fascinated with, and settled in, Wales. Born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, he was the son of a soldier and spent much of his youth in the Far East. He joined the British Army at 18, became a quantity surveyor after demobilisation in 1946 and then settled in Abergavenny, where he took up writing.

His first novel was published in 1954 but Rape of the Fair Country was his breakthrough, becoming an international bestseller that sold two million copies worldwide. But like all the books in the Library of Wales series, it has since disappeared from view.

The series, which was commissioned by Welsh Government and has been growing for two decades, now includes dozens of titles, ranging from Brenda Chamberlain's A Rope of Vines, a beautiful journal of life on a Greek island in the 1930s, to The Summer Flood by Goronwy Rees, an important contribution to Welsh LGBTQ+ literature that was originally published in 1932.

Kristi Bohata, a professor of English at Swansea University, is the successor to Dai Smith, who edited the series from its inception for about 50 titles. The series’ roots go back to evidence presented by Swansea University professor M Wynn Thomas to the Welsh Government's culture committee when it was exploring English-language publishing in Wales.

“He held up a book from the Library of America, which is a prestigious series showcasing American English-language writing as a distinctive tradition,” says Bohata. “The idea of the Library of Wales was to be able to shape that distinctive English-language tradition in Wales, but maybe aimed at a more popular market than the Library of America.”