Jane Williams (Ysgafell)

Jane Williams, under her bardic name 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 non-fiction and texts in English on Wales and matters Welsh, Jane Williams is unique. This is the first full-length study of her life and work, comprising detailed original research from which the author has drawn a picture of a remarkable and impressive woman writer.