books in order

Emyr Humphreys Books In Order

Land of the Living Books In Order

  1. Flesh and Blood (1974)
  2. The Best of Friends (1978)
  3. Salt of the Earth (1985)
  4. An Absolute Hero (1986)
  5. Open Secrets (1988)
  6. National Winner (1971)
  7. Bonds of Attachment (1991)

Novels

  1. Hear and Forgive (1952)
  2. A Man’s Estate (1955)
  3. The Italian Wife (1957)
  4. A Toy Epic (1958)
  5. The Gift (1963)
  6. Outside The House Of Baal (1965)
  7. The Anchor Tree (1980)
  8. Jones (1984)
  9. Unconditional Surrender (1996)
  10. The Gift of a Daughter (1997)
  11. Ghosts and Strangers (2001)
  12. The Shop (2005)

Collections

  1. Natives (1965)
  2. The Rigours of Inspection (2005)
  3. The Woman At the Window (2009)

Non fiction

  1. Miscellany Two (1981)
  2. The Taliesin Tradition (1983)
  3. The Crucible of Myth (1991)
  4. Conversations and Reflections (2003)

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Emyr Humphreys Books Overview

Flesh and Blood

Flesh and Blood is the first of seven novels which make up The Land of the Living, a sequence which is one of the finest achievements of Welsh writing in English. Amy Parry is the central character of the series, and it is her struggles and the trials and tribulations of her family and friends that provide the framework of a complex model of twentieth century experience, centred for the most part on Welsh life.

The Best of Friends

The Best of Friends is the second of seven novels which make up The Land of the Living, a series which is one of the finest achievements of Welsh writing in English.

Salt of the Earth

This, the third of the novels in the series The Land of the Living, which began with Flesh and Blood and The Best of Friends, follows the career of the central character, Amy Parry, who is now a county school teacher in a small coastal resort on the Ll n peninsula.

An Absolute Hero

An Absolute Hero, the fourth of the novels in The Land of the Living sequence, finds Amy Parry bereft of her best friend Enid who has died in childbirth, unable to marry Val Gwyn who is seriously ill with TB, and determined not to choose poverty and struggle with her former lover Pen Lewis. When she marries John Cilydd More, companionship and motherhood bring her security and some fulfillment. But her peaceful existence is invaded by the turbulence of striking miners and hunger marchers and the return of Pen Lewis. The events of the Spanish Civil War come to hold great significance in 1930s Wales, and particularly for Amy.

Open Secrets

Open Secrets, the fifth volume in the Land of the Living sequence, finds Amy Parry and her husband, the poet John Cilydd More, confronted with not only the destruction and desperation of the Second World War, but also the strain of conflicting political beliefs on their marriage. As Amy struggles to balance her loyalty to her family with her own independent ambitions, she becomes involved with the welfare of German refugees, the Labour movement and war work in ways that find little favour with her husband and even less with Nanw, her jealous sister in law. Their compelling story unfolds against the turmoil of a radically changing world.

National Winner

In National Winner, the sixth novel in the Land of the Living sequence, Amy Parry appears to have reached a summit of affluence and influence. As Lady Brangor, the widow of her third husband, she plans to create a cultural centre for women at Brangor Hall. These ambitious plans are impeded by the obsession of her youngest son, Peredur, with the mysterious death of his father, John Cilydd More, Amy’s first husband, the poet and National Winner of the title. Her devoted stepson, Bedwyr, and her other son Gwydion, each with his own agenda and concerns, are also resistant to Amy’s enthusiasms and practised charm. This is a family that has emerged from a tightly knit and recognisable society: each now in his or her own way, in spite of obstacles, seeks a path to fulfilment in a post war period of unprecedented change.

Bonds of Attachment

There are, of course, Bonds of Attachment underlying all the novels in the ‘Land of the Living’ sequence. In this final volume, they bind together the voices of the dead poet, John Cilydd More, and his youngest son Peredur in a twin track narrative. Their words reflect the splendours and the miseries of a century of wars and relentless progress. Peredur defies both his mother’s hostility and his two brothers’ lack of concern to seek out the truth of his father’s death and to take part in a protest against the 1969 Investiture that goes violently wrong. Only at the very end when the central figure of the series herself, Amy Parry, is facing death does there seem hope of reconciliation.

A Man’s Estate

Hannah Ellis is 35, unmarried, and still living at Y Glyn, the family farm in Wales where she has been brought up by her mother and step father a forbidding man with a powerful hold on the neighborhood. Loving her country yet resenting the egotism of her family, she yearns for the return of her long banished brother Philip, believing that he will rescue her from this bleak existence. Little does Hannah realize that Philip’s arrival is imminent and will herald enormous changes as he unwittingly ignites the passions and strengths of an unusually intertwined community.

A Toy Epic

: A Toy Epic is the story of three boys moving towards the threshold of adult life in the Thirties. From differing backgrounds, their lives cross and touch until they become firm friends. Each of them, Michael, Albie and Iorwerth, take up the story in turn, creating their own particular world and contributing to the composite picture of ‘one of the four comers of Wales’. Emyr Humphreys has written a challenging novel of childhood and of Wales in the 1930s. First published in 1958, A Toy Epic is now viewed as a classic of writing from Wales. This new edition is introduced by M. Wynn Thomas, and includes an Afterword and a fragment from an earlier version of the novel.

Outside The House Of Baal

The conflict that arises when public duty cl ashes with personal love is thoroughly explored in this nove l, when J.T. Miles looks back over his life and sees both de feat and drama. ‘

Unconditional Surrender

This award winning author’s nineteenth novel explores the effects of the closing months of World War II on a small community in a corner of north Wales. The story is told through two voices, the local rector and a German countess in his care as a displaced person. A young conscientious objector and a gifted German prisoner of war contest the love of the rector’s idealistic daughter, while the two narrators and their families negotiate the fall of fascism and nationalism and the effects of winning the war on older, established relationships.

The Gift of a Daughter

This is a novel of delusion and self knowledge, tradition and change, loss and identity in which the pace, plotting, characterization, and dialogue are as faultless as we expect from Humphreys. Aled Morgan and his wife flee to Tuscany to escape a family tragedy. Yet, even immersed in Etruscan culture, he finds that friendships aren’t all they seem, and even his wife has become distant. He isn’t even sure he knows himself any more. When he returns home, he is sadder and more experienced but in many ways no wiser.

The Shop

Full of immense richness and subtle wit, this engaging novel examines the power of ancestral and cultural heritage and the impact such history has upon the present. As an intense young filmmaker, Bethan Mair Nichols seems to have total happiness until an unexpected legacy bearing the weight of family and communal expectations forces her to question her ambition, motives, and her very role in the world. Compassionate and moving, this novel is based on an ancient folktale from medieval Wales.

The Woman At the Window

Gentle but haunting, this selection of short stories takes a closer look at the importance of parental and filial love down the generations. The protagonists reminisce over the pattern of their lives, looking back as well as forward, for the chance to rekindle lost loves and find a home for themselves. Throughout these eclectic tales, three comfortably retired men find their sedate dinner transformed into a conflict with a knife wielding escaped prisoner in a pre Celtic tomb, a trip to the site of their first meeting brings a married couple face to face with a corpse, and illusions are shattered when a retired teacher reunites with his first love. Examining the threads of survivors lives from childhood to old age, this anthology utilizes the backdrop of a shifting postwar Europe and Wales. Weighing the best part of a century of European history, this is a complex study of mature reflection, loss, and survival.

The Taliesin Tradition

New edition of a history of Wales. Includes a Postscript written in the context of the millennium as a fixed point in the development of welsh identity. Emyr Humphreys shows how literature in walcs has reshaped and reasserted Welsh identity in the face of English cultural imperialism. Figures such as Talicsin a sixth century poet, Myrddin Merlin, the bards of medieval princes, Dr John Dee, Iolo Morganwg, Mabon, Lloyd George, Saunders Lewis have all redefined the image of Wales in their own historical periods. wales has been, in turn, a bastion of British Christianity, the basis of Tudor imperialism, a haven for Romantics, a leader of Liberalism and Socialism, and the inspiration for twentieth century Welsh nationalism. Tracing the links in this chain Humphreys identifies a situation increasingly common in Europe and elsewhere: the preservation of a national past in the context of an international future. His book reflects the vital relationship between literature and identity, between poetry and politics.

Conversations and Reflections

Conversations and Reflections brings together the previously uncollected occasional writings of Emyr Humphreys, the major novelist of twentieth century Wales. It maps the historical and cultural background to the work of a writer who was described by R. S. Thomas as the supreme interpreter of Welsh life in English . This selection of the most important essays published by Emyr Humphreys over a fifty year period reveals the commanding range of his interests and confirms his stature as Wales’s leading man of letters. Dealing with themes ranging from sixth century literature to the twentieth century media, these essays address the cultural commitments from which Emyr Humphreys creative writing takes its bearings, as well as being a major author’s statements on his Wales, past and present. The essays are interwoven with a parallel series of discussions, conducted with M. Wynn Thomas, which explore many of the key personal, political and cultural concerns that have recurred throughout Emyr Humphreys work. Conversations and Reflections provides a fascinating overview of the work of one of Wales most significant creative writers and cultural activists.

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