Elisabeth Inglis-Jones

Elisabeth Inglis-Jones (1900–1994) was a Welsh novelist and biographer. In 1929, she published Starved Fields, the first of six historical novels.[1][2] She was also an important writer of local history and biography.[3] Her novel Crumbling Pageant was republished in 2015.

Portrait of Inglis-Jones taken from a painting by Cecil Jameson

Biography

Born in January 1900 in London, Inglis-Jones was brought up in the village of Derry Ormond, in what is now the county of Ceredigion. She lived on the Derry Ormond Estate, which had been owned by her family since 1783. However, the house was demolished in 1953.[3][4]

Inglis-Jones moved back to the London area around 1937.[5] In her late 80s, she was living in Camberley, Surrey.[2]

Literary career

Inglis-Jones took up writing as a child, joining a literary group called The Scratch Society when she was 12 or 13. She spent almost three years writing her first novel, Starved Fields, published in 1929. Her often reprinted Peacocks in Paradise (1950, republished 1990) tells of Hafod, a historic Welsh mansion, and its first owner Thomas Johnes (1748–1815).[2] Her five other novels were Crumbling Pageant (1932, republished 2015), Pay Thy Pleasure (1939), The Loving Heart (1942), Lightly He Journeyed (1946), and Aunt Albinia (1948).[4]

Her works on Welsh history included The Story of Wales (1955), describing houses demolished since 1900. Among her biographies was The Great Maria (1959), about the writer Maria Edgeworth, The Lord of Burghley (1964) on William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley and Augustus Smith of Scilly (1964) on the 19th-century proprietor of the Isles of Scilly.[2]

Jane Bowden, reviewing a new edition of Crumbling Pageant, praised Inglis-Jones's "undeniable talent for story-telling, [her] characterisation and [her] lifelong passion for Wales", qualifying her as a "great Welsh woman writer".[6]

Selected works
Novels
  • Inglis-Jones, Elisabeth (2015). Crumbling Pageant. Honno Limited. ISBN 978-1-909983-35-9.
  • Jones, Elizabeth Inglis (1929). Starved Fields. Constable.
Welsh history
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References
  1. "Crumbling Pageant (Welsh Women's Classics)". Amazon. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
  2. Fry, Swithin (3 February 1989). "Finder of the lost paradise". The Cambrian News. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
  3. "Welsh Women's Classics: Crumbling Pageant, Elisabeth Inglis-Jones". gwales.com. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
  4. "Inglis-Jones, Elizabeth". Ceredigion County Council. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
  5. "A portrait of Elizabeth Inglis Jones". Letter from Aberystwyth. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
  6. Bowden, Jane. "Crumbling Pageant". New Welsh Review. Retrieved 16 April 2016.
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