With a Foreword by Raymond Williams

“What we encounter here are reality and the tragic elements of
dream... a remarkable achievement.” The New York Times Description

With passion, humour and remarkable insight Gwyn Thomas captures the world of South Wales in the 1830s during the turbulent years of the Merthyr and Newport Uprisings. As the newly-built foundries enter their first decline, a travelling harpist from the rural north arrives in one of the new towns to find his friends caught in a fiercely-fought industrial dispute, a dispute which quickly spirals out of control.

A powerful and sweeping novel by one of Wales’s great literary figures, All Things Betray Thee, tells the epic story of a people, their joys and victories, but also their sorrows and defeats.

Power and politics corrupt... this is the future

A worker is killed in the striking coalfields of South Wales. Some months later a government minister suspected of being connected with the death is shot.

Lewis Redfern, once a radical, now a political analyst and journalist, pursues the killer, a lonely hunt that leads him through a maze of government leaks and international politics to a secret organization: a source of insurrection far more powerful than anyone could have suspected – the world of the Volunteers.

A compelling thriller, The Volunteers is also an engrossing reminder of the conflict between moral choice and political loyalty for through his obsessive pursuit of justice, Redfern is about to find the truth about himself.

“Every reader of the The Volunteers can testify to its power and pace as a detective thriller.” Tony Pinkey

This is the second edition of Glen Peter's detective novel 'Mrs D'Silva's Detective Instincts and the Shaitan of Calcutta'. 

It presents the story of an Anglo-Indian community in 1960s Calcutta who are coming to terms with their nation taking its first few faltering steps towards democracy. Joan is a single parent whose son's accidental discovery of the body of a young woman, gets her embroiled in the sinister activities of a maoist faction. The movement is bent on bringing a violent revolution to overturn the unfairness of caste, class, religion and privilege. Evoking the rich multicultural heritage of the Anglo-Indian community who feel abandoned by the British and unsure of their fellow Indians, this book is filled with the sound, tastes and smells of South Asia. It includes a list of recipes for delicious dishes as well as a glossary of Anglo Indian words to truly capture 1960s Calcutta. 

This is the story of A Fish Trapped inside the Wind.

It all begins in a small town in Belgium near the French border on the morning of the festival of St. Woelfred. There are dead fish scattered everywhere seemingly blown in by the wind. The empty quarries of Villon are soon to be used as toxic waste dumps. Are the fish a sign from the saint or a trick played by Contexture, the dance group who once got naked at the Vatican?

The lives of six people who live in the town are about to be changed forever.

A story with magic and fish… and the lost poems of Rimbaud.

'I fell in love with this novel the moment I read it. The language and imagery were so fresh and vivid, I thought Christien must be a poet (and turned out to be right.) The book has a political sharpness, wit, and worldliness; it has a compelling plot, a vast number of deftly differentiated voices; and it has characters you will never forget.' Karen Joy Fowler (author of the NYT Bestseller The Jane Austen Book Club).

Long-listed for the Wales Book of the Year 2011

This is the second edition of Stevie Davies' novel Into Suez, which was recently chosen as The Guardian's Book of the Year by Margaret Drabble, who writes:

"A novel that moves with ease from Egypt immediately after the Second World War to the 21st Century and back again...telling the story of a whole generation".

1948, Great Britain, victorious but bankrupt after the Second World War, attempts to reassert itself as an imperial power in the Suez Canal zone.

Joe, an RAF sergeant, is the everyday working man. Ailsa, his wife, an independent, free thinking woman yearns to explore her new homeland of Egypt. It's here that she meets the exotic Mona. In a world of terrorism and political struggle, her friendship with Mona and an act of murder pitch the married couple into tragedy. 

"Into Suez is a bold and gripping novel on an important subject...A very satisfying and moving book." The Telegraph

A forgotten gem of British literature, a love story mined from a rich seam of Welsh writing in English. Captures lives of rural women in the early 20th century, the hardship of their home lives and hopes of escape. Foreword by Fflur Dafydd.

 In the first and, arguably, the finest of Hilda Vaughan's ten novels, the dawn of the twentieth century brings a new generation that clashes with the conservative traditionalism of an old Welsh way of life. Rhys Lloyd and his engagement with the ideas of Social Darwinism and the League of Nations make him a dangerous figure in the village. The son of a Welsh-speaking Nonconformist, his love for the church-going Esther reflects tensions that have long and bitterly divided the community. Most striking, however, is the stoic and determined Esther who calmly suffers the casual brutality of her agricultural upbringing, drawing on an inner strength and organic spirituality that would provide an archetype for Vaughan's later heroines.

Hilda Vaughan lived from 1892 to 1985. She was educated privately but her experiences with the Women's Land Army during WWI exposed her to a different side of life. Battle to the Weak, her first novel, was published in 1925. She is known for her acute ear and ability to capture the unique style of speech of the people of Radnorshire, as well as her insight into women's daily lives.

A gothic tale of passion, violence, cruelty and unexpected tenderness. In this her third novel, Margiad Evans conjures a tempestuous and sometimes sinister world of rural and small town border life in early twentieth century.

Margiad Evans was born Peggy Whistler in Uxbridge in 1909, but it was the Border Country around Ross-on-Wye which became central to her consciousness and her writing. She took the name Margiad Evans to reflect this sense of identity. Her first novel, Country Dance, was published in 1932, and is known as 'The Welsh Wuthering Heights'. She also produced poetry and art, as well as two memoirs, including an account of her experiences of epilepsy. She died in 1958.

Foreword by Philip Pullman

Porthmawr was in no mood for putting out flags, and not a scrap of bunting flew to welcome Ashton Vaughan back after a long absence from the Welsh seaside town. He was a hopeless alcoholic drifter, and what was more he was a member of the notorious Vaughan family. His brother still lived, aloof and eccentric, a thorn in Porthmawr's respectable side. It was only Gladstone Williams, Llew Morgan and a small band of young boys from the back streets who were stalwart in their defence of Ashton's dissipated character. Gladstone's misunderstanding of Porthmawr's most despised residents was to blame for this, and too late he realised that his misplaced loyalty only hastened the violent ending of a vendetta that had begun long before Ashton's drunken escapades.

Stead Jones said in 1964, "Army signals took me to France on D-Day, an experience which seems more alarming now than it did then, and to the Far East. Promotion during these years - from Private to Corporal - came rapidly. After demobilisation, I became a student once more, and now find myself at forty a lecturer in Liberal Studies in a Lancashire Technical College. I like reading, listening to music, talking Welsh and playing golf badly."

A mystical, lyrical classic from the father of supernatural horror.  Originally published 1907, it is widely regarded as Machen's finest lyrical work. It tells of a young man’s quest for beauty through literature, love, drugs and dreams.

This new edition for the Library of Wales includes a foreword by Catherine Fisher, whose acclaimed Oracle trilogy was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize and is an international bestseller translated into over 20 languages.

 "To read Machen is to journey into the heart of ecstasy and terror" Mark Samuels

Chris and his mates are oblivious to the attentions of the security guards every time they enter the shopping centre, their interests lie in designer-wear and girls rather than in intimidating those around them. In the "respect culture" of a community beset with violence and crime, Chris's personal principles, reflecting the honesty and values of working class Britain, allow him to win through.