- Paperback
- Publisher: Blorenge Books (1 Jun 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1872730361
- ISBN-13: 978-1872730363
- Product Dimensions: 17 x 11 x 1.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 713,872 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
With LAND OF MY FATHERS, the ending of his second trilogy covering industrial Wales between the years 1826 and 1913, Alexander Cordell completes the task he set himself twenty years ago.
The six books, which began with the famous RAPE OF THE FAIR COUNTRY (to be dramatised on television) not only span the Welsh Industrial Revolution, but cover the trades of coal, copper, transport, agriculture and iron-making at a time when the town of Merthyr boasted its meteoric rise to become the greatest iron town in the world. And this novel is a massive evocation of the people who made it so; the incoming immigrants, the immensely rich and the hungry poor; the scholars, prostitutes, idealists and wasters who crowded in to settle in Merthyr's `China' - the celestial empire of pickpockets and bullyboys led by the notorious Shoni Sgubor Fawr, its Emperor.
The story begins in Amlwch in North Wales in the 1830s, a copper town ruled harshly by Cornish experts in the pay of the Marquis of Anglesey, who, like the ironmasters in the south, owned everything, including the people. We follow Taliesin Roberts, the youthful son of the widely respected Gwyn, through the years of his childhood - mostly hard but often idyllic - into manhood and eventual conflict with authority. This lures him south in escape to Dowlais and Sir John and Lady Charlotte Guest, who take him into their employ.
With the approach of the Chartist rebellion, Wales, under the spell of the euphoric Unions, was at the time a hotbed of intrigue and espionage. Both Taliesin and his father, now an escapee from the transportation hulks, become inextricably entangled in the web. And it is against this tapestry of earthy realism and adventure that we watch the love Taliesin holds for Rhiannon flower into fulfilment... and the hopeless devotion that Poll, Tal's cousin, bears him. And over all, like a counterpane, THE TALE OF DELWYN unfolds its ancient allegory; foretelling all, betraying nothing, its effect is hypnotic in its inevitability.
PROFESSOR GWYN A.WILLIAMS: "Over this haunted scene towers the giant figure of Alexander Cordell..."
THE TIMES: "As historian of this particular period, Mr Cordell can have few equals."
The six books, which began with the famous RAPE OF THE FAIR COUNTRY (to be dramatised on television) not only span the Welsh Industrial Revolution, but cover the trades of coal, copper, transport, agriculture and iron-making at a time when the town of Merthyr boasted its meteoric rise to become the greatest iron town in the world. And this novel is a massive evocation of the people who made it so; the incoming immigrants, the immensely rich and the hungry poor; the scholars, prostitutes, idealists and wasters who crowded in to settle in Merthyr's `China' - the celestial empire of pickpockets and bullyboys led by the notorious Shoni Sgubor Fawr, its Emperor.
The story begins in Amlwch in North Wales in the 1830s, a copper town ruled harshly by Cornish experts in the pay of the Marquis of Anglesey, who, like the ironmasters in the south, owned everything, including the people. We follow Taliesin Roberts, the youthful son of the widely respected Gwyn, through the years of his childhood - mostly hard but often idyllic - into manhood and eventual conflict with authority. This lures him south in escape to Dowlais and Sir John and Lady Charlotte Guest, who take him into their employ.
With the approach of the Chartist rebellion, Wales, under the spell of the euphoric Unions, was at the time a hotbed of intrigue and espionage. Both Taliesin and his father, now an escapee from the transportation hulks, become inextricably entangled in the web. And it is against this tapestry of earthy realism and adventure that we watch the love Taliesin holds for Rhiannon flower into fulfilment... and the hopeless devotion that Poll, Tal's cousin, bears him. And over all, like a counterpane, THE TALE OF DELWYN unfolds its ancient allegory; foretelling all, betraying nothing, its effect is hypnotic in its inevitability.
PROFESSOR GWYN A.WILLIAMS: "Over this haunted scene towers the giant figure of Alexander Cordell..."
THE TIMES: "As historian of this particular period, Mr Cordell can have few equals."
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
a must read for all lovers of the welsh valleys
and welsh industrial history
there is a museum devoted the the novels of
Cordell in Blaenavon (restricted opening hours)
and welsh industrial history
there is a museum devoted the the novels of
Cordell in Blaenavon (restricted opening hours)
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