----- Original Message -----
From: "Betty A. Pace" <bapace2(a)juno.com>
To: <WLS-GWYNEDD-L(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 6:25 AM
Subject: [GWYNEDD] History of Wales
I recently found in my local library (storage) the following work:
"Wales" by Owen M. Edwards (Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford), NY,
Putnam, London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1902
I wonder if anyone can tell me if this history of Wales is reliable. I
find it more readable that John Rhys' book entitled "The Welsh People,"
also written in an early period. That may mean, of course, that the
Edwards book is not as definitive.
Hi Betty
O M Edwards and John Rhys were contemporaries and friends
at
Oxford. Rhys was very academic in his writings while Edwards was much more
interested in people. Between them they founded modern Welsh scholarship.
Both tell the truth about their subject within the limits of all the
knowledge available to them at the time - no fantasising or romantic
imaginings here.
David Williams, himself no mean historian, writes in 1950 of O M Edwards
"interpret(ing) to the Welsh people their literature and traditions" and
goes on to talk about the resultant "astringent scholarship" destroying
"many popular illusions" and building a "sound national life grounded in
the
authentic tradition of Wales". I guess it's pretty definitive although since
that time there have been many excellent general histories (and not a few
very bad ones too!).
Happy reading
Ken Kyffin
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