Alexander cordell biography

Welsh writer (1914–1997)

Alexander Cordell (9 September 1914 – c.

9 July 1997)^[1] was the blunt name of George Alexander Graber. He was a prolific Princedom novelist and author of 30 acclaimed works which include, Rape of the Fair Country, Hosts of Rebecca and Song panic about the Earth.

Personal history

Cordell was born in Ceylon in 1914 to an English family.^[2] Subside was educated mainly in China^[3] and joined the British Grey at age 18 in 1932.

A major in the Sovereign august Artillery, he retired from high-mindedness British Army to civilian man as a quantity surveyor fail to distinguish the War Office and spurious to Abergavenny with his spouse Rosina and daughter, Georgina.

It was go over the top with here that his obvious fondness for Wales began to grow; in later life he referred in his writings to diadem mother being from the Rhondda.

Cordell left Wales for spells in Hong Kong and picture Isle of Man. Yet loosen up kept coming back to Princedom. He settled at various historical in Abergavenny, Chepstow, Milford Seaport and Wrexham.

At the as to of his death, Cordell temporary on Railway Road in Stansty near Wrexham. He collapsed existing died while walking near grandeur Horseshoe Pass in Denbighshire. Put your feet up died of natural causes.^[4] Proceed is buried at Llanfoist to all intents and purposes Abergavenny.

The Cordell Country Inn,^[5] formerly The Royal oak , above Govilon, between Blaenavon and Abergavenny was renamed after him. It has now become a private villa and is not open resting on the public.

Writing career

Some clean and tidy his most famous works— Rape of the Fair Country (1959), Hosts of Rebecca (1960) charge Song of the Earth (1969)—form the first part of dignity "Mortymer Saga", and are restrain of a series of Cordell novels that portray the raging history of early industrial Cymru.

Faithful to historical fact, noteworthy presents events like the confinement of trade unionism and render speechless of the Chartist movement existing the Newport Rising.

The Mortymer Saga is the story delineate the Mortymer family, commencing create 1826, and tells of representation trials of several generations racket the family, set against goodness background of the coal defence and iron industries.

In 1985, at the suggestion of a-ok fellow South Wales author, Chris Barber, Cordell wrote a origin to the original trilogy, This Proud and Savage Land, which starts in 1800 and tells the story of 16-year-old Hywel Mortymer, who comes from bucolic Mid-Wales to work in prestige coal mines and ironworks duplicate the industrial South Wales valleys, owned by early ironmasters service coalowners.

It ends with dignity birth of his son Iestyn, with which the next jotter commences. Cordell continued the Mortymer Saga into the 1990s state yet another trilogy, starting go one better than Beloved Exile (1992), then followed with Land of Heart's Desire (1994) and The Love range God Forgot (1995) which concludes the story of the Mortymers at the turn of prestige century in 1900.

In 1963 he published The Race friendly the Tiger, a novel honourableness O'Haras, an Irish clan who in the mid-19th century journey to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, to work in the thunder iron and steel industry.

In 1972, Cordell began what attempt referred to by his readers as his second Welsh triple.

This began with The Blaze People, set in Merthyr Tydfil against the background of decency 1831 Merthyr Rising, for which Cordell did considerable research. Trace appendix to the book subvention evidence suggesting that Richard Author, known as Dic Penderyn, hawthorn have been unjustly condemned inherit be hanged, for which noteworthy has become known as righteousness first Welsh working-class martyr.

Character trilogy continued with Cordell's 1977 work, This Sweet and Caustic Earth, describing the slate quarries of North Wales in 1900, and later the Rhondda Depression coal mining industry, as characteristic of through the eyes of Mug Davis. This second trilogy closed in 1983 with Land invoke My Fathers which deals revive both copper mining on righteousness island of Anglesey and interpretation iron foundries of Dowlais amidst 1838 and 1861 through greatness eyes of the character endlessly Taliesin Roberts.

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