Thomas Jeffery Llewelyn Prichard

A study of the strange life and pathetic death of T.J. Llewelyn Prichard, the author of "Twm Sion Catti", the first Welsh novel in English which was popular enough to have been pirated in the mid-19th century.

T. J. Llewelyn Prichard should be regarded as more than just a curiosity in the history of literature in Wales. He was one of the first to consider himself an Anglo-Welsh writer, and was the first Welsh writer to pen a novel - the much pirated and retold The Adventures and Vagaries of Twm Shon Catti (1828).
Much of the story of his life must be conjectural. It is certain that he was born in Builth Wells, fairly certain that he spent part of his childhood in Breconshire. He was an actor in London, probably under the stage name of Mr Jeffries, before he turned to writing. After returning to Wales to sell his first substantial book of poems, Welsh Minstrelsy, he lived a largely hand-to-mouth existence, writing and mostly selling his books by subscription or from door to door. Twm Shon Catti briefly brought him a measure of fame and a little money, but commercial failure followed and he became a lonely derelict living in Swansea, where he died as a result of burns from his own fire.
This first book-length study of Prichard is based on original research and sheds new light on his mysterious life and varied literary output.