Literary significance & criticism
Although the novel is often considered to be a hymn to working class South Wales, [1] many readers consider parts of it to be an excoriating commentary on the static nature of life in the Valleys. Readers who, like Matthew, have migrated out of Wales frequently sympathise with his inability to escape the entrenched opinions and historical perceptions held by the villagers who remember his childhood and adolescence. Reinforcing the importance of borders to the novel, Matthew comes to notice a stark dividing line between his identity in Wales, where the locals continue to view him as his father's son, and that in England, where he enjoys his own successful academic career. [2]
It is not a novel of dramatic events, but rather one which offers an evocative sense of character and place. Matthew Price's life has many parallels with Raymond Williams's own life and background. The Hogarth Press edition of 1988 catches the spirit of it with a front cover showing the signalman and his son, with the signalman's face recognisably that of Raymond Williams as he then was.
The novel features heavy usage of the distinctive South Wales dialect.
How Green Was My Valley is a 1939 novel by Richard Llewellyn, narrated by Huw Morgan, the main character, about his Welsh family and the mining community in which they live. The author had claimed that he based the book on his own experiences, but this was found to be untrue after his death; Llewellyn was English-born and spent little time in Wales, though he was of Welsh descent. Llewellyn gathered material for the novel from conversations with local mining families in the village of Gilfach Goch, in southeast Wales.
The 1926 General Strike in the United Kingdom was a general strike that lasted nine days, from 4 to 12 May 1926. It was called by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in an unsuccessful attempt to force the British government to act to prevent wage reductions and worsening conditions for 1.2 million locked-out coal miners. Some 1.7 million workers went out, especially in transport and heavy industry.
Welsh writing in English, is a term used to describe works written in the English language by Welsh writers.
Raymond Henry Williams was a Welsh socialist writer, academic, novelist and critic influential within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the media and literature contributed to the Marxist critique of culture and the arts. Some 750,000 copies of his books were sold in UK editions alone, and there are many translations available. His work laid foundations for the field of cultural studies and cultural materialism.
Archibald Joseph Cronin, known as A. J. Cronin, was a Scottish physician and novelist. His best-known novel is The Citadel (1937), about a Scottish physician who serves in a Welsh mining village before achieving success in London, where he becomes disillusioned about the venality and incompetence of some doctors. Cronin knew both areas, as a medical inspector of mines and as a physician in Harley Street. The book exposed unfairness and malpractice in British medicine and helped to inspire the National Health Service.
William Larry Brown was an American novelist, non-fiction, and short story writer. He received numerous awards during his lifetime, including the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award for fiction, the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Award, and Mississippi's Governor's Award For Excellence in the Arts. Brown was also the first two-time winner of the Southern Book Award for Fiction.
Roseville is a suburb on the Upper North Shore of Sydney in the state of New South Wales, Australia 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) north-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government areas of Ku-ring-gai and Willoughby. Roseville Chase is a separate suburb to the east.
Jorge Isaacs Ferrer was a Colombian writer, politician and soldier. His only novel, María, became one of the most notable works of the Romantic movement in Spanish-language literature.
The Golden Age of Detective Fiction was an era of classic murder mystery novels of similar patterns and styles, predominantly in the 1920s and 1930s. The Golden Age proper is in practice usually taken to refer to a type of fiction which was predominant in the 1920s and 1930s but had been written since at least 1911 and is still being written today.
The Country and the City is a book of cultural analysis by Raymond Williams which was first published in 1973.
The Fight for Manod (ISBN 0701208090) is a 1979 novel by Raymond Williams.
"The Signal-Man" is a horror mystery story by Charles Dickens, first published as part of the Mugby Junction collection in the 1866 Christmas edition of All the Year Round. The story is told from a fictional first-person perspective.
How Green Was My Valley is a 1941 American drama film directed by John Ford, adapted by Philip Dunne from the 1939 novel of the same title by Richard Llewellyn. It stars Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara, Anna Lee, Donald Crisp, and a young Roddy McDowall.
Amongst Women is a novel by the Irish writer John McGahern (1934–2006). McGahern's best known novel, it is also considered his greatest work.
Dorothy Edwards was a Welsh short story writer and novelist who wrote in English. She became associated with David Garnett and other members of the Bloomsbury Group, but she stated in her suicide note that she had "accepted kindness and friendship and even love without gratitude, and given nothing in return."
Pandy is a hamlet in Monmouthshire, south east Wales, United Kingdom.
A Darker Domain is a 2008 psychological thriller novel by Scottish crime writer Val McDermid. Reviewers often noted the fast paced style of the novel as it flashes back and forth between two plot lines, a contemporary crime in 2007 and the investigation of a cold case from 1984. The novel is set during the UK miners' strike of 1984–1985 in Fife. Her accounts of the strike are particularly pointed, exploring the effects of the strikes on the emotions of the people involved and their community. McDermid was raised in Fife, and one reviewer credits her accurate review of the strikes to her experiences earlier in her life. The reviews of the book were generally good, many of the reviewers comparing the book to her previous novels. The New York Times named the book one of the "Notable Crime Books of 2009."
Merthyr Tydfil County Borough is a county borough in the south-east of Wales. In 2022, it had an estimated population of 58,883, making it the smallest local authority in Wales by population. It is located in the historic county of Glamorgan and takes its name from the town with the same name. The county borough consists of the northern part of the Taff Valley and the smaller neighbouring Taff Bargoed Valley. It borders the counties of Rhondda Cynon Taf to the west, Caerphilly County Borough to the east, and Powys to the north.
Cormoran Strike is a series of crime fiction novels written by British author J. K. Rowling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. The story chronicles the cases of the fictional British private detective Cormoran Strike and his partner Robin Ellacott. Seven novels have so far been published in a planned series of ten. The seventh novel, titled The Running Grave, was released on 26 September 2023. As of February 2024, the series has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide and was published in more than 50 countries, being translated into 43 languages.
The Monmouthshire and South Wales Coal Owners' Association (MSWCOA) was an association of mine owners in South Wales that was active between 1873 and 1955. It fought wage increases, safety regulations, unionisation and other changes that would cut into profits. It managed to link miners wages, which were based on piece-work, to the price of coal. It was involved in various labour disputes, including a lengthy strike in 1926. The coal mines became unprofitable in the 1930s and were nationalized in 1947, making the association irrelevant.
