Books by Alexander Cordell

Hywel Mortymer's story begins in 1800 when he is sixteen and a dramatic change in fortune leads him, innocent and inexperienced, to a brutal anddangerous life working in the coal mines. In the mines children can be horribly maimed in devastating gas explosions,or grow deformed with the burden of their labours and babies are born underground. Wales is in turmoil. A tragic divide between rich and poor, the workers powerless,penniless, starving and diseased sparks growing unrest as the newly founded Unions move inexorably towards the Chartist Rebellion. This Proud and Savage Land is a brilliantly detailed chronicle of early nineteenth-century Wales and a prelude to the bestselling Rape of the Fair Country.

Mostyn Evan and his family, miners turned bargees, wage a glorious but hopeless struggle against rapacious coalmasters, Irish navvies, the ravages of cholera, and the bullying illegal Unions. As they ply their trade between the furnaces of Cyfarthfa and the lush beauty of the Neath Valley, they pray and fight, sing and love, and face each obstacle undaunted with all the stubbornness and exuberance of Wales itself. This is the third instalment in Alexander Cordell's magnificent saga of nineteenth century Wales that began with classic bestseller The Rape of the Fair Country.