W Ambrose Bebb - A Welsh Hundred

W Ambrose Bebb, (grandfather of Aberconwy Tory candidate Guto Bebb), was a prolific writer in the Welsh language in the period before and after the 2nd World war, being the author of two dozen or so books and a countless number of articles.

Although the first of his books was written eighty years ago and the last almost 50 years ago much of his work has stood the test of time and is still very readable to the modern reader.

Some of Bebbs works are now being published in English translation by AuthorHouse, the first in the series being A Welsh Hundred:

A Welsh Hundred combines in one volume and for the first time in English two of Bebb’s most popular works originally published in Welsh in 1941. These two newly translated works Y Baradwys Bell (The Faraway Paradise) and 1940: Lloffion o ddyddiadur (1940:Gleanings from a Diary) introduce English-language readers to one of 20th-century Wales most colourful and provocative personalities for the very first time. Bracketing an important century in the life of Wales, A Welsh Hundred opens with the 1841 diary of Montgomeryshire farmer and church deacon William Bebb, as conceived and imaginatively reconstructed by his great-great-nephew W. Ambrose Bebb. By 1940, it’s the turn of Ambrose Bebb himself to document touchingly, enthusiastically, sometimes starkly the daily rhythms of life in and around the college town of Bangor, North Wales, on the eve of Europe’s second all-consuming world war.

A Welsh Hundred [ISBN 9781434359919] is published by AuthorHouse both in the United Kingdom and in North America. Direct orders (priced £6.80/$9.90 per copy) may be placed with the publisher online it also available via major online retailers, including Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and Borders.com (priced £8.95/$14.49 per copy).

The translator also has a Welsh Hundred blog, which he uses to promote the book.

It has been some years since I first read these books in Welsh and I look forward to obtaining a copy of the translation, which I sincerely hope lives up to the great man’s original masterpieces.