Gwyn Jones

Gwyn Jones (24 May 1907 – 6 December 1999) was a Welsh novelist and story writer, and a scholar and translator of Nordic literature and history.

Personal life and academic career Gwyn Jones was born on 24 May 1907 in New Tredegar, Monmouthshire, the second child of George Henry Jones (1874–1970), a miner, and his second wife, Lily Florence, née Nethercott (1877–1960), a midwife. He was brought up in nearby Blackwood. He attended Tredegar county school and studied at University College, Cardiff as an undergraduate and a postgraduate.

After six years he was a schoolteacher in Wigan and Manchester, in 1935 he returned to University College, Cardiff as a lecturer. In 1940 was appointed Professor of English of the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, where he taught until his appointment as Professor of English at University College, Cardiff in 1964, a position he held until his retirement in 1975.

In addition to his translations, he was an author in the Anglo-Welsh tradition. His novels and story collections include Richard Savage (1935), Times Like These (1936), The Nine Days' Wonder (1937) and Garland of Bays (1938), The Buttercup Field (1945), The Flowers beneath the Scythe (1952), Shepherd's Hey (1953) and The Walk Home (1962).

Jones also founded The Welsh Review in 1939, which he edited until 1948; this journal was important for raising discussion of Welsh issues and for attracting submissions from such authors as T. S. Eliot and J. R. R. Tolkien, He continued to support Welsh literature by chairing both the Welsh Committee of the Arts Council of Great Britain and the first editorial board of The Oxford Companion to the Literature of Wales. In 1977 he edited the Oxford Book of Welsh Verse in English. He also published three sets of lectures on Anglo-Welsh literature: The First Forty Years (1957), Being and Belonging (1977), and Babel and the Dragon's Tongue (1981).

Honours and commemorations In 1963 Jones was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of the Falcon by the President of Iceland, followed by the Commander's Cross in 1987. He was appointed CBE in the 1965 New Year Honours in recognition of his chairmanship of the Welsh Arts Council. In 2008 a commemorative plaque to Jones was unveiled in the Hugh Owen library of Aberystwyth University.

Selected publications Novels Richard Savage (1935) Times Like These (1936; new edition 1979) The Nine Days’ Wonder (1937) Garland Of Bays (1938) The Flowers Beneath the Scythe (1952) Shepherd's Hey (1953) The Walk Home (1962)

Short Stories The Buttercup Field and Other Stories (1945) The Still Waters and Other Stories (1948) Selected Short Stories (1974) Collected Stories (1997)

Other Welsh Legends and Folk-Tales (1955) The First Forty Years (1957) Scandinavian Legends and Folk-Tales (1961) The Norse Atlantic Saga (1964) The Legendary History of Olaf Tryggvason (1968) A History of the Vikings (1968) Kings, Beasts and Heroes (1972) Being and Belonging (1977) Babel and the Dragon's Tongue (1981) Tales from Wales (2001)

As Editor Welsh Short Stories (1956) The Oxford Book of Welsh Verse in English (1962) Twenty-Five Welsh Short Stories (1971)