File NLW MS 24149E. - Correspondence

Writer and artist Brenda Chamberlain (1912-1971) was born and raised in Bangor, Caernarfonshire, and educated privately before embarking on her art studies at the Royal Academy, London in 1931. In 1935 Chamberlain married the artist John Petts. The following year the couple moved to Llanllechid, where they set up the Caseg Press, producing postcards and bookplates, and also the Caseg Broadsheets - featuring poetry by Chamberlain and others - with the poet and writer Alun Lewis. Chamberlain's marriage to Petts ended in 1946. Thereafter she lived briefly in Germany before settling on Bardsey Island, where she wrote and painted until, in 1961, she moved to the Greek island of Idhra. In 1967 Chamberlain returned to Bangor, where she died in 1971. Amongst Chamberlain's major published works are the poetic anthology The Green Heart (London, 1958) (dedicated to Karl von Laer), Tide-Race (London, 1962), an account of her life on Bardsey, her only novel The Water Castle (London, 1964), A Rope of Vines (London, 1965), chronicling her time on Ydra, Poems With Drawings (London, 1969), and Alun Lewis and the Making of the Caseg Broadsheets (London, 1969).

John Cledwyn Hughes (1920-1978), novelist, was born in Llansanffraid, Montgomeryshire, where his family had farmed for generations. He was a qualified hospital pharmacist, and worked in Yorkshire and Liverpool before settling in Arthog, Merionethshire, in 1947, as a full-time writer. He married Alyna and they had two daughters. He wrote numerous books, among them The Different Drummer (1947), The Inn Closes for Christmas (1947), Wennon (1948) and The Civil Strangers (1949). His topographical books, A Wanderer in North Wales (1949) and Portrait of Snowdonia (1967) were widely acclaimed. He also wrote children's books, including a collection of short stories, The King who Lived on Jelly (1961). He died at Arthog in 1978.

Arthur Glyn Prys-Jones (1888-1987) was an Anglo-Welsh poet, writer and educationalist. He was born on 7 March 1888 in Denbigh. His mother died in 1895 and his father remarried and moved the family to Pontypridd, Glamorgan, in 1898. At the age of 13 he went to Llandovery College, where he appears to have known the poet Dudley G. Davies (1891-1981). In 1908 he won a scholarship to Jesus College, Oxford, to read history, graduating in 1912; he became friends with T. E. Lawrence there. He went to teach in Macclesfield, Walsall and then Dulwich College, London. In 1919 he married Betty Gibbon of Pontypridd, shortly before being appointed Assistant Inspector of Schools for Carmarthenshire, later Staff Inspector for Secondary Education in Wales. He settled in Cardiff where, in 1932, he became one of the founders of the Little Theatre for which he wrote plays. He retired in 1949 and was awarded an OBE. He left Cardiff in 1951, moving to Wimbledon. He produced six volumes of his own poetry, Poems of Wales (Oxford, 1923), Green Places (Llandysul, 1948), A Little Nonsense (Cowbridge, 1954), High Heritage (Llandybie, 1969), Valedictory Verses (Llandysul, 1978) and More Nonsense (Cowbridge, 1984). He also wrote prose, including Gerald of Wales (London, 1955) and The Story of Carmarthenshire (2 vols, Llandybie, 1959, 1972). He edited Welsh Poets (London, 1917), an anthology of Anglo-Welsh poets, and co-edited National Songs of Wales (London, 1959). He regularly wrote reviews in the Western Mail and from 1937 to 1960 broadcast frequently on BBC radio. In 1970 he was elected President of the Welsh Academy's English-language section. He and his wife Betty had two children, David and Barbara. She died in 1976 and he spent his last years in Kingston-upon-Thames, dying there on 21 February 1987, aged 98. Collected Poems (Llandysul, 1988), edited by his friend Don Dale-Jones (b. 1935), was published after his death.