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Who Was ALLEN RAINE?

Allen Raine, born Anne Adeliza Evans in Newcastle Emlyn on October 6th 1836, achieved world wide popularity as a novelist, selling more than 2 million books in Britain and “the colonies”, excluding the USA market.

Her stories were always based in Wales, featuring the Cardiganshire coastal area around Tresaith and the town of Newcastle Emlyn where she grew up. Her characters were local people - peasants, farmers, middle class doctors, lawyers, a social mix that reflected the rural 19th. century communities in which she lived. Although she wrote in English, she used many Welsh expressions and phrases in her work; her portrayal of Wales, the Welsh people and the language was always affectionate and positive, leading her to be dubbed “the interpreter of his (sic) country” by one reviewer.

The books were regarded as “romances”, since their main narrative dealt mostly with love; but a closer examination of the backgrounds against which the love stories are played reveals a complex tapestry of cultural, personal and communal influences that shape the hero and heroine’s destinies.

Following her marriage to Beynon Puddicombe at Penbryn Church in 1872, she moved to London, where she began to write as ALLEN RAINE, publishing “A Welsh Singer” in 1896 shortly after she shared first prize for a novel (Ynysoer, 1894) at the Caernarfon Eisteddfod . She and her husband returned to the Tresaith in 1900, living at Bron y Mor until her death in 1908. Her life was not easy: her husband suffered from a depressive illness, which necessitated a “minder” and she herself had cancer of the breast.

However, her writing found a massive readership and three of her books were made into films – Torn Sails (1915), A Welsh Singer ( 1920) and By Berwen Banks (1920). Torn Sails was filmed in Llangrannog and New Quay, while By Berwen Banks was allegedly filmed in Newcastle Emlyn. The films may be lost, but her stories live on, being translated into Irish (On the Wings of the Wind 1932), French (1946), Welsh (1960, Garthowen 1968) and currently, Russian ( Garthowen Gutenburg project – web-publishing)! Honno and Dodo Press Collectibles have also republished some of her work.