Rape of the Fair Country

The plot concerns the Welsh iron-making communities of Blaenavon and Nantyglo in the 19th century. The action is seen through the eyes of young Iestyn Mortymer who grows up in times of growing tensions between ironmasters and trade unionists. In 1826, when the book starts, Iestyn is eight years old and already beginning work at the Garndyrus furnaces near Blaenavon. His sister Morfydd has strong feelings about women and children working in mines and ironworks. She sympathises with the Chartist movement and condemns the action of the militant Scotch Cattle groups. In this she is in opposition to Hywel Mortymer, their conservative father who later begins to question his own loyalty to the ironmaster.

Cordell's first successful novel draws the hardship of life in early industrial Wales with the father starting off as positive towards the English coal and iron masters of the time but then on seeing his family and neighbours suffer (and sometimes die) he revolts with his son, Iestyn to protest. The family life leads to the fight for trade unions and Chartism. The historical background against which the novel is set is described in considerable detail with profoundly researched factual events like the 1839 Newport Rising show this book to be worthy of the bestseller status it achieved in the UK as well as the USA. Cordell told of the story of the Chartist movement starting in Wales accurately and clearly like no other, but with a background of humanity of the Mortymer family.

• Cordell Country - a look at the landscape the book was based around
• Review in Clarion - covers both the book and a recent theatre adaptation