Myfanwy Pryce

Myfanwy Pryce (3 October 1890 – 16 March 1976) was a Welsh novelist and short story writer, author of nine published novels. Her works were admired for their gentle humour and literary technique.

Early life and education

Lucy Myfanwy Pryce was born in 1890, near Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire,^[1] and lived at Rhyl, the youngest of seven daughters of Rev. Shadrach Pryce (1833–1914), the dean of St. Asaph Cathedral,^[2] and his wife Margaret Ellen Davies (1943–1902).^[3] Myfanwy Pryce's brother Lewis Pryce became the Archdeacon of Wrexham;^[4] her uncle was John Pryce, the Dean of Bangor Cathedral.^[5]

Career

In 1915, she shared the Lyric Prize at the National Eisteddfod. During World War I, she worked in London, at the Red Cross War Library, and at the Ministry of National Service.^[1]

Myfanwy Pryce began publishing fiction with her novel Blue Moons (1919), an "amusing and vivid account of girls' lives" during World War I.^[6] In reviewing her later novel, The Wood Ends, the Glasgow Herald praised Pryce's "lightness of strokes", and found the book "a particularly neat exercise in psychology."^[7] An Australian reviewer admired the "placid charm and gentle humour" of her writing.^[8]

Books by Myfanwy Pryce

• Blue Moons (1919)
• Parsons' Wives (1926)
• Gingerbread Lea (1927)
• Wild Oats Meadow (1927)
• Blind Lead (1928)
• The Gift and Other Stories (short story collection, 1932)
• The Wood Ends (1937)
• Lady in the Dark (1938)
• Anything Might Happen (1939)
• A Life of My Own (1946)

Legacy

Myfanwy Pryce died in 1976, age 86. Her papers, including unpublished and unfinished manuscripts, are in the National Library of Wales.^[9]

A floral coverlet embroidered by the writer Myfanwy Pryce during World War II is in the Quilters' Guild Collection at the former Quilt Museum and Gallery in York.^[10]

References

1. "Miss Myfanwy Pryce: Novels of the Parsonage" The Register (16 July 1827): 4.
2. "The Late Dean Pryce" Denbighshire Free Press (28 September 1914): 5.
3. National Library of Wales, Shadrach Pryce and Lewis Pryce Papers 16 February 2016 at the Wayback Machine, National Library of Wales, GB 0210 SHAYCE.
4. "St. Asaph; Wedding" Welsh Coast Pioneer and Review (15 June 1906): 2.
5. "Llanrhstyd" Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard (29 November 1901): 5.
6. "Miss Myfanwy Pryce as Authoress" Denbighshire Free Press (8 November 1919): 3.
7. "New Novels: Business is Business" Glasgow Herald (24 March 1938): 5.
8. "Latest Fiction" The Advertiser (24 December 1938): 10.
9. National Library of Wales, Myfanwy Pryce Papers, GB 0210 MYFYCE.
10. Myfanwy Pryce, "Gardeners Floral Bouquet Coverlet" (1941), Quilters' Guild Heritage Collection.