—by Angharad Llwyd (1780–1866).
£14.95 (plus £1.55 postage within UK)
This is the first new edition (since its publication in 1833) of the prizewinning essay for the Beaumaris Eisteddfod of 1832.
The book includes a new introduction by Philip Steele illustrated by a carte-de-visite photograph (from the Denbighshire Record Office) of Angharad Llwyd. The unabridged text of her first edition, including all its illustrations, biographical sketches, lists of the island’s bards, sheriffs and members of parliament, also has a full account of the Beaumaris Eisteddfod of 1832 and an index.
Angharad Llwyd’s readable and informative History takes us on a tour of ‘Mona’ as it was in the early decades of the nineteenth century, recounting the history of the island (so far as it was understood at the time) and the geography of each district along the way. This title is published as the companion volume to Magma’s up-to-date and comprehensive guidebook to the island, MÔN MAM CYMRU
“This edition brings to those interested in the history of Anglesey, in all its aspects, a rich resource which has been hitherto relatively difficult to access and it is a welcome addition to other volumes published by Llyfrau Magma about Anglesey.”
— reviewed in the ‘Transactions’ of the Anglesey Antiquarian Society.
Softback, 256 pages, 170mm wide x 248mm high. ISBN 978-1-872773-73-5, Llyfrau Magma, 2008
Mona Antiqua RestaurataA facsimile reprint of the 1723 first edition of Henry Rowlands’s book
—“An Archaeological Discourse on the Antiquities, Natural and Historical, of the Isle of Anglesey, the Antient Seat of the British Druids.”
£65 (plus £8 post/packing within UK: this is a heavy book!)
Henry Rowlands (1655-1723) was born on Anglesey at Llanedwen and became rector of Llanidan Old Church. He wrote about farming practice in Idea Agriculturæ (written in 1704 and first published, posthumously, in 1764) and in 1710 produced, in Latin, Antiquitates Parochiales about the ancient monuments of the locality. His best known work was Mona Antiqua Restaurata (1723)—literally ‘Ancient Anglesey restored’—in which he mistakenly linked the island’s Bronze Age sites with the Druids, the priests and lawgivers of the ancient Celts. This fanciful anachronism, compounded by the English antiquarian William Stukeley, was seized upon in Victorian times and still persists today. However Rowlands does deserve credit for focussing attention on the island’s ancient sites. A second edition of Mona Antiqua, edited by Dr Henry Owen (1717-95), was issued in 1766.
Limited edition. Page size 200mm wide x 258mm high; a total of 428 pages
including all the illustrations, appendices and an index.
The volume is handsomely casebound, with the title gold-blocked
on a black leather spine label, and is protected by a sturdy slipcase.
A History of the Island of Anglesey—‘from its first Invasion by the Romans, until finally acceded to the Crown of England; together with a distinct Description of the Towns, Harbours, Villages, and other Remarkable Places in it; and of several Antiquities relating thereforeto never before made public’.
Fifteen guineas / £15.75 (plus £1.95 post/packing within UK)
This is a casebound, carefully produced, same-size facsimile reprint of the first edition, which was ‘printed for J. Dodsley in Pall-Mall’ in 1775.
The book is described on its title page as ‘A Supplement to Rowlands’s Mona Antiqua Restaurata’ (of which a second edition, edited by Dr Henry Owen, had been published in 1766).
Often referred to as the ‘Dodsley' History of Anglesey, after its London publisher, the authorship of this History has been attributed to the Reverend John Thomas of Llandegai. After John Thomas's death in 1769, his manuscript seems to have been edited (some say plagiarised, although his name appears nowhere in the book) by an aspiring antiquary, the Reverend Nicholas Owen, who was born in 1752 at Llandyfrydog in Anglesey. The volume also includes appendices: ‘A Catalogue of the Rectories, Vicarages and Chapels in the Isle of Anglesey’, and an account of the life of Owain Glyndลตr by the Reverend Thomas Ellis (1625-73). (The authorship of the History is discussed in a paper by TPT Williams in the 2006 edition of the ‘Transactions' of the Anglesey Antiquarian Society.)
Hardcover, 96 large-format pages, 220mm wide x 290mm high.
ISBN 978-1-872773-87-2, Llyfrau Magma, 2008