Hilda Vaughan


Hilda Campbell Vaughan was a Welsh novelist and short story writer writing in English. Her ten, varied novels, set mostly in her native Radnorshire, concern rural communities and heroines. Her first was The Battle to the Weak and her last The Candle and the Light. She was married to the writer Charles Langbridge Morgan, who had an influence on her writings. Although favourably received by her contemporaries, Vaughan later received minimal critical attention. Rediscovery began in the 1980s and 1990s, as part of a renewed interest in Welsh literature in English.

Life

Early years

Vaughan was born in Builth Wells, Powys, then the county of Breconshire, into a prosperous family, as the youngest daughter of Hugh Vaughan Vaughan and Eva. Her father was a successful country solicitor and held various public offices in the neighbouring county of Radnorshire. She was a descendant of the 17th-century poet Henry Vaughan.
Vaughan was educated privately, and remained at home until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, after which she served in a Red Cross hospital and for the Women's Land Army in Breconshire and Radnorshire. Her work brought her into contact with women living on the local farms, and would become an influence on her writing. At the end of the war she left home for London. While she was attending a writing course at Bedford College, she met the novelist Charles Langbridge Morgan. They were married on 6 June 1923 and then spent nine years in a flat in Chelsea. In December 1924, Vaughan gave birth to the couple's first child, Elizabeth Shirley.

First major writings

On her husband's advice, Vaughan decided not to publish The Invader as her first novel. Instead she opted for The Battle to the Weak, whose manuscript Morgan had extensively edited. Both being writers, the couple were wont to guide and advise each other on literary matters. Christopher Newman noted that although her literary technique would develop throughout her career, this novel contains "virtually all the themes developed in her later works", especially those of duty and self-sacrifice. The novel was favourably received, with reviews noting its accomplishment, despite it being her first.
In 1926, Vaughan gave birth to the couple's second child, Roger, who became librarian for the House of Lords Library. The success of her first novel was repeated in the same year with the publication of the novel Here Are Lovers. When The Invader was finally published in 1928, it was also favourably received, being considered by Country Life to be "one of the best novels of the year". Her next two novels, Her Father's House and The Soldier and the Gentlewoman were likewise critically acclaimed. The latter, probably her most successful novel, was dramatised and produced at the Vaudeville Theatre, London, in the same year.
, London, 1905, where a drama based on Vaughan's novel The Soldier and the Gentlewoman was performed

Later writings

Her later novels, The Curtain Rises, Harvest Home, The Fair Woman, Pardon and Peace and The Candle and the Light were also received favourably, but with less fervour. With the outbreak of the Second World War, Charles sent Vaughan along with their children to the United States, where they stayed there from 1939 to 1943, and The Fair Woman was published whilst there, although it was later published in England under the title Iron and Gold. An exception to this more muted success was the short story or novella A Thing of Nought, which returns to some of the same themes as The Battle to the Weak. As well as being critically acclaimed, it was an unexpectedly sold out within four days of publication. During this time, Vaughan also wrote two plays with Laurier Lister: She Too was Young, which was performed at Wyndham's Theatre, London; and Forsaking All Other, which was never performed.

Final years and death

The 1950s and 1960s were a time of disappointment for Vaughan, in which she sought unsuccessfully to have earlier work re-issued. In 1957 she visited the West Indies with Charles, as it was thought the climate might benefit his ailing health. However, the visit proved ineffectual and he died the following year. Her own health being also affected, Vaughan would publish no more novels, and only minimal writing for the remainder of her life. Her final piece was an introduction to Thomas Traherne's Centuries, published in 1960, in which she offers an account of her religious faith in terms that are described as "quasi-mystical". In 1963 she was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Hilda Vaughan died on 4 November 1985 at a nursing home in Putney, London, and was buried at Dyserth, Radnorshire. She and her husband were survived by their daughter and son. The former married the Marquess of Anglesey in 1948, thereby becoming a marchioness. Their son, Roger Morgan, is a former librarian of the House of Lords.

Legacy

Vaughan's work was favourably received by her contemporaries and reviewed by publications across the world. During her lifetime, her reputation was overshadowed by that of her husband, especially after the publication in 1932 of his novel The Fountain. However, her reputation declined towards the end of her life, when she received little or no critical attention. As an example of her status, Vaughan's entry for the Encyclopedia of British Women's Writing 1900–1950 is as one of the "'recovered' writers", whose entries are briefer than the "better known writers".
For some time, Gustav Felix Adam’s Three Contemporary Anglo-Welsh Novelists: Jack Jones, Rhys Davies and Hilda Vaughan formed the last critical analysis of her work, and was not entirely complimentary. In Glyn Jones's The Dragon Has Two Tongues, considered a seminal analysis of the tradition of Welsh literature in English, Vaughan is mentioned only once, as one of those who "write about the squirearchy and its anglicized capers." A significant contribution to her legacy was Christopher Newman's biography of her published in 1981. He remarks that "her claims to be remembered... are two: first she extended the English regional novel to the "Southern Marches", the land rhwng Gwy a Hafren; secondly, that in doing so, she made a significant addition to Anglo-Welsh writing." During the 1980s and 1990s, Vaughan's work became incorporated into a renewed analysis of Anglo-Welsh writers and writing.

Works

Novels