Land Of Pure Delight

Out Of Print ... Thomas Johnes was among the most remarkable Welshmen of his generation. At a time when the majority of Welsh landowners, many of them absentees, had abandoned any pretentions towards civilised living in favor of the hunting field and the bottle, Johnes remained at his Cardiganshire home which became a haven of culture justly celebrated throughout the kingdom. Besides developing the Hafod estate according to the dictates of the 'picturesque' canon and establishing novel methods of farming and afforestation, Johnes assembled collections of manuscripts and printed books which were the envy of his contemporaries, in addition to translating the Cronicles of Froissart, Joinville and Monstrelet; these being printed on his own press at Hafod. In the face of estrangement from his immediate family, personal catastrophe in the form of destruction of his house by fire in 1807, and the death of his only child four years later, Johnes continued in the pursuit of the creation of a 'paradise' at Hafod until the end of his life. The introductory essay and selections from Johnes's correspondence printed in the present volume offer a glimpse both of the life and times of the man himself and the extraordinary scope of his interests and aspirations.