Cockatrice Books
Y diawl a’m llaw chwith
Cockatrice Selections
Cockatrice Selections: The Wales in Europe Series
Cockatrice Books brings you fiction and non-fiction celebrating the past and future of Wales as an independent nation.
The Sleeping Bard by Ellis Wynne
Three nightmare visions of the world, of death and of hell.
The anonymous poet is dragged from sleep by the fairies of Welsh myth, and rescued by an angel is taken to see the City of Doom, whose citizens vie for the favour of Belial’s three beautiful daughters; to the realm of King Death, the rebellious vassal of Lucifer; and finally to Hell itself, where Lucifer debates with his demons which sin shall rule Great Britain.
First published in 1703, this classic of religious allegory and Welsh prose combines all the blunt urgency of John Bunyan with the vivid social satire of Dryden and Pope, and is published in the T. Gwynn Jones translation of 1940, with an introduction by Rob Mimpriss reflecting on its political significance as the union of England and Scotland comes to an end.
Published as part of the Wales in Europe series, celebrating the past and future of Wales as an independent nation.
ISBN: 978-1-912368-31-0. Format: Paperback, 127×203mm. 176pp. Price: £9.99
A History of Wales by J. E. Lloyd
With a foreword by Leanne Wood
From evidence of the earliest human habitations of Wales to the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, Wales’s last native ruler, in 1282, J. E. Lloyd’s magisterial book covers the full sweep of Welsh history. Lavishly annotated, comprehensively indexed, it covers the well-known names of Welsh history — Llywelyn the Great, Hywel the Good, the Lord Rhys — as well as a host of lesser-known princes, of poets, clergy, courtiers, warriors and lovers, bringing to life and understanding Wales’s laws, its political institutions, its complex internecine conflicts, and its aspirations as a united mediaeval state.
Republished after more than one hundred years, with a new foreword by Leanne Wood reflecting on its relevance to the Wales of our day, this book tells us how, even in defeat, its rulers laid the basis of a Welsh nationhood that is as much alive now as in the golden age of the princes.
Published as part of the Wales in Europe series: celebrating the past and future of Wales as an independent nation.
ISBN: 978-1-912368-30-3. Format: Paperback, 178×254mm. 612pp. Price: £21.99
Early Welsh Histories: Gildas and Nennius
Translated by J. A. Giles
Written in the sixth century, vividly describing the harrowing of the Celtic kingdoms of Britain by the Anglo-Saxon invaders, Gildas’s Destruction of Britain is both a lament for Roman civilisation and a blistering polemic against the impieties of the British kings. Written three centuries later, Nennius’s History of Britain presents a picture of the mythical king Vortigern, the prophet Ambrosius, and the conflict between the red dragon and the white that inspired Geoffrey of Monmouth, and resounds in Welsh popular culture to this day. Between them, they represent a society in extremis, and a passionate defence of the nationhood of Wales.
Published as part of the Wales in Europe series: celebrating the past and future of Wales as an independent nation.
ISBN: 978-1912368174. Format: Paperback, 110×178mm. 120pp. Price: £4.99
Owain Glyndŵr by J. E. Lloyd
On 16th September 1400, Owain Glyndŵr, esquire, lawyer, land-owner, and descendant of the rulers of Wales, proclaimed himself Prince of Wales, thus beginning a period of effective independence and allegiance with France which lasted for more than ten years. This ground-breaking study by J. E. Lloyd, first published in 1930, considers his importance as guerrilla tactician, statesman and diplomat: the ‘father of modern Welsh nationalism’ who inspires Welsh thinkers and nation-builders to this day.
Published as part of the Wales in Europe series: celebrating the past and future of Wales as an independent nation.
ISBN: 978-1912368167. Format: Paperback, 127×203mm. 188pp. Price: £9.99
A Book of Three Birds by Morgan Llwyd
Morgan Llwyd (1619-1659), the nephew of a professional soldier and magician, was a Roundhead, a millenialist, a chaplain in the army of Oliver Cromwell, and later a civil servant of the commonwealth in Wales.
His famous religious allegory, A Book of Three Birds, is considered the most important Welsh book of the Seventeenth Century, and an enduring masterpiece of Welsh prose. With its introduction reflecting on the political upheavals of our time, this new translation by Rob Mimpriss brings to life the pungency of Morgan Llwyd’s writing, the richness of his religious and political thought, and the urgency of his drama and characterisation.
‘Lucid, skilful, and above all, of enormous timely relevance.’
Jim Perrin
Published as part of the Wales in Europe series: celebrating the past and future of Wales as an independent nation.
ISBN: 978-1912368136. Format: Paperback, 127×203mm. 156pp. Price: £7.99
Pugnacious Little Trolls by Rob Mimpriss
Nominated for the Wales Book of the Year Award
In his first three short-story collections, Rob Mimpriss painstakingly mapped the unregarded lives of Welsh small-town and country-dwellers. In Pugnacious Little Trolls, he combines the skill and quiet eloquence of his earlier work with confident experimentation, with stories set among the bird-bodied harpies of Central America, among the dog-headed Cynocephali of Central Asia, among humanity’s remote descendants at the very end of the universe, and in the muddle of slag-heaps and job centres that H. G. Wells’s Country of the Blind has become. In the three stories at the heart of the collection is Tanwen, idealistic and timid, embarking on her adult life in the shadow of global warming and English nationalism.
‘Where is the Welsh short story going? Wherever Rob Mimpriss takes it.’
John O’Donoghue
‘freely and fiercely inventive short stories… supercharged with ideas’
Jon Gower, Nation Cymru
‘Beyond question Wales’s finest and most subtle short-story writer working today... A work of great beauty and subtle force, a fine, distinctive voice.’
Jim Perrin
‘bathed in white fire in every sense… Borges would happily own them.’
Gee Williams
Published as part of the Wales in Europe series: celebrating the past and future of Wales as an independent nation.
ISBN: 978-1912368242. Format: Paperback, 127×203mm. 132pp. Price: £6.99
A Short History of Wales by O. M. Edwards
O. M. Edwards was a writer and scholar, a leading educationalist, and, alongside J. E. Lloyd, a member of the Cymru Fydd movement, dedicated to achieving home rule for Wales. This brief book, outlining Welsh history from the Stone Age to the start of the 20th century, reflects O. M. Edwards’ hope for the rebirth of Wales as a modern, democratic nation, and is reissued by Cockatrice Books with additional material outlining the history of Wales from its first publication to the present day.
Published as part of the Wales in Europe series: celebrating the past and future of Wales as an independent nation.
ISBN: 978-1912368235. Format: Paperback, 110×178mm. 166pp. Price: £5.99
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, O. M. Edwards, Caradoc Evans, Vsevolod Garshin, Gildas, J. A. Giles, Geraint Goodwin, Roger Granelli, James Harries, Sivert and Elizabeth Hjerleide, T. Gwynn Jones, Richard Hughes Williams, Nigel Jarrett, T. J. Llewelyn Pritchard, J. E. Lloyd, Morgan Llwyd, Rob Mimpriss (editor), George Moore, Nennius, Daniel Owen, Elias Owen, A. L. Reynolds, Phil Rickman, Wirt Sikes, Rowland Smith, Claud Vivian, E. L. Voynich, Leanne Wood, Ellis Wynne, Owen Wynne Jones.
© 2023 Cockatrice Books
