Cambrian Pictures
Weaving together themes of gender, liberty power and transgression, Ann Julia Hatton's Cambrian Pictures is a comedy of manners and morals with serious intent. Notable for its inverse seduction plots, Cambrian Pictures is a witty and colourful courtship novel with a lively cast of characters. Drawing on domestic travel writing and the emergence of the Gothic, Cambrian Pictures is one of the strongest Welsh-set novels of the Romantic period.
Ann Julia Hatton (1764-1838), effectively banishes to the south Wales coast after a series of scandals, found a powerful new identity in Swansea in the early nineteenth century. Formerly a poet and librettist, Hatton turned novelist, publishing at least fourteen novels in the latter part of her life under the name of Ann of Swansea. Hatton's precarious existence gifted her a sharp perspective on contemporary life - one that embraces and critiqued Wales in equal measure.
