Welsh Journals

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THE FIRST THREE WELSH BOOKS PRINTED IN AMERICA I. ANNERCH I'R CYMRU, 1721. Ellis Pugh, a Quaker, was the author of Annerch i'r Cymru, pro- bably the first Welsh book to be printed in America. A full list of all the known editions, and of the English translations of it, is appended to this note. The first English edition, like the first Welsh edition, was published in Philadelphia, in 1727, by S. Keimer for W. Davies. Both these first editions are very scarce. Copies of the first Welsh edition are in the Friends' Library, Philadelphia, and in the National Library of Wales, whilst the only known copy of the first English edition is in the library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Copies of all the other editions, except the reprint of parts of chapters 5 and 6, dated 1840, are in the National Library of Wales, although one edition, that provisionally dated 1748, is imperfect, as it lacks the title page. Few facts concerning the life of Ellis Pugh are known. The chief sources of information are the various editions of Annerch fr Cymru, which is his only work, and of the English translation of it, and A Collection of Memorials concerning divers deceased Ministers and others of the People. called Quakers in Pennsylfania to the year 1787 (Philadelphia, 1787). An Account of the Author' appears in the first edition and is reprinted or translated in all subsequent editions of the work. From the Account' it would appear that Ellis Pugh was born in the parish of Dolgelley in the county of Merioneth, Wales, in the sixth (June) month, 1656, and that he died on the third day of the tenth (October) month, 1718. These dates are accepted by the Dictionary of National Biography, and the Dictionary of American Biography. The late Henry Blackwell, of New York, in his unpublished Dictionary of Welsh Biography', the manuscript of which is now in the National Library of Wales,1 says that Pugh was born in August, 1656, and died 3 December, 1718. Blackwell's reckoning is probably based on the fact that, before the reform of the Calendar in 1752, March, and not January, was the first month of the year. The Account' and the Testimony in the Memorials are the two sources of all published biographical notices of Ellis Pugh. The Testimony is signed by sixteen witnesses. 1NX.W. MSS. 9251-77.