Rhys Lewis (novel)

Rhys Lewis is a novel by Daniel Owen, written in the Welsh language and published in 1885. Its full title is Hunangofiant Rhys Lewis, Gweinidog Bethel ("The autobiography of Rhys Lewis, minister of Bethel"). It is generally agreed to be the first significant novel written in the Welsh language, and is to date one of the longest. It deals with the issues of evangelical Christian faith in a rapidly changing society affected by increasing exposure to outside influences, industrialisation with the inevitable strife that follows, and (perhaps most dangerous of all) the adoption by mainstream popular culture of certain aspects of Christianity whilst completely misunderstanding the essence of it.

The novel was originally serialised in a Welsh-language periodical, Y Drysorfa ("The Treasury") between 1882 and 1885, before publication in a single volume. Although not Owen's first prose work, it was the book that made his name.

The novel has been adapted for Welsh-language television (S4C).

The first English translation was made by James Harris in 1888, but is somewhat stilted and has not achieved a wide circulation. A new contemporary English translation by Stephen Morris was published in October 2015, ISBN .

Most of the action in the novel takes place in Mold, the small town in Flintshire from which the author came.

Rhys Lewis is the younger son in a poor family where the father is absent and the only source of income is what his older brother, Bob, earns as a coalminer. Much of this income is creamed off by Uncle James, a poacher and a very violent man who visits the family regularly though he is never welcome.

His mother, Mari Lewis, is a devout member of the Calvinistic Methodists and seeks to bring her two boys up in the same faith. Bob, the older brother, despite working as a coalminer is keen on self-improvement. He teaches himself English and the books he reads lead him to doubt the simplicity of his mother's faith; he is excommunicated from the Calvinistic Methodists after badly beating up Rhys's schoolteacher, but continues searching for the truth whilst becoming active as a leader among the miners in their fight against the incompetent English middle-management - who are badly mismanaging the mine to the detriment of the owners and workers alike. After a workers' riot which he tried but failed to prevent, he is imprisoned on falsified charges during which the family declines into deep poverty. Even so, his campaign is successful to the extent that the English steward is fired and replaced by a competent Welshman, who is also a deacon with the Congregationalists, and who sees that the family is provided for and that Bob is reinstated on good terms when he comes out of prison. Bob eventually comes to faith in a deathbed conversion following a mining accident, saying after having been blinded in an explosion "the light has come at last. Doctor, it is broad daylight!".

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