Edward Pugh of Ruthin 1763-1813
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Edward Pugh (1763-1813) was a Ruthin-born, Welsh-speaking artist and writer who produced compelling landscapes images of Denbighshire in particular and, more widely of North Wales, Monmouthshire and London. He also wrote what is probably the best account of a tour in Wales ever written: it is far superior to Borrow's. This book, the first to consider Pugh's work in detail, shows how his landscapes reveal a wealth of local knowledge, and dramatise some issues of great importance to Wales in his time: the effects of the enclosure of common land; the effects of the war with France on industry and the condition of the poor; the need to develop and modernise the Welsh economy; the power of the great landowners. Apart from Pugh's, almost all the pictures and tours we have of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century North Wales were made by English artists and writers. None of these can tell us about life in North Wales with the same insight as Pugh.
John Barrell is Professor of English at Queen Mary University of London.