DEATH OF "ALLEN RAINE."

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 270, 7 August 1908, Page 5

DEATH OF "ALLEN RAINE."

• A WELSH AUTHORESS. ■ The. death of Allen Raine (Mrs. ■ Beynon Puddicombe) will' be sincerely mourned throughout Wales, of which she had become the most popular novelist. She passed away on Sunday, Juno 21, in her fifty-eighth year, after a long'and painful illness, at nor home, Bronmor, . on the Cardiganshire coast,' where two years ago her husband died. - She was a nativo of Nowcastle-Emlyn, the eldest daughter of Benjamin Evans, who, like his cousin, the late Rev. David Davis, of Evesham; was' a grandson of David Davis, of Castle Howell (1745-1827), for many years tho leading Unitarian minister in Cardiganshire, a notable, schoolmaster, and-a'poet. Ho translated Gray's elegy into Welsh, and by many people his version considered equal to the original. His grsat-granddaughtcr found in novel writing a solaco in her muchtried life, and latterly an ample source' of income. Her, father was a, solicitor in the same small-town.. For ten years after her marriage to Mr. Beynon Puddicoinbo(who was , a bank official in London) she was an invalid, and after her own restoration to health he became incurably afflicted, so that all tho cares of the household rested upon her. She had always been a delightful story-, teller, and in 1894 a Welsh tale of hers gained a prize, at ;the National Eisteddfod. In 1897 her first novel, "A Welsh Singer," appeared, and had an extraordinary.success. It is said to have had a circulation of-over a million copics. She loved her nativo country and itspeople, and was familiar with its traditions, legends, and folk-lore. Her stories are genuine and human throughout. The London "Times," in an obituary notice, stated:. All .her subsequent novels dealt with ancient or modern Welsh life ; and, . quiet and . often ' grave though they we re, ■ they achieved very wide popularity, which (it is perhaps worth while to mention) certainly owed nothing to self-advertisement on tho part of the author. Her work, indeed, owed some of its attractiveness to the author's complete, disseverance from literary London cliques, and in its close associations with tho silent spirit of her nativo country. The deceased lady and her family were personal friends of Dr. Tudor Jones, of Wellington. '