Allen Raine

Born Anne Adalisa Beynon Puddicombe in Newcastle Emlyn, Wales, Allen Raine was the pen name of a writer who became one of the best-known popular novelists of her day. She is especially associated with fiction set in Wales, drawing on country communities, local customs, and religious life.

Her breakthrough came with A Welsh Singer, and her success grew quickly after that. By 1912, only a few years after her death in 1908, her novels had sold more than two million copies, showing just how widely she was read.

Allen Raine's books are often remembered for their warm sense of place and their picture of Welsh social life during a time of change. Though critical fashions shifted, her work remains an important part of Welsh literary history and of the era's popular fiction.