Elizabeth Mary Jones

Moelona was the pen-name of Elizabeth (Lizzie) Mary Jones (née Owen) (21 June 1877 – 5 June 1953), a Welsh novelist and translator who wrote novels for children and other works in Welsh. Early life She was born at Rhydlewis, Ceredigion, the youngest of thirteen children, on a farm called "Moylon", hence her choice of pseudonym. Her parents were John Owen and Mary James Owen. She went to school at Rhydlewis, one of her schoolmates being Caradoc Evans. In 1890 she became a pupil-teacher, the need to care for her widowed father preventing her from obtaining any tertiary education. Career Fiction Moelona taught school as a young woman, at Pontrhydyfen, Bridgend, and Acrefair. She moved to Cardiff in 1905. She wrote her first novel (Rhamant o Ben y Rhos) for an eisteddfod in 1907, but it was not published until 1918 (as Rhamant y Rhos). In 1911 she published two romance novellas, Rhamant Nyrs Bivan (Nurse Bevan's Romance) and Alys Morgan. She won a prize at the National Eisteddfod for another work of fiction, a didactic novella titled Teulu Bach Nantoer (The Little Family of Nantoer) in 1912; after it was published the next year, it became a popular Welsh-language children's book for many years.