14 Facts About Daniel Owen

Daniel Owen is generally regarded as the foremost Welsh-language novelist of the 19th century, and as the first significant novelist to write in Welsh.

Daniel Owen was born in Mold, Flintshire, the youngest of six children in a working-class family.

Daniel Owen's father, Robert Owen, was a coal miner, while his mother belonged to the family of Thomas Edwards, poet and writer.

Daniel Owen received little formal education, but he acknowledged his debt to his Sunday School.

Daniel Owen described his apprenticeship as a "kind of college", and began writing poetry under the influence of a colleague there.

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Daniel Owen found there chances to discuss and argue topics with colleagues and customers there.

Daniel Owen began writing poetry under the pseudonym Glaslwyn, entering his work into local eisteddfodau and managing to publish some pieces.

Daniel Owen's first significant work in Welsh was a translation of Timothy Shay Arthur's novelette Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There.

Daniel Owen then trained unsuccessfully for the ministry of his church, preaching from 1860.

Daniel Owen enrolled in Bala Theological College in 1865, but failed to complete the course.

Daniel Owen's first attempt at fiction was a short story, "Cymeriadau Methodistaidd" about the election of chapel elders.

Daniel Owen's work has been compared with that of Charles Dickens, who was a likely influence, although Owen's work is uniquely informed by his own Welsh-language culture and chapel background.

Daniel Owen is credited with starting a tradition of novel-writing in Welsh that influenced later fiction writers such as Kate Roberts and T Rowland Hughes.

Daniel Owen is commemorated in Mold by a statue and the name of a shopping precinct and cultural centre.