Eiluned Lewis

Janet Eiluned Lewis (1 November 1900 – 15 April 1979) was a Welsh novelist, poet, and journalist.

Born in Penstrowed near Newtown, Montgomeryshire, Lewis was educated at Levana School, Wimbledon, and Westfield College, London. She had a long period of work on the Sunday Times, where she became assistant editor, and from 1944 until her death in 1979 she also wrote for the magazine Country Life.

In 1937 Lewis married William Graeme Hendrey and they had one daughter, Katrina. Some of her books were written with her brother Peter. She was a friend of the novelist Charles Langbridge Morgan.

In the late 1930s, Lewis was briefly a member of the Peace Pledge Union.^[1]

In letters written to Andrew Birkin by Nico Llewelyn Davies (part of the family that served as J. M. Barrie's inspiration for Peter Pan) it was suggested that Lewis had once been a girlfriend of Nico's brother Michael:

Reverting for a second to Michael's "girl friends", I recommend you try to get in touch with Eiluned Lewis (author of "Dew on the Grass"). I've no idea whether she and Michael even held hands but she might well have a clue as to his feelings towards girls — and she loved JMB [James Michael Barrie] and all to do with us in those far off days.^[2]

Works

• Dew On The Grass (1934)
• December Apples (1935), poems
• The Land Of Wales (1937), with Peter Lewis
• The Captain's Wife (1943)
• Morning Songs and other poems (1944)
• In Country Places (1951), collected Country Life magazine journalism
• The Leaves of the Tree (1953)
• Honey Pots and Brandy Bottles (1954)
• Selected Letters of Charles Morgan (1967), editor
• The Old Home (1981), memoirs
• A Companionable Talent: stories, essays & recollections (1996)

References

• Catherine Reilly (1984) Chaos of the Night