Background
Evans was born Peggy Whistler in Uxbridge, Middlesex, the daughter of Godfrey James Whistler (1866-1936), an insurance clerk. She took her pen name from her father"s mother, whose name was Evans.
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Margiad Evans
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She was educated in Ross and at Hereford School of Artist
Career
Her affection for the Herefordshire countryside grew from visits she began to pay in 1918 to an aunt in Ross-on-Wye. The family moved to nearby Bridstow in 1921. Her two most famous works are Country Dance (1932) and her Autobiography (1943, 2nd e, 1952).
Country Dance (serialized on British Broadcasting Corporation radio in 2006) was followed by three further novels, The Wooden Doctor (1933), Turf or Stone (1934), and Creed (1936), all set in the countryside of the Welsh Marches.
Some of her books were self-illustrated. There a fifth novel was abandoned in favour of her autobiography.
Her discovery that she was epileptic led to another autobiographical account, A Ray of Darkness (1952). However, Evans"s health declined and she suffered from homesickness for the Welsh marches.
The Nightingale Silenced (1954) is a moving account of her life after she was diagnosed with a brain tumour.
Interest in Margiad Evans" work has revived, especially in Wales. There were new editions of The Old and the Young in 1998, of Country Dance and The Wooden Doctor in 2005, and of Turf or Stone in 2010. A centenary conference took place in Aberystwyth in 2009.
