Richard Llewellyn Books in Order
Browse Richard Llewellyn's books in order, with concise summaries, series guides, background notes, and clear suggestions for where to begin reading.
Last updated: July 15, 2026
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Richard Llewellyn books in publication order
24 books
How Green Was My Valley
by Richard Llewellyn
1939
As Huw Morgan prepares to leave his Welsh home, he recalls childhood in a coal-mining valley shaped by family love, labor unrest, and loss. His memories capture a close community changing faster than anyone wants to admit.
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"The transition to me between reading 'books for boys' and 'adult reading' was [this book]." - Christopher Hitchens
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Few Flowers for Shiner
by Richard Llewellyn
1950
In war-torn Italy, British soldiers move through a battered country while one man sets out to honor the memory of his friend Shiner. The novel blends comradeship, grief, and the disorienting aftermath of war.
A Flame for Doubting Thomas
by Richard Llewellyn
1953
A young California history professor leaves his old routine for a room above an amusement-pier carousel. Love, gunmen, performers, and working-class neighbors pull him into a messier life than he expected.
Sweet Witch
by Richard Llewellyn
1955
Set in Napoleonic-era Wales, this historical romance follows David, a patriotic Welsh smuggler and freedom fighter. His growing bond with an independent aristocratic woman is tested by secrets, danger, and the redcoats.
Mr. Hamish Gleave
by Richard Llewellyn
1956
A British civil servant, burdened by resentment and a difficult home life, is driven toward betrayal. Loosely inspired by real Cold War defections, the novel traces the private pressures behind a public act of treason.
The Flame of Hercules
by Richard Llewellyn
1957
Garvan, a captive prince from Gaul and galley slave, escapes to Herculaneum before Vesuvius erupts. Love for a young Vestal draws him into conflict between the followers of Diana and a small Christian community.
Warden of the Smoke and Bells
by Richard Llewellyn
1958
A young man faces adventure, danger, and tests of loyalty in this historical tale. Llewellyn gives the story a brisk, old-fashioned sense of peril, with integrity and courage repeatedly put under pressure.
Chez Pavan
by Richard Llewellyn
1959
At a grand Paris hotel and restaurant, manager Charles Montfior tries to preserve old standards as wealthy new guests disrupt the place. Romance, staff rivalries, and changing tastes turn the hotel into a busy small world.
Up Into The Singing Mountain
by Richard Llewellyn
1960
Huw Morgan leaves Wales for the Welsh settlements of Patagonia, Argentina, where he starts a carpentry business after a flood. New work and new love cannot erase the memories and loyalties he brought with him.
None But The Lonely Heart
by Richard Llewellyn
1961
Restless young Cockney Ernie Mott drifts through London's poorer streets, chasing money, romance, and a different life. When family responsibility and criminal temptation close in, his hopes become harder to separate from self-deception.
A Man in a Mirror
by Richard Llewellyn
1964
Set among the Maasai of Kenya, this novel places personal identity and ambition against the pressures of a changing modern Africa. Llewellyn explores what a man sees when his old assumptions no longer hold.
Sweet Morn of Judas Day
by Richard Llewellyn
1965
In a hot, unsettled South American setting, tangled passions and dangerous secrets reshape the lives of those caught in them. The novel mixes romance, jealousy, and an atmosphere where nothing stays safely hidden.
The End of the Rug
by Richard Llewellyn
1968
MI5 agent Edmund Trothe goes undercover in West Germany to penetrate a neo-Nazi network. His diplomatic cover complicates every move, forcing him to balance official duty with the brutal realities of espionage.
But We Didn't Get the Fox
by Richard Llewellyn
1969
Edmund Trothe is drawn into an international struggle over newly discovered oil. With rival powers competing for control, diplomacy quickly gives way to bribery, violence, and shifting loyalties.
Down Where The Moon Is Small
by Richard Llewellyn
1970
Huw Morgan's story continues into adulthood, when marriage, desire, and disappointment test the values he carried from his Welsh childhood. It is a more troubled chapter in a life shaped by longing for home.
White Horse to Banbury Cross
by Richard Llewellyn
1972
After gaining control of a major oil pipeline, Edmund Trothe becomes the target of former MI5 colleagues. Murders inside his company make it clear that business success has placed everyone around him at risk.
Bride of Israel, My Love
by Richard Llewellyn
1973
An engineer returns to Israel determined to help build a new life in the desert. Work, political danger, and difficult love affairs challenge his faith in the future he is trying to create.
A Hill of Many Dreams
by Richard Llewellyn
1974
After his Manhattan art-dealing career collapses, Paul Denis starts over in Israel. But a web of forgery, blackmail, robbery, and murder from his New York past refuses to let him escape.
The Night is a Child
by Richard Llewellyn
1974
Edmund Trothe returns in a tense international spy story where official ceremonies and political dealings conceal dangerous agendas. As the clues multiply, he must work out who is using him and why.
Green, Green My Valley Now
by Richard Llewellyn
1975
The Morgan family story returns to Wales, where the past remains close and a new generation must live with its inheritance. Huw's long journey of memory, exile, and belonging reaches another turning point.
At Sunrise, The Rough Music
by Richard Llewellyn
1976
Prem Naran rises from a messenger at Parliament to the head of a business empire in India. His climb brings wealth and influence, but also compromises that test his generosity, ambition, and sense of right and wrong.
Tell Me Now, and Again
by Richard Llewellyn
1978
East London printer A. G. Bessell supplements his income by smuggling diamonds across Europe. When women around him disappear and enemies close in, his eccentric life becomes a dangerous scramble for survival.
Night of Bright Stars
by Richard Llewellyn
1979
Set in turn-of-the-century Paris, this historical novel moves through a city of bright lights, ambition, and private desire. Llewellyn uses the period setting to explore lives changed by love and opportunity.
I Stand on a Quiet Shore
by Richard Llewellyn
1982
A compact mystery from Llewellyn's final years, this novel centers on hidden motives and the uncertainty beneath an apparently quiet surface. Its tension comes from the gap between what people say and what they conceal.
Where to start with Richard Llewellyn
For the Welsh family saga: How Green Was My Valley → Up Into The Singing Mountain → Down Where The Moon Is Small → Green, Green My Valley Now
For a gritty London drama: None But The Lonely Heart → A Few Flowers for Shiner
For Cold War espionage: The End of the Rug → But We Didn't Get the Fox → White Horse to Banbury Cross → The Night is a Child
For historical adventure: Sweet Witch → The Flame of Hercules
Richard Llewellyn sub-series and character series
Collier Spymasters books in order
Explore this series
The End of the Rug
by Richard Llewellyn
1968Collier Spymasters, Book 1
But We Didn't Get the Fox
by Richard Llewellyn
1969Collier Spymasters, Book 2
White Horse to Banbury Cross
by Richard Llewellyn
1972Collier Spymasters, Book 3
The Night is a Child
by Richard Llewellyn
1974Collier Spymasters, Book 4
Collier Spymasters books in chronological order
How Green Was My Valley books in order
Explore this series
How Green Was My Valley
by Richard Llewellyn
1939How Green Was My Valley, Book 1
Up Into The Singing Mountain
by Richard Llewellyn
1960How Green Was My Valley, Book 2
Down Where The Moon Is Small
by Richard Llewellyn
1970How Green Was My Valley, Book 3
Green, Green My Valley Now
by Richard Llewellyn
1975How Green Was My Valley, Book 4
How Green Was My Valley books in chronological order

How Green Was My Valley
by Richard Llewellyn
1939How Green Was My Valley, Book 1
Up Into The Singing Mountain
by Richard Llewellyn
1960How Green Was My Valley, Book 2
Down Where The Moon Is Small
by Richard Llewellyn
1970How Green Was My Valley, Book 3
Green, Green My Valley Now
by Richard Llewellyn
1975How Green Was My Valley, Book 4
Standalone Richard Llewellyn books

Few Flowers for Shiner
by Richard Llewellyn
1950
A Flame for Doubting Thomas
by Richard Llewellyn
1953
Sweet Witch
by Richard Llewellyn
1955
Mr. Hamish Gleave
by Richard Llewellyn
1956
The Flame of Hercules
by Richard Llewellyn
1957
Warden of the Smoke and Bells
by Richard Llewellyn
1958
Chez Pavan
by Richard Llewellyn
1959
None But The Lonely Heart
by Richard Llewellyn
1961
A Man in a Mirror
by Richard Llewellyn
1964
Sweet Morn of Judas Day
by Richard Llewellyn
1965
Bride of Israel, My Love
by Richard Llewellyn
1973
A Hill of Many Dreams
by Richard Llewellyn
1974
At Sunrise, The Rough Music
by Richard Llewellyn
1976
Tell Me Now, and Again
by Richard Llewellyn
1978
Night of Bright Stars
by Richard Llewellyn
1979
I Stand on a Quiet Shore
by Richard Llewellyn
1982
Author bio
Richard Llewellyn was the pen name of Richard Dafydd Vivian Llewellyn Lloyd, a novelist whose best-known stories returned again and again to Wales, working people, travel, and the uneasy search for a place to belong. He was born in Hendon, north London, on December 8, 1906, to Welsh parents. In later life he said he had been born in St Davids, Wales, a claim that was disproved after his death, but his connection to Welsh family history and culture ran deep.
His route into writing was anything but straight.
As a teenager, Llewellyn was sent to Italy to learn the hotel trade. He also studied art in Venice, worked around film crews, and later took a series of jobs that gave him a close look at very different worlds, including hotels, coal mines, and film studios. Those experiences helped fill his novels with kitchens, boarding houses, workplaces, crowded streets, and people trying to get ahead.
Before becoming a novelist, he wrote for the stage and worked in film as a writer, assistant director, and production manager. His play Poison Pen appeared in 1938. He then began the novel that changed his life, writing parts of it in St Davids and India before revising and finishing it in Britain.
That book was How Green Was My Valley, published in 1939. Told through the memories of Huw Morgan, it follows a Welsh mining family as their close-knit community faces hardship, labor conflict, and change. Readers have long responded to its family warmth, humor, and sense of a lost home. The novel won the 1940 National Book Award in the United States and became a major film directed by John Ford.
Llewellyn did not simply repeat that success. None But the Lonely Heart moves to London's poorer neighborhoods and follows the restless young Ernie Mott. A Few Flowers for Shiner draws on war-torn Italy, while A Flame for Doubting Thomas heads to a California amusement pier. He also wrote historical adventures such as Sweet Witch and The Flame of Hercules, and later returned to Huw Morgan's life in several sequels.
He kept moving, and his books often move with him.
During the Second World War, Llewellyn served in the Welsh Guards and rose to captain. After the war he reported on the Nuremberg Trials, then worked as a screenwriter for MGM. Over the years he lived or spent extended time in places including Italy, Argentina, Brazil, Kenya, China, Israel, Ireland, and Britain. That wide-ranging life fed novels set in Africa, India, Israel, Paris, and South America, as well as his four-book espionage sequence featuring MI5 agent Edmund Trothe.
His later work includes Bride of Israel, My Love, At Sunrise, the Rough Music, and I Stand on a Quiet Shore. He married Nona Sonsteby in 1952, divorced in 1968, and married editor Susan Heimann in 1974. He spent part of his later life in Eilat, Israel, and died in Dublin on November 30, 1983.
For all the changes of setting, Llewellyn's novels often come back to the same plain questions: who do we owe, what does home mean, and what happens when a person has to start over.
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