MISTAKEN IDENTITY?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 159, 10 July 1942, Page 9

MISTAKEN IDENTITY?

Curious Case Of A Famous Author

ERE is a mystery. which may interest our readers as much as it interests us. Was Richard Llewellyn, author of the best-selling novel How Green Was My Valley, in two places at once a few months ago? The places were thousands of miles apart. In The Listener of April 24 we published an item stating that Llewellyn had visited New Zealand as wireless operator on a British ship. Certainly somebody who claimed to be the author of How Green Was My Valley did visit Christchurch at that time, and was entertained as such by a number of people. His real name, he told these people, was C. Mostyn, and wireless operating was his war work; but he freely discussed his authorship of the famous novel and its success, autographed at least one copy, and said that he was at present at work on another book. Whitcombe and Tombs were so convinced of the visitor’s bona fides that they included an illustration of him and a paragraph about his visit in their bulletin "Books of To-day," in which was mentioned Mr. Liewellyn’s interest and gratification at learning that 5,779 copies of How Green Was My Valley had been sold in New Zealand. But-in the English Listener of April 30 (which has just come to hand) there is an extract from a broadcast by C. A. Lejeune, the film critic, which makes one wonder whether it was only Mr. Liewellyn’s valley that was green, On April 23, just one day before our item appeared, Miss Lejeune gave a broadcast review from the BBC of the Academy Award winning film version of the novel, which had just been shown in London, and in her talk this interesting passage occurred: "TI cannot pretend to guess what Welsh audiences will think of How Green Was My Valley. There are certain to be criticisms. But I do know one Welshman who likes it, and that’s the author, Richard Llewellyn. When I saw him after the film he was sending off sheaves of cables to Hollywood, con&ratulating everybody." (The italics are ours.) About the same date the Radio Times also published an item about the book, the film, and the author, but gave ed

suggestion that the author was anywhere but in Great Britain at that time. To cap all this, in its review of the film, News Review, of April 30 says quite plainly that Richard Llewellyn is now a lieutenant in the Welsh Guards -not a wireless operator in the Mercantile Marine. Mistaken identity? Split personality? Transmigration of souls? We leave you to guess.