Hilda Campbell Vaughan (1892 – 1985) was born in Builth Wells. She was a novelist and short story writer publishing ten, critically acclaimed and varied novels, set mostly in her native Radnorshire, concern rural communities and heroines. Her first was ‘The Battle to the Weak’ (1925) and her last ‘The Candle and the Light’ (1954). She was a descendant of the 17th-century poet Henry Vaughan. She was educated at home until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, after which she served in a Red Cross hospital and for the Women’s Land Army in Breconshire and Radnorshire. Her work brought her into contact with women living on the local farms, and would become an influence on her writing. In 1963 she was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Novels
- The Battle to the Weak (1925)
- Here are Lovers (1926)
- The Invader (subtitled: a tale of adventure and passion) (1928)
- Her Father’s House (1930)
- The Soldier and the Gentlewoman
- The Curtain Rises (1935)
- Harvest Home (1936)
- The Fair Woman (1942)
- Pardon and Peace (1943)
- The Candle and the Light (1954)
- Recovered Greenness (unpublished; never completed)
Plays
- She Too Was Young (1938, with Laurier Lister)
- Forsaking All Other (with Laurier Lister; never performed)
Stories
- A Thing of Nought (1934)
- Alive or Dead (1944)