Amongst the archives recently catalogued at the National Library of Wales are manuscripts and papers of the popular romantic novelist, Berta Ruck (1878-1978), which give an insight into her long and interesting life. Although born in India her roots were in Pantlludw and Esgair, near Pennal, Merioneth.She trained as an artist but also wrote stories and serials for magazines. One of these, His Official Fiancée, was published as a novel in 1914 and she became an immensely popular novelist over the next few decades. In all she had some eighty novels published.
The Berta Ruck Archive at NLW includes various manuscripts and other papers. The bulk consists of her notebooks, 1906-1973. These contain letters from family and friends, including numerous famous writers, actors and aviators. They also contain her journals. These vividly detail her private and social life (and famous friends). During the 1920s and 1930s she split her time between her home and her travels in Europe, spending a lot of her time in Vienna. She flew whenever and wherever she could, an obsession that rubbed off on one of her sons, an RAF pilot.
Her globetrotting lifestyle came to an end with the outbreak of the Second World War. She and her husband (the ghost-story writer Oliver Onions) left London and settled in Aberdyfi where she spent her remaining 39 years. The journals continue to 1973 when she was 94 years old.
Rhys M. Jones