Encyclopaedia

HAYCRAFT, Anna (Alice Thomas Ellis; 1932-2005) Writer and publisher

Born in Liverpool, brought up at Penmaenmawr, and a pupil at Bangor before attending Liverpool School of Art, Anna Haycraft was known in the literary world under two names. As Anna Haycraft, she ran the London publishing house Duckworth, founded by her late husband, Colin Haycraft, where she nurtured authors such as Beryl Bainbridge. As Alice Thomas Ellis, she wrote about a dozen volumes of fiction, and a similar body of non-fiction, including the autobiographical A Welsh Childhood (1990). Several of her novels, such as The Sin Eater (1977), have Welsh settings.