R. J. Derfel and The Treachery of the Blue Books (or, to use another title suggested by Richard Wyn Jones, ‘Explosive Facts about Llandderfel’!)
We first discuss the history of the ‘Blue Books’ published in 1847. The correct English title of these reports is The Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales. These are the infamous volumes which denegrate the language, morals and culture of Wales.
We then focus on the work of the poet from the Llandderfel region, Robert Jones or ‘R. J. Derfel’, and note that he was a pioneering Welsh socialist. It was he who coined the phrase Brad y Llyfrau Gleision (‘The Treachery of the Blue Books’), doing so in the daring literary work which he published in 1854 which bears that title. It is a long metrical pryddest – which we might term a metrical drama as well – which shows Beelzebub and other denizens of Hell scheming to undermine the Welsh. This is a substantial and lively work which examines the insult of the Blue Books in an amazingly creative way.