A Ray of Darkness

Margiad Evans (1909 - 1958), essayist, memoirist, novelist and poet, was born in Uxbridge but got her inspiration from the Herefordshire Welsh Border country. First published in 1932 her writing career was curtailed in 1950 when a previously asymptomatic brain tumour induced an epileptic response whose effects became increasingly intrusive and serious over the last eight years of her life. She died at the age of 49. A Ray of Darkness, a unique account of her epilepsy, was first published in 1952 when it was hailed as a significant contribution to the clinical study of epilepsy by eminent neurologists. Its reprint now by Honno follows the publication, last year, of her final autobiographical work The Nightingale Silenced. It remains one of very few accounts of epilepsy written by a sufferer of this serious (but surprisingly common) disease.