A list of literary classics from Wales is being drawn up

The Library of Wales initiative is part of a �250,000 promotion of English language writing by the Welsh Assembly Government.

Culture Minister Alun Pugh said he wanted classic books from Wales to reach a new generation.

It is hoped the first books in the series will be published next year.

Mr Pugh said: "The Library of Wales is designed to address a major market failure - Wales is a small nation that has produced a rich quantity and quality of literature in the past but most of it is inaccessible.

"Either it's out of print or difficult to get hold of, so you need to trawl the internet or perhaps take a trip to Hay-on-Wye (which has many second-hand bookshops)"

Professor Dai Smith of the University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, has been asked to draw up a list of important or forgotten classics.

It is expected to include work by writers such as Gwyn Jones, Jack Jones, Caradoc Evans, Idris Davies, Dannie Abse and Emyr Humphreys.

Prof Smith said it would be "a series of books in English, about Wales, by ourselves, by our own authors in one of Wales' languages - and there are many of course - but a language that will speak of the experiences of the Welsh over the last 100 years."

Alun Pugh wants classics accessible for the next generation

One particular favourite of his is Raymond Williams' Border Country, a novel published in 1960 about homecoming.

Professor Smith said: "I'll stick my neck out - I think it's the finest novel written in 20th Century Wales about 20th Century Wales.

"It's a novel about Matthew Price, who finds himself in the 1950s coming back from his job - he's studying population movements in and out of the south Wales valleys - to tend his dying father."

The series will be available to the public but with free copies sent to secondary schools, further education colleges and libraries.

Mr Pugh said: "For many teachers of English, one of the big problems they face is access to classic texts - it's important that some of the great literature of Wales is readily available to the next generation of readers."