Precious Bane (Virago Modern Classics)

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I’m descended from farmers on both sides of my family, and although I’ve never experienced the toil of that life, it always resonates when I read about it.

Precious Bane (TV Movie 1989) - IMDb Precious Bane (TV Movie 1989) - IMDb

Her brother Gideon is overridingly ambitious to attain wealth and power, regardless of who suffers while he does so. Mary explored the countryside around her childhood home, and developed a sense of detailed observation and description, of both people and places, which later infused her poetry and prose. I challenge anyone to watch the final sequence without at least sniffling a little at the sheer romance of it all.He works hard (and slaves Prue to do the same for him) to be wealthy and prosperous and his pride prevents him from marrying the girl he loves, fair Jancis, because he wants to be well-off before he gives himself that pleasure, not caring if others suffer because of his material whims. I stumbled through for a while, but eventually the bumpy ride smoothed out as I adjusted to it, and in the end I found the dialect gave a richness and authenticity to the text. Not only had he looked at me, but he had looked with favour and longing, and though I knew it was only because the truth was hidden from him, yet I was glad of what I had, as a winter bird is, that will come to your hand for a little crumb, though in plenteous times she would but mock you from the topmost bough. The family moved around Shropshire but their favourite childhood home was The Old Mill, Maesbrook, at Meole Brace.

Precious Bane by Mary Webb - AbeBooks Precious Bane by Mary Webb - AbeBooks

An act of vengeance by Beguildy makes Gideon reject Jancis and tragedy engulfs both brother and sister. Her lyrical style in poetry and prose, her love of Shropshire with its varied landscapes and its local people, fired her imagination and were the inspiration for her novels and poetry.The books featured on this site are aimed primarily at readers aged 13 or above and therefore you must be 13 years or over to sign up to our newsletter.

Precious Bane | Victorian England, Rural Life, Nature

Like Baldwin, I was transported by Webb’s novel, a love story about a young woman with a “hare-shotten lip” who learns to tell the time by watching the reflections in Sarn Mere, a lake so old that she wonders whether it belongs to someone’s dream. Published in 1924 (three years before the author died at the age of only 46, probably from complications from Graves' disease, which had plagued her since she was 20), this has very much the style and flavor of a 19th-century novel.The past is only the present become invisible and mute, and because it is invisible and mute, its memoried glances and its murmurs are infinitely precious. Prue has been told she is cursed and her brother Gideon flippantly tells her she’ll never court or marry. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. This novel may then be considered to have been written in English when the language was still a young boy of thirteen. Literary critic John Sutherland refers to the genre as the "soil and gloom romance" and credits Webb as its pioneer.