Precious Bane (Virago Modern Classics)

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From Redhill to Longden Common, Reflections of a Parish., published by Longden 2000 Group (2000), p.152. Pru has a harelip. I like protagonists who are not paragons of beauty, and the difficulty of Prudence's particular disfigurement is that she is considered "cursed", a witch, even. This added considerable interest to her character.

Mary Webb - Wikipedia Mary Webb - Wikipedia

Precious Bane is a historical romance by Mary Webb, first published in 1924. It won the Prix Femina Vie Heureuse Prize in 1926.As part of its 50th anniversary celebrations there will be the unveiling of a blue plaque at Mary’s birthplace, Leighton Lodge, now a private family home. How sad for Mary that this much desired acclaim was never received in her lifetime. She is buried in the old part of Shrewsbury cemetery, Longden Road, where her grave is maintained by the Mary Webb Society." It’s a long time since I’ve read Thomas Hardy to whose work, Mary Webb’s Precious Bane is often compared, but the novel only feels Hardyesque insofar as it involves a nineteenth-century agrarian community steeped in superstition and in its abundant lyrical descriptions of nature. Far more than Hardy’s, Webb’s characters seem like figures from some ancient ballad, more types than fully fleshed-out people, and her plot is a simple one. Yet as I thought of Kester Woodseaves and what he had come to mean, I seemed to hear and see on this side and on that, in the dark woods, a sound and a gleam of the gathering of spring. There was a piping call in the oakwood, a bursting of purple in the treetops, a soft yellowing of celandine in the rookery.”

Mary Webb: The woman whose Shropshire-inspired novels are Mary Webb: The woman whose Shropshire-inspired novels are

A strict churchman might find Prue much at fault (although, in Sarn, even the parson has a book of “curious ancient prayers”). She’s as likely to look in a wizard’s book for a solution as the Bible; she is well-versed in superstitious folk-lore, and lax in her churchgoing. Yet she is also full of scripture, the created world frequently evoking, for her, biblical scenes. The lilies on the mere are “like the raiment of those men who stood with Christ upon the mountain top”, floating as if Jesus, “walking upon the water, had laid them down with His cool hands”. Kester's very set about such things. Never will he say caterpillars. He'll say, 'There's a lot of butter-flies-as-is-to-be on our cabbages, Prue.' He won't say 'It's winter.' He'll say, 'Summer's sleeping.' And there's no bud little enough nor sad-colored enough for Kester not to callen it the beginnings of the blow."Mary's first published work had been a poem which appeared in the Shrewsbury Chronicle of October 18, 1907, about the Shrewsbury train disaster three days earlier. Her brother Kenneth Meredith had taken it in to the paper without her knowledge and it was published anonymously. This poem about the Shrewsbury railway disaster was published anonymously in the Shrewsbury Chronicle in 1907 – the future novelist's first published work. Now it was still the custom at that time, in our part of the country, to give a fee to some poor man after a death, and then he would take bread and wine handed to him across the coffin, and eat and drink, saying-- In 1917 Henry secured a job at the Priory School in Shrewsbury and Mary was able to realise a dream when they acquired a small bungalow at Lyth Hill called Spring Cottage. She loved Lyth Hill and would spend hours in quiet meditation of her surroundings, gathering information to include in later novels or poems. It was here Mary wrote The House in Dormer Forest in 1920 and many of her poems. My goodness, what to say about this book? It has to be read to be imagined, the language is a beauteous thing even without the timeless story.

Book club: Precious Bane , by Mary Webb - The Church Times Book club: Precious Bane , by Mary Webb - The Church Times

At the age of twenty one, Mary was writing essays and poems with nature as the main theme (published in 1917 as The Spring of Joy). The book is beautiful in three ways. The writing--the Shropshire dialect---is so wonderful that I whispered almost the entire book aloud. My family thought I was insane. It was lovely and delicate. Next, the content. Here is an excerpt from the introduction--Her mother, Sarah Alice Scott was from an Edinburgh family reputedly connected with Sir Walter Scott. Books: Principal works include The Golden Arrow (1916), Gone To Earth (1917), The House In Dormer Forest (1920), and Precious Bane (1924).

Precious Bane - Mary Webb - Google Books Precious Bane - Mary Webb - Google Books

A monumental bust of Mary Webb, commissioned by the Mary Webb Society, was unveiled in the grounds of Shrewsbury Library on 9 July 2016. [22] In 1926 she was awarded the prestigious Prix Femina for Precious Bane. This was awarded for 'the best imaginative work in prose or verse descriptive of English life by an author who has not gained sufficient recognition.'Prue, considered disfigured, nevertheless at one point adopts the image of a naked Venus. What kinds of questions does the novel ask about the notion of “beauty”? No, no! Leave un go free, Gideon! Let un rest, poor soul! You be in life and young, but he'm cold and helpless, in the power of Satan. He went with all his sins upon him, in his boots, poor soul! If there's none else to help, let his own lad take pity.' Kathleen inherited the literary estates of both Mary and Henry. In 1943 she married Jonathan Cape and had another son. She died of an incurable disease, ironically also at age 46." The large agonised faces in Mary Webb's book annoyed me ... I did not believe people were any more despairing in Herefordshire [sic] than in Camden Town.