Precious Bane (Virago Modern Classics)

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Prue Sarn, she of the 'hare-shotten' lip, is such a wonderful heroine, hardworking, compassionate & brave. Her brother Gideon is ambitious & driven & wants to make a better life for them both. Unfortunately life doesn't always go smoothly for any of us & terrible tragedies happen. In Partnership with St Martin-in-the-Fields. This series of nine lectures is inspired by the words of Martin Luther during the Reformation. Distinguished speakers investigate those things in which we believe deeply – and for which we would be prepared to make a costly stand. It was one of the times in Gideon’s life when he might choose his blessing, the path of love and merry days where the pretty paigle grew, the keys of heaven, or the path of strange twists and turns, where was the thing of dread, the bane, the precious bane, that feeds on life blood.”

Biography - Mary Webb Society Biography - Mary Webb Society

Six years after the novel’s publication, Webb’s writing was the subject of another tribute, of sorts, when Stella Gibbons’s novel Cold Comfort Farm appeared. Gibbons parachuted the brisk, expensively educated Flora Poste into rural Sussex, to take in hand a cast of brooding farmers, burdened by premonitions of doom and a not entirely authentic vernacular. A long quote which gives the idea of what kind of English was it that I was trying to describe earlier (direct quotes, for me, are like movie trailers or food samplings: instead of draining one's barrel of adjectives attempting to describe, better just present a choice morsel of the thing!).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.'

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

This is Prue Sarn's love story, though she never expected to have one because of her disfigurement, a hare-shotten lip. She falls in love with the weaver, Kester Woodseaves, as do all women who see him, because he is a fine figure of a man. What none of them see at first is that he has a good h 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). There's a love story here, and tragedy, and family. When she was a young girl the narrator expressed wonderment that her mother kept on telling her father, in moments of anguish--"Could I help it if the hare crossed my path? Could I help it?" I, too, found this puzzling not knowing what it meant until later it dawned on me: it has something to do with superstition, of which there were plenty during the old times, and what the girl-narrator is (though she be unconscious of it). Superstitions which, themselves, bring informative delight. Her brother, Gideon, is in love with the beautiful Jancis, daughter of a man who fancies himself a wizard and objects to the match. He wishes to marry her, but first and foremost he wishes to be rich and prominent–an important man. His lust for money and power propels him, and he drives himself and his sister to the point of collapse in his efforts to amass the wealth he desires. He is a good man, a hard-worker, but his obsession for money, the precious bane, takes all precedence in his life, and as we often see in our own time, the blind pursuit of money often loses us our chances of happiness.Prue’s brother, Gideon, is engaged to her only friend, but in his ambition for wealth at any cost, he incurs the wrath of his would-be father-in-law whose act of vengeance results in Prue being accused of murder. Only Kester, who has perceived her true worth, can defend her from the wrath of her accusers. Mi piaceva osservare la pasta che lievitava al calore della fiamma, e scaldare il forno con le fascine, raccattandone poi la cenere, e allineare per bene le pagnottine. Era piacevole stare nella cucina calda e piena di luce, in cui si diffondeva il buon odore del pane, e guardare fuori i campi e i boschi grigi, freddi e solitari, e poi chiudere le imposte, accendere la candela, apparecchiare e mettere a scaldare la focaccia di patate sulla brace, e sapere anche che di lì a poco tutti quelli che amavo sarebbero stati al riparo per una notte intera.” Then a thought came to me all of a sudden. I wonder it didna come afore, but then I'd never much minded having a hare-lip afore. It seems to me that often it's only when you begin to see other folks minding a thing like that for you, that you begin to mind it for yourself.

Precious Bane | Victorian England, Rural Life, Nature Precious Bane | Victorian England, Rural Life, Nature

And finally, it is the story of Kester Woodseaves, whose steady love for all created things leads him to resist people's cruelty toward nature and each other, and whose love for Prue Sarn enables him to discern her natural loveliness beneath her blighted appearance.I have tried without success to obtain several of the BBCs fantastic dramas from the past, including the 1973 version of Jane Eyre and the 1972 version of Anne of Green Gables, all wonderful timeless classic stories, which sadly the BBC seem to have no intention of releasing on video or DVD. If anyone learns otherwise I would love to hear from them. 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.