Precious Bane by Mary Webb

 

Around the World in 80,000 Pages - Book 2

Precious Bane by Mary Webb

You can read about my Around the World in 80,000 pages challenge here.

Miles travelled: 30

Pages read: 894

Colemere in north Shropshire became Sarn Mere
in Precious Bane

For our second book we travel all the way from south Shropshire to... north Shropshire. Colemere, near the larger Ellesmere (with 'mere' being from the old English for lake), is fictionalised as Sarn Mere (though there is a theory it was actually Bomere Pool to the south of Shrewsbury, but we'll ignore that, as that would mean I had travelled even less than the meagre thirty miles I have logged).

Mary Webb was born Mary Meredith, in Shropshire in 1881. Her father was a school teacher and her mother was drawn from Clan Scott and, as such, related to Walter Scott. 

Her first poem was published by her brother without her knowledge in the Shrewsbury Chronicle. She was initially appalled, as she burnt her early poetic efforts, but the poem received praise and no doubt bolstered her literary confidence.

In 1912 she married Henry Bertram Law Webb, a teacher. The couple lived variously in Shropshire, Weston-Super-Mare and London, the latter in the hopes it would aid her emerging literary career. Her marriage broke down, her health failed and her books didn't sell any great number. She died at the age of 46, having published seven novels and a few collections of poems.

Being written as the recollections of the protagonist, Prue Sarn, Precious Bane features a lot of Shropshire dialect, which serves to create an authentic local atmosphere. It was rather a strange experience reading this Shropshire patois, for I am more familiar with it from the cattle market, and there was something of a disconnect seeing it in a work of literature. But it was also refreshing, for so much of the time, Shropshire = rural, and rural = west country, Webb was very obviously deeply embedded in the setting about which she wrote.

Like most of her novels, Precious Bane looks back wistfully at a rural life which had largely disappeared by the time of writing (the 1920s). The most obvious comparison is with Thomas Hardy, though it is probably harsh to compare anyone to one of the giants of English literature. What Webb doesn't do as well as Hardy is the plot. Admittedly, it is very much a romantic tale, which is not in my wheelhouse. But whereas Hardy's novels unfold with an awful inevitability, Webb labours some of the plot points, seemingly aiming her writing at the very thickest of her readers, and only just falls short of adding (hint, hint, remember this for later) after some of the set up.

Where Webb excels, even, I would say, above Hardy is as a nature writer. There are numerous passages where her love of the Shropshire countryside shines through, and she perfectly evokes the semi-wilderness surrounding the isolated farmsteads. In comparison, her people are much more broadly sketched.

All in all, Precious Bane is an accomplished and unique novel. 102/140 ★★★★☆

Our music for this novel is courtesy of Fay Hield, an English folk musician and scholar. Green Gravel is a traditional English song, often sung in the round and features heavily in Precious Bane. While Fay Hield's rendition is not the most strictly traditional, it does elicit the feeling of (***spoiler alert***) Jancis's ghost singing across the mere.