I always think this is a very under rated novel. I think Mary Webb may well be a very under rated writer, too. Certainly this book would make it into my top ten list, quite probably my top five. I read it at 19 or 20 and it had a real impact on me. That was my PB year.... this and Princess Bride helped me get through college with grace and a smile.
Set at the time of the Napoleonic Wars but written in the early part of the 20th century the book is about Prue Sarn and her brother Gideon who live in a desolately lonely house on a mere in Shropshire. Prue has a hare-lip and because of that is shunned by the superstitious folk around her who believe she is cursed. Her brother runs the farm hard, wanting to make money and get out. He is in thrall to the lure of wealth and power and the destructive influence this has on his life gives the book its drama and pain.
But above all Precious Bane is a love story, a tale of how one man can see beyond the physical deformity to the beauty within. The weaver, Kester, is a different kind of man; a true gentleman who stands up to bullies and protects the weak. I loved him when I read the book and still do. Noble characters appeal to me.
I also love how Mary Webb uses the local Shropshire dialect and customs such as soul cakes and love-spinnings to give a picture of what agrarian life 200 years ago could have been like. The development of factory weaving and the demise of the travelling weaver was one of the areas I studied in O level, so it was good to find it presented in such a human way.
I know the BBC made a very good adaptation with Janet McTeer, Clive Owen and John Bowes which I loved as well. Worth looking out for, it caught the anger and the restrained passion of the heroine well. I know it's not available on DVD or video at the moment, but it was on TV on a channel like History or Watch last year or the year before.
If you've never read any Mary Webb, do read this. It holds its own against many other classics of its time.
