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Precious Bane

4.26 of 5 stars 4.26 · rating details · 1,082 ratings · 286 reviews

Books like PRECIOUS BANE are as rare as blue moons. A forgotten classic set in rural Shropshire at the turn of the 19th century blends a simple, rustic love story with a profound sense of nature's mystic truth.

Prue Sarn is an original and appealing heroine of English literature as she triumphs over a physical handicap to win her heart's desire. Skillfully woven through thi

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Paperback, 320 pages

Published August 31st 1990 by University of Notre Dame Press (first published 1924)

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Community Reviews

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Mar 30, 2008 Corinne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was an absolute pleasure to read, from start to finish. The depth and character development were stunning and you get such a glimpse at human nature - at it's best and worst. It's almost a spiritual journey - after reading you find yourself savoring different passages to find all the truth you know is within them. Precious Bane is AMAZING. I don't know what exactly it was about it struck me as exquisitely beautiful, but it touched me and I finished it feeling like a better person. Prue...more

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Jan 29, 2009 Stacy rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a book that is so amazing that if you don't like it, I really don't want to hear about it. I only give it those of the race who know Joseph. Written in an old English venacular it tells a beautiful story of redemption and love. If you love literature this is a gem. My ultimate favorite for the last few years.

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Mar 09, 2009 Melanie rated it 5 of 5 stars

A book unlike any I've read before, but it was one of the most pure and beautiful stories I've ever read. Precious Bane is not a quick read, the language in particular made the reading a bit slower (it is written in Old English and dripping with 19th century superstitions), but it could not have been told any other way. Prue Sarn, the tragically cursed narrator speaks from her heart, and she is what endeared me forever to this book. The sentiment of a 'precious bane' carries through both Prue's...more

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Mar 06, 2009 Rachel rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is my number one favorite novel of all time. I can't really define the reason I love it so much. Sure, there's the lyrical writing, the sweet-yet-spunky protagonist, the gorgeous setting, and the best love story of all time. But there's something beyond all that which touches my soul. I always know I'll be life-long friends with anyone else who has ever read and loved this book.

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Mar 27, 2008 Cissy rated it 5 of 5 stars

This novel is unlike any I've ever read, but its beauty and strength drew me in. You can read summaries in myriad other places, so I will just say that the story, told in first-person, is sweet, wise, tragic, and real. I give five stars only to books I would 1. buy, and 2. re-read. I had not even finished my borrowed copy before I ordered my own and have already started skimming it again. I cannot recommend this to everyone, because it is definitely unusual; however, I think it is a worthwhile,...more

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Mar 14, 2008 Kurt rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Annoyingly, GoodReads makes it hard to zero in on just the edition I actually read. (OK, so it's the TEXT that we're interested in ... go to LibraryThing if you want to focus on specific editions!)

Anyway, this is a marvelous, marvelous novel. Set in Britain of the early 1800s (I think), it has wonderful characters, stunning descriptive passages, strong conflict, struggle, triumph, surprises, and dialect to knock your socks off. And it's the ONLY book I've ever read that refers to a veterinarian...more

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Feb 06, 2011 Saysha rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-group

While the dialect can be a challenge and the plot a bit slow, I was very impressed. It sounds like Thomas Hardy but is written by a woman, which makes me frustrated that it isn't as renowned as Hardy's work. There are passages that are so beautiful I had to read them out loud. Read Webb's biography on marywebb.org, too; her own life is fascinating. I also love that Stella Gibbons was parodying Webb (among others) in Cold Comfort. I understand why, but that doesn't diminish my feelings for Webb's...more

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Aug 02, 2011 Alun Williams added it

This book has been one of my favourites for about 25 years, ever since I bought it almost at random, and then read it on a long train journey through France. It is one of the very few books I reread regularly, and my pleasure in it never lessens.

I won't repeat what the other reviewers to give this book 5 stars have said, which I think gives a good idea of how much most readers will feel about this book, but just tell you that a few months ago I, somewhat diffidently, recommended it to a book gro...more

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Sep 02, 2008 Mrs. Meers rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of my very favorite works. Mary Webb creates a fascinating, jealously enclosed environment whose landscape, characters and situations are almost otherworldly in their strangeness and intensity. Told through the eyes of Prue Sarn, a young woman born with the "curse" of a hare lip, emotions range from deification to humiliation, complete submission to complete selfish possession, passion to apathy, lust to absolutely pure love. I only recommend this book to people I "trust" to appreciate it.

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Apr 12, 2013 Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly rated it 5 of 5 stars

Imagine the English language as a man who had passed through life's many stages, from infancy to adulthood. This novel may then be considered to have been written in English when the language was still a young boy of thirteen. Adding a lot to its quaint charm is the novel's simple, rustic setting, as if saying that when the language was young, so was the world then.

There's a love story here, and tragedy, and family. When she was a young girl the narrator expressed wonderment that her mother kept...more

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Aug 29, 2012 Kayli rated it 5 of 5 stars

Oh my gosh- this book was TRULY amazingly beautiful. The whole thing. I almost couldn't write down really touching passages, because the whole thing is so lovely I wouldn't know when to stop.

The protagonist, Prue, is so good and wise. The way she tells her love story is perfect, although that doesn't make up the bulk of the book.
Anyway, READ IT. Order it today because you need this to be on your shelf for multiple readings.

Just a couple quotes-
Only I began to wonder, how should we come again in...more

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Jul 13, 2012 Dawn Marie rated it 5 of 5 stars

When I was 16, PBS blew my mind. I was sitting up watching Masterpiece Theater on the local affiliate station, and right in the middle of this period drama they showed a man’s naked ass. PBS was, and apparently had always been, astonishingly cool. Later, my PBS affiliate aired a highly controversial documentary about gay men called Tongues Untied despite great hue and cry (and to this day, my brain insists that it was actually entitled “Tongues United”, which kind of makes its own sense), but un...more When I was 16, PBS blew my mind. I was sitting up watching Masterpiece Theater on the local affiliate station, and right in the middle of this period drama they showed a man’s naked ass. PBS was, and apparently had always been, astonishingly cool. Later, my PBS affiliate aired a highly controversial documentary about gay men called Tongues Untied despite great hue and cry (and to this day, my brain insists that it was actually entitled “Tongues United”, which kind of makes its own sense), but until that point, PBS was mainly a parade of dull, wearying shills pimping fundraising coffee mugs, dreary Saturday afternoons of Dr. Who (Who fen, I know you luff heem, but I have always found the theme music unsettling, and also they killed Adric and it freaked me out and I apparently cannot forgive) and period drama that kept its baggy costumed pants on. Oh, and guess what? The ass? It belonged to Clive Motherfuckin’ Owen. I know, right?

Anyway, all that to say that I saw the film adaptation of Precious Bane before I even knew it was a book. The BBC movie was apparently never officially released on video *koff, koff*, and so I can only tell you that I loved it utterly and that Prue Sarn seemed completely real to me, and her brother Gideon (Clive Motherfuckin’ Owen) was fierce and driven and hot. Also, although I didn’t think Kester was much to look at, I adored him anyway, as he deserved, and while the Prue and Gideon from the book look nothing like their BBC counterparts in my mind’s eye (both are more like the moody and evocative charcoal illustrations by Rowland Hilder – in Hilder’s work, Prue’s face is always in shadow or turned away, her body rawboned and rangy, that of a woman who spends her days plowing fields) Kester was very much informed by my impression of him from the film.

What impressed me first about the book was Prue herself. She is a woman of little education but great scope – she learns to read and write in her late teens, and spends her days in arduous labor, finding respite and reflection in the attic, writing in a journal. Prue is not your typical “plain” heroine – she is no perky thing longing to be head cheerleader, worried about a flat chest or boring hair. She is in fact actively disfigured – Prue Sarn has a harelip, and is sore afflicted. Despite that, it is apparent from the first page that a) Prue has lived to be a comfortable old woman and b) she lives with Kester, who we hear of in the first line of the book: “It was at a love-spinning that I saw Kester first.” So, whew, we get that whole “will true love prevail?” thing right out of the way. Of course, how that love comes to pass is the heart of the story, which runs parallel to that of her brother Gideon and his rise and fall due to overreaching ambition, and what follows is absolutely ensnaring narrative, the story of a woman recounting her turbulent youth using the journal she kept as her touchstone, and told in dialect: some of the most immersive and captivating first person I’ve ever come across.

Prue is a surprisingly cheerful woman, given her situation. She works her family farm and endures the stares, the pity and the whispers of small town life in an age where a harelip was a sign of dark dealings with denizens of the underworld. Although she has never been to school, she has a sharp mind, a sense of humor and an all-encompassing love of natural beauty. Mary Webb was a masterful storyteller, but she absolutely shines in the descriptions of the countryside. The fields and lakes around the farm keep Prue sane; every time she thinks she’ll break her heart with envy or rage, she goes to nature for solace. Mary Webb is brilliant at plotting, foreshadowing, at dialogue, and most of all depicting the world Prue lives in:

“That was the best time of year for our lake, when in the still hot noons the water looked so kind, being of a calm pale blue, that you would never think it could drown anybody. All round stood the tall trees, thick-leaved with rich summer green, unstirring, caught in a spell, sending down their coloured shadows into the mere, so that the tree-tops almost met in the middle. From either hand the notes of the small birds that had not yet given up singing, went ringing out across the water, and so quiet it was that though they were only such thin songs as those of willow wrens and robins, you could hear them all across the mere. Even on such a burning day as this, when I pulled the honeysuckle wrathes, there was a sweet, cool air from the water, very heady and full of life.”
Webb certainly doesn’t neglect the senses, and it is her sense of sound that I find especially intriguing:

“There was a frittening about the place, too, and what with folk being afraid to come there after dusk, and the quiet noise of the fish jumping far out in the water, and Gideon’s boat knocking on the steps with little knocks like someone tapping at the door, and the causeway that ran down into the mere as far as you could see, from just outside the garden gate, being lost in the water, it was a very lonesome old place. Many a time, on Sunday evenings, there came over the water a thin sound of bells. We thought they were the bells of the village down under, but I believe now that they were nought but echo bells from our own church. They say that in some places a sound will knock against a wall of trees and come back like a ball.”
Webb’s diction is simple, but vivid and alive, like Prue herself.

That said, Kester is such a sweetheart that you may find him almost too good to be true, but as it happens, I know such a man in real life!, and so you can put away your paintball guns of incredulity and accept Kester for the handsome wrestling, weaving, animal rights activist that he is. At the very least, it’s easy to believe that he has the excellent judgment necessary for recognizing that Prue is a woman of parts. Kester’s good opinion of Prue is held, too, by her brother Gideon. Indeed, as the book deepens and Gideon’s savage pride is broken by harrowing loss, his reliance on Prue’s strength and his regard for her become his most redeeming features.

If you want a depiction of a woman who is genuinely heroic, and yet absolutely credible as a human being, and a book so enthralling you’ll feel like you’re breathing the pure, sweet air of a pre-industrial age, then Precious Bane is the book you’ve been looking for. If at all possible, try to score a copy with the Hilder illustrations; they really bring something.

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May 29, 2012 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars

Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm (made into a wonderful film with a very young Kate Beckinsale) is a parody of a genre that no longer really exists, a sort of Rural English Gothic. When I learned this--I forgot how I did--I set out to find some examples, figuring I'd read a few pages and have a good laugh. Sure enough, when I pulled Precious Bane off a library shelf I did have a bit of a chuckle at the elaborate yokelism, and at how accurately Gibbons had captured it in CCF. Then I read the ne...more

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Dec 13, 2011 Brenda Clough rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is one of my favorite types of fiction: the kind that you can fall into, like stepping into a manhole. Bam! One step and you are in a totally different world. The insular life of rural Britain comes to vivid life in this highly romantic old novel, which brought posthumous fame and fortune to its unlucky author (http://marywebb.org/synopses/precious...).
I particularly admire the use of reading and the spiritual life as an escape for the heroine, Prue, from a really harsh and unpleasant exis...more

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Sep 26, 2011 Julia Hughes rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: historic

Mary Webb uses words to paint her native Shropshire countryside in glorious technicolour. This is quite simply a beautiful yet at times hauntingly melancholic story of a young girl growing up in rural poverty in the early 18th century, where 'sin eaters' are still employed at funerals. The heroine has a harelip. Her 'deformity' is attributed to a hare running across her mother's path when she was pregnant. Although not an outcast, her facial disfigurement does set Prue apart from her peers, yet...more

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May 10, 2011 Emily rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favoritebooks

Tamara Oswald, my amazing harp teacher loaned this book to me... she'd lived in London for a few years and taken and English literature class, and said this was her favorite of the books they read. So it came with very high praise which was great, because it really is an unusual book, and like a lot of these older books it takes a little bit of patience to appreciate.

Precious Bane tells a story that seems both ethereal and earthy with beautiful poetic writing and a narrative that reads slowly li...more

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Mar 29, 2011 Laurabean rated it 4 of 5 stars

Mary Webb is under appreciated now much as she was in her own lifetime and her output of the so-called Nature novel is overlooked in favor of other authors such as Hardy. One reason for this may be the dialect used throughout, although I cannot agree that this renders the text impenetrable. Rather one quickly becomes accustomed and this adds more colour and authenticity to the telling.

Something most striking about the novel is also true of Mary Webb's other work such as Gone to Earth in the bea...more Mary Webb is under appreciated now much as she was in her own lifetime and her output of the so-called Nature novel is overlooked in favor of other authors such as Hardy. One reason for this may be the dialect used throughout, although I cannot agree that this renders the text impenetrable. Rather one quickly becomes accustomed and this adds more colour and authenticity to the telling.

Something most striking about the novel is also true of Mary Webb's other work such as Gone to Earth in the beauty of the description which hints at her other poetic output and betrays the depth of love for the Shropshire countryside felt by both Prue Sarn, the heroine of Precious Bane and also of the author.

The story itself s extremely compelling and introduces a range of characters where even more minor protagonists (for example the child-like mother or the text-obsessed Sammy) are fully realized and rounded.

Prue Sarn is a wonderful narrator and I genuinely grew to love her. Her strength when required was a welcome break from the general passivity of her nature and while biddable (she effectively allows herself to become a slave to her charismatic brother Gideon) Prue clearly has a will of her own and her submission is born of love rather than fear.

Other reviews have complained of the stock characters used but I disagree. While it is true that Jancis and Gideon may be more typical, protagonists such as Beguildy, who while being the villain of the piece to some extent, also injects an element of humor with his nonsensical claims of wizardom and his interactions with his dry-witted and cynical wife on the subject.

Other accusations from other reviewers center around the moralistic nature of the story which may hold some water but I felt that this was nicely countered by the character of the narrator. While in many ways Prue could be considered to be a character beyond reproach, her world view clearly demonstrates that she neither believes this of herself nor judges others by such an exacting standard. Her interactions with Felena, who Pure clearly perceives as a `forward' woman and a love-rival for the affections of Kester, but this is not held personally against Felena and indeed Prue feels for her because of her cruel treatment at the hands of the other women.

This is a beautiful novel which as suggested by other reviewers does well from multiple readings and is evocative of what is now a lost way of life.
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Mar 15, 2011 Camzcam rated it 4 of 5 stars

Precious Bane is the story of Prue Sarn, a farmer's daughter in Shropshire, England during the early 1800s. Although Prue is filled with kindness, charity, and virtue, she is coming of age and discovering that as much as she loves her fellow man, they can't abide or look past her hare-lip. This is also the story of Prue's brother, Gideon, a grasping, cold and overly-ambitious youth. The story is about faith and superstion; love and avarice; discernment and blindness. The title comes from Paradis...more

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Aug 06, 2010 Angie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I came away from this book feeling quite stunned by the way the story unraveled. I had approached it without too much awareness of the plot, only a knowledge of its name and its supposed worthiness in terms of English literature. I was not disappointed.

Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the plot centres on the agricultural sharehold of the Sarn family in the Shropshire countryside. The siblings Prue and her brother Gideon (who ends up being the breadwinner after accidentally killing his father in...more I came away from this book feeling quite stunned by the way the story unraveled. I had approached it without too much awareness of the plot, only a knowledge of its name and its supposed worthiness in terms of English literature. I was not disappointed.

Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the plot centres on the agricultural sharehold of the Sarn family in the Shropshire countryside. The siblings Prue and her brother Gideon (who ends up being the breadwinner after accidentally killing his father in a kitchen brawl which goes horribly wrong).

The narration is by the hugely courageous central character Prue Sarn whose 'bane' in life is her 'hare-shotten lip', a disfigurement which leaves her excluded from being eligible for marriage (in the eyes of the local women and gossips) and also tinged with the possibility of her being a jinx on her family, according to local folk-law. Her brother Gideon is fiercely ambitious for the farm and their future and this inevitably brings about his downfall. A local wizard predicts the family will be doomed by fire and water. The daughter of the wizard is in love with Gideon and for a while it seems as though there has never been a more pure and worthy love, however this all changes and the course of events is terrifyingly shocking and tragic.

Their world is one where local superstitions and ritual tradition is upheld and firmly believed, for example, when their father has been buried, Prue remembers that unless they go into the rookery and tell the rooks of the death, they will be the subject of bad luck and fortune. When she does this she observes the birds quietly go into their nests as if to acknowledge the death of their master. So throughout, the message seems to be: 'mess with tradition and you will pay the price'. It is her brother Gideon who falls into this lapse and his life will change forever as a result.

Prue's love of nature and lack of interest in material possession leads to some beautiful passages where she describes her world, the beauty of nature around her and her unspoken love for the local weaver, Kester Goodeaves. Towards the end of the book I shed tears at the outcome of the story, because of the tragedies which befall come of the characters - again beautifully written - and also because of the strength inside Prue and how her spirit remains strong and pure despite her incredible and traumatic passage. I felt very engrossed in it and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Prue's narration is told in broad West Country dialect and it takes a little time to get into the flow of the language and colloquialisms. Once I did, the book is wonderfully rewarding and beautiful with some very surprising twists. It is for this reason I gave it 4 stars, not 5, however overall it has really stayed with me since finishing and I would highly recommend it. (less)

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Aug 09, 2009 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars

Webb, Mary. PRECIOUS BANE. (1924). ****. A best-seller in its day, I suspect that this novel is hardly read by many of today’s readers because of its archaic and severely dated style. This edition was published by the University of Notre Dame press in 1980 and includes a new introduction by Erika Duncan, an introduction by the Rt. Hon. Stanley Baldwin, who was the Prime Minister of England at the time of the novel’s first issue, and the original introduction by the author. It also includes the o...more Webb, Mary. PRECIOUS BANE. (1924). ****. A best-seller in its day, I suspect that this novel is hardly read by many of today’s readers because of its archaic and severely dated style. This edition was published by the University of Notre Dame press in 1980 and includes a new introduction by Erika Duncan, an introduction by the Rt. Hon. Stanley Baldwin, who was the Prime Minister of England at the time of the novel’s first issue, and the original introduction by the author. It also includes the original illustrations by Rowland Hilder, which remind one of a less talented rockwell Kent. The title comes from an excerpt of lines in “Paradise Lost”:

Let none admire
That riches grow in Hell; that soyle may best
Deserve the pretious bane.

The story is set in hill country of Shropshire during the times of the Napoleonic Wars. It is a story of superstition, hatred, blind ambition, and the strength of love. It is told by Prudence Sarn, the daughter of the Sarn family who lives on their farm sharehold. She is afflicted with a “hare-shotten lip,” and must learn to live with the fact that she will always be an object of fun and ridicule by the ladies of the town and will have little chance of ever attracting a man and getting married. She is unnaturally good-hearted and manages to see only the best in those around her. She has an intense love of nature and all its creatures. Her brother, Gideon, now runs the farm after accidentally killing the father in a set-to in the kitchen. He has high ambitions for the family and focuses himself and the rest of the family’s labors on profit that will ultimately lift them out of the bare existence that they endure. He ties Prudence to his goals by making her swear that she will support him in all his efforts, though she really doesn’t care about the acquisition of “things” that to her are unnecessary. She is secretely in love with the local weaver, who in turn returns her love – mostly because he has the same glowing outlook on nature that she does and can see beneath the surface of things to their inner goodness and worth. Prudence and Kester, the weaver, never consummate a relationship, but remain true friends to the end, although there is an almost fairy-tale moment when they kiss at the end. This is not a book for everyone because of its dated story line and its heavy use of dialect that makes getting through it almost a line-by-line exercise, but it is well worth the effort. Recommended.
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Apr 21, 2010 Louise Leetch rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“Like a maid standing at the meeting of the lane-ends on May Day with a posy-knot as a favour for a rider that should come by. And Behold! The horseman rode straight over me, and left me, posy and all, in the mire. “

Thus Prue Sarn describes herself, “cursed” because she was born with a hare-lip. Prue’s brother, Gideon, drives himself and her relentlessly to build their farm to a great success so they might leave and live in a grand house in the town. Prue matches him furrow for furrow and spade...more

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Jun 25, 2012 Helen Kitson added it

Shelves: vmc, fiction

My interest in Mary Webb is partly because she's a Virago Modern Classics author, but also because she's a Shropshire lass. It was a little hard to get past the thought that Mary Webb's books were a big inspiration for Stella Gibbons' wonderfully funny Cold Comfort Farm, but this novel is no sillier than anything by Thomas Hardy. Webb, like Hardy, writes about country folk, their daily lives and their superstitions. Although she uses Shropshire dialect, the story and characters are far less melo...more My interest in Mary Webb is partly because she's a Virago Modern Classics author, but also because she's a Shropshire lass. It was a little hard to get past the thought that Mary Webb's books were a big inspiration for Stella Gibbons' wonderfully funny Cold Comfort Farm, but this novel is no sillier than anything by Thomas Hardy. Webb, like Hardy, writes about country folk, their daily lives and their superstitions. Although she uses Shropshire dialect, the story and characters are far less melodramatic than I'd imagined.

The heroine of the book is Prue Sarn, a strong and intelligent girl with a 'hare-shotten' lip, which everyone assumes will preclude her from having a lover, husband or children. Her brother Gideon is driven by work and the desire to become rich. At his father's funeral he performs the task of sin-eater - pawning his own soul in exchange for the running of his mother's farm.

In one electrifying scene, Prue appears in front of the wizard Beguildy and two men (one of whom is weaver Kester Woodseaves, with whom Prue is secretly in love), naked, in the raising of Venus. Originally the part of Venus was to have been played by Gideon's sweetheart Jancis, but Prue offers herself in her stead, because unlike Jancis Prue has no lover, nor - as Jancis reminds her, to Prue's fury - is she ever likely to have one. As she dances naked, her face and hare-lip are hidden, but Prue is fully aware of the power of her naked body to inspire helpless lust in men. It's a feeling she enjoys, though she is bitter because she thinks they would recoil if they saw her face.

Without wishing to give away too much of the story, it's enough to say that tragedy follows tragedy, as though Gideon is indeed cursed. There's an inevitability about his death. To Prue, the manner of it seems a fitting end "to a life which so cut itself adrift from all pleasant, feckless human ways and doings. He belonged to none, seemingly, for he gave the go-by to his nearest kin. What he had most truck with was the earth and the water from which he was building himself a life to his mind." To some of her neighbours, though, it is Prue herself who is seen as the cursed one, and one of them whips up feeling against her that climaxes in an attack on her.

The book is at heart, I think, a love story, and a story about finding beauty and contentment in what one has. Prue is a virtuous girl, but she doesn't pass judgement on others. Her heart is genuinely big, which is precisely what Kester Woodseaves sees - not her hare-shotten lip or the curse it is supposed to represent. [April 2005](less)

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Jul 29, 2011 Hannah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011-reads, classics

This is a tough book to review, because I enjoyed it very much, but also struggled through it at the same time. It's one of those books that I wouldn't recommend to anyone, but at the same time I feel as though more people should read this book.

It's considered a minor classic, and I can see why that is so. Books like Precious Bane are the kind that seem awfully simple, yet have some deep philosophical impact - sometimes too deep for me to appreciate. But nonetheless I loved the story of hare-lip...more

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Apr 10, 2010 Rosie Genova rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was a re-read for me, but I'm sad to say I didn't love it as much this time around. I first read it more than 20 years ago, after watching the wonderful (and faithful)1986 BBC production with Janet McTeer. There's much to recommend this book: it's packed with the local color of Webb's native Shropshire; her heroine is smart, sympathetic, and loving, and the love story at the heart of the book is real and moving.

Prue Sarn, born with a harelip and thought to be a witch by her superstitious ne...more

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Mar 25, 2013 Dolors rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone who appreciates good classics and a hearty message

Shelves: read-in-2013

Being the devoted reader of British classics I am, how I've managed to miss this little gem of a book for so long I honestly don't know. But beware, my dear reader, this is not Jane Austen. This is a harsh tale, in the style of Thomas Hardy or even George Eliot, you'll see the characters you so much come to care for struggle in an unfair and prejudiced world, and you'll suffer along with them.

Prudence Sarn is a country girl who lives with her simple mother and her older brother, Gideon, "Maister...more

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Apr 05, 2008 Kara rated it 5 of 5 stars

I love this book and I feel such tenderness for the main character Prue. There are many lengthy description of the country and nature, which was the fashion in English writing at the time (1920's). This may be tedious for some readers but I found these descriptions create the magic of not just Prue's character but all the characters. I wish I were more like Prue.

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Jan 21, 2010 Jenifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book had never come across my radar before we chose it as a Book Club selection. Thanks be to the Book Club! We had a great discussion and once again, I am just thankful for those ladies who brighten up my every third Wednesday by sharing our joy of reading and bringing into my life books that I would never have known.

I read some of the Goodreads reviews, and it turns out that everyone of the disposition to read a book like this - exploring human nature, bringing the reader into the story'...more

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Feb 16, 2011 Kerstin Olcott rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed

A story of superstition and harmony in the natural world set in the countryside near the Welsh border. The female protaginist, Prudence Sarn, is plagued with a hare lip and whispered accusations of witchcraft. Her desperation for love and acceptance are sharply contrasted by her ambitious brother and his unrelenting drive for wealth. There are some great descriptions of nature in here and Webb is a talented writer. It is beautifully written but completely morose and a tad boring. The religious a...more

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Feb 22, 2010 Rachelterry rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: perfection, classics

Thank you, Krisette and Stacy, for alerting me to this book. I like Prue Sarn even better than Elizabeth Bennet. I doubt Elizabeth Bennet would have handled a harelip quite so well. Once I got into the Scottish dialect, I started calling my kids "lad" and "lassie."

This is beautiful: "They took out the coffin, resting it on trestles, and in the midst of the heavy breathing of the bearers came the promising words--'I am the resurrection and the life.' They were like quiet rain after drought. Only...more

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Nov 05, 2012 Kristen rated it 5 of 5 stars

I give this book six stars. I wanted to begin it again the second I finished it. I would never have heard of this book were it not for Goodreads. Thanks Goodreads friends!! This is truly a miracle of a book.

Set in Shropshire, England, after the Napoleonic Wars. Narrated by Prue Sarn, a young woman with a cleft lip, or hare-shotten lip, as it is called in the book.

The book is beautiful in three ways. The writing--the Shropshire dialect---is so wonderful that I whispered almost the entire book a...more

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topics	posts	views	last activity
What's The Name o...: SOLVED!! ?19th c. english novel about woman working on farm, jilted by lover, involvement with religious sect [s]	6	52	Jun 21, 2012 03:49am
Sarn aka Precious Bane	1	27	May 06, 2009 04:43pm

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About Mary Webb

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Webb

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The House in Dormer Forest (Virago Modern Classics)

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“Labor brings a thing nearer the hearts core.” — 2 people liked it

“I love you already, and if these things be done in the dry tree, what shall be done in the green?” — 2 people liked it

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