Quote by Mary Webb

Precious Bane is a work of English regional fiction that draws upon folklore and the agricultural rhythms of the English countryside. The narrative centers on a protagonist whose cleft lip subjects her to local prejudice and her mother's religious fanaticism, which interprets her condition as divine punishment. The novel examines how communities enforce conformity through fear of the other, while simultaneously portraying the natural world as a source of solace and hidden beauty. Its title derives from a line in John Milton's Paradise Lost, invoking the paradox of something simultaneously damaging and valuable. The book belongs to a tradition of early twentieth-century English literature that elevated rural working-class experience to serious literary subject matter, preceding later developments in social realism. more