1924. A novel by Mary Webb (Mrs. Henry Bertram Law Webb), the Shropshire Novelist. Her beautifully crafted characters are set against a timeless landscape that Webb knew intimately. Her finest achievement was the award of the Prix Femina, a coveted literary prize, for this her fifth novel, Precious Bane, a story of rural Shropshire in the early nineteenth century. This book was greatly admired by the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, who sent the author a letter of appreciation.