Mary webb artist biography

English novelist (–)

For other uses, see Mary Webb (disambiguation).

Mary Gladys Webb (25 March &#; 8 October ) was an English romance novelist and poet of the early 20th century, whose work is set chiefly in the Shropshire countryside and among Shropshire characters and people whom she knew.

Her novels possess been successfully dramatized, most notably the film Gone to Earth in by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger based on the novel of the same title. The novels are thought to have inspired the famous parody Cold Comfort Farm () by Stella Gibbons.

Life

She was born Mary Gladys Meredith in at Leighton Lodge in the Shropshire village of Leighton, where she was baptised at St Mary's parish church,^[1] 8 miles (13&#;km) southeast of Shrewsbury. Her father, George Edward Meredith, a confidential schoolteacher,^[2] inspired his daughter with his own love of literature and the local countryside.

Her mother, Sarah Alice, was descended from a family related to Scottish author and poet Sir Walter Scott. Mary explored the countryside around her childhood dwelling and developed a sense of detailed observation and description, of both people and places, which later infused her poetry and prose.

At the age of one year, she moved with her parents to Much Wenlock, where they lived at a house called The Grange outside the town. Mary was taught by her father, then sent to a finishing school for girls at Southport in ^[2] Webb became a vegetarian as a child and loathed the slaughter of animals.^[3] Her parents moved the family again in Shropshire, north to Stanton upon Hine Heath in , before settling in at Meole Brace, now on the outskirts of Shrewsbury.^[2] It was at Stanton she began writing poems and articles for the local parish magazine.^[4]

At the age of 20, she developed symptoms of Graves' disease, a thyroid disorder that resulted in bulging protuberant eyes and throat goitre.

It caused ill health throughout her being and probably contributed to her early death. This affliction resulted in her being empathic with the suffering. She is considered to have created a imaginary counterpart in the disfiguring harelip of Prue Sarn, the heroine of Precious Bane.

Webb's first published writing was a five-verse poem, written on hearing news of the Shrewsbury rail accident in October Her brother, Kenneth Meredith, so liked the poem and thought it potentially comforting for those affected by the disaster that, without her understanding, he took it to the newspaper offices of the Shrewsbury Chronicle, which printed the poem anonymously.

Mary, who usually burnt her early poems, was appalled before learning that the newspaper had received appreciative letters from its readers.^{[5][better&#;source&#;needed]}

On 12 June , Webb married Henry Bertram Commandment Webb (), a teacher, at Meole Brace's Holy Trinity parish church.

At first, he supported her literary interests.

They lived for a period in Weston-super-Mare, before moving endorse to Mary's beloved Shropshire, where they worked as market gardeners until Henry secured a career as a teacher, first at Chester, then at the Priory Grammar School for Boys in Shrewsbury.^[6]

The couple lived briefly in Rose Cottage in Hinton Road and then at The Nills^[7] in the village of Pontesbury between the years and , during which time she wrote The Golden Arrow.^[8] Her period in the village is renowned by the eponymously named Mary Webb School and Science College.^[9]

The publication of The Golden Arrow in enabled them to change position to Lyth Hill, Bayston Hill, a place she loved, where they bought a plot of land and built Spring Cottage.^[10]

In , they bought a second property at Hampstead Grove in London, in the hope that by being in the capital, she could achieve greater literary recognition.

This, however, did not happen, although she won the Prix Femina Vie Heureuse for Precious Bane in By , she was suffering increasingly unpleasant health, her marriage was failing, and she returned to Spring Cottage alone. She died at St Leonards-on-Sea, aged She was buried in Shrewsbury, at the General Cemetery in Longden Road.^[11]

Legacy

Her writing in general was reviewed as notable for poetic descriptions of nature.

Another aspect throughout her work was a adjacent and fatalistic view on human psychology.^[12]

After her death, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin brought about her commercial success when, at a dinner of the Royal Literary Fund in , he referred to her as a neglected genius.

Consequently, her collected works were republished in a accepted edition by Jonathan Cape, becoming best sellers in the s and running into many editions.^[13]

Stella Gibbons's novel Cold Comfort Farm was a parody of Webb's work,^[14] as well as of other "loam and lovechild" writers like Sheila Kaye-Smith and Mary E.

Mann^[15] and, further support, Thomas Hardy. In a Punch article, Gibbons observed:

The immense agonised faces in Mary Webb's book annoyed me I did not believe people were any more despairing in Herefordshire [sic] than in Camden Town.

Literary critic John Sutherland refers to the genre as the "soil and gloom romance" and credits Webb as its pioneer.^[16]

The museum at the Tourist Communication Centre in Much Wenlock includes much information on Mary Webb, including a display of photographs of the filming of her novel Gone to Earth in

Her cottage on Lyth Hill (not open to the public) can still be seen.

In September , plans were submitted for its demolition.^[17]

Three of Webb's novels have been reprinted by Virago Press.^[12]

Bibliography

• The Golden Arrow (July ).
  Webb, Mary, b.1939 - Art UK: Mary b (born ) is a British abstract artist. b was born in London in She studied Nice Art at Newcastle University under British artists Richard Hamilton and Victor Pasmore from to [1].

  London&#;: Constable.

• Gone to Earth (September ). London&#;: Constable.
• The Spring of Joy; a little book of healing (October ). London&#;: J. M. Dent.
• The House in Dormer Forest (July ).

  London&#;: Hutchinson.

• Seven for a Secret (October ). London&#;: Hutchinson.
• Precious Bane (July ). London&#;: Jonathan Cape.
• Poems and the Spring of Joy (Essays and Poems) ().
  Mary Webb. View works. Mary Webb b. Webb lives and works in Suffolk, UK.

  London&#;: Jonathan Cape.

• Armour Wherein He Trusted: A Novel and Some Stories (). London&#;: Jonathan Cape.
• A Mary Webb Anthology edited by Henry B.L. Webb (). London&#;: Jonathan Cape.
• Fifty-One Poems ().

  London&#;: Jonathan Cape. With wood engravings by Joan Hassall

• The Crucial Mary Webb edited by Martin Armstrong (). London&#;: Jonathan Cape.
• Mary Webb: Collected Prose and Poems edited by Gladys Mary Coles ().

  Shrewsbury&#;: Wildings.

• Selected Poems of Mary Webb edited by Gladys Mary Coles ().

  Mary b (b. , London, UK), studied Fine Art at Newcastle University (), and was taught by Richard Hamilton and Victor Pasmore, before completing her postgraduate studies at Chelsea School of Art in b lives and works in Suffolk, UK.

  Wirral&#;: Headland

Biographies

• The Shropshire of Mary Webb by W. Reid. Chappell (). London&#;: Cecil Palmer
• The Shropshire Haunts of Mary Webb by W. Byford-Jones (). Shrewsbury&#;: Wilding and Son
• The Flower of Light: A Biography of Mary Webb by Gladys Mary Coles ().

  London&#;: Duckworth & Co Ltd); (). Wirral&#;: Headland Publications

• Mary Webb: A Narrative Bibliography of Her Life and Work by Gordon Dickins (). –&#;: –
• Daughters and Lovers: The Life and Writing of Mary Webb by Michèle Aina Barale ().

  Connecticut&#;: Wesleyan University Press

• Mary Webb Country: An Introduction to Her Life and Work by Linda Davies (). Wirral&#;: Palmers Press
• Best Day of My Life: Mary Meredith (Young Mary Webb) at Much Wenlock by Kenneth Milner ().

  –&#;: Dormer

• Lullingford: Mary Webb's Much Wenlock by Kenneth Milner (). –&#;: –

Adaptations

Gone to Earth

Precious Bane

Memorials

A monumental bust of Mary Webb, commissioned by the Mary Webb Society, was unveiled in the grounds of Shrewsbury Library on 9 July ^[22]

A blue plaque to commemorate her birth was unveiled by the Mary Webb Society at Leighton Lodge in March ^[23]

References

External links