- Precious Bane
"Precious Bane" is a
novel byMary Webb , first published in 1924. It won thePrix Femina Vie Heureuse Prize.In 1957 it was made into a six partBBC television drama series starringPatrick Troughton andDaphne Slater . Under its French title 'Sarn', it was produced as a television play by French TelevisionORTF in 1968, with Dominique Labourier as Prue, Josep Maria Flotats as Gedeon and Pierre Vaneck as Kester; the director was Claude Santelli. In 1989 it was again adapted for British television by the BBC, starringClive Owen andJanet McTeer .ynopsis
The story is set in rural Shropshire shortly after the
Napoleonic Wars . It is narrated by the central character, Prue Sarn, whose life is blighted by having a harelip. Only the weaver, Kester Woodseaves, perceives the beauty of her character, but Prue cannot believe herself worthy of him. Her brother Gideon is overridingly ambitious to attain wealth and power, regardless of who suffers while he does so. Gideon is set to wed his sweetheart Jancis , but he incurs the wrath of her father, the cruel and scheming self-proclaimed wizard Beguildy. An act of vengeance by Beguildy makes Gideon reject Jancis and tragedy overwhelms them both. Prue is wrongly accused of murder and set upon by a mob, but Kester defies them and carries Prue away to the happiness she believed she could never possess because of her harelip.The title of the story is from
John Milton 's "Paradise Lost "::Let none admire:That riches grow in Hell; that Soyle may best:Deserve the precious bane.
It refers to the love of money, which, as Prue records, blights love and destroys life.
External links
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