British Author
Born 1881 Died 1927
She was born Mary Gladys Meredith on the 25th March 1881 at Leighton Lodge in Leighton, a village to the south of Shrewsbury in Shropshire, the eldest of the six children of George Edward Meredith and his wife Sarah. Her father was a "country gentleman of Welsh descent" and an Oxford graduate, who became a schoolteacher, while her mother was the only daughter of
an Edinburgh doctor who claimed to be a distant relation of the novelist Walter Scott.
Shortly after her birth her parents moved to The Grange at Much Wenlock where she spent much of her childhood. She received her early education through a mixture of governesses and
attendance at her father's school, before spending two years at Mrs Walmsley's Finishing School in Southport, whilst she later
took some literature courses in Shrewsbury which were run by the Cambridge University Extension Society. Her upbringing was also
especially effected by the influnce to her father George Meredith
who instilled in her a love of nature and an interest in the
traditions and folklore of Shropshire.
A vegetarian from childhood, she became an opponent of blood
sports, especially fox-hunting, but at the age of twenty she
became seriously ill with Graves' disease, otherwise known as
thyrotoxicosis which left her with a disfigured face and a
reclusive disposition. It was while she was convalescing from her
first attack of that disease that she wrote many of the nature
essays that were later published as The Spring of Joy
in 1917, and began to develop a serious interest in writing.
It was 1910 that Mary met a schoolmaster Henry Bertram Law Webb who shared her interest in writing. They were married on the the 12th June 1912 and went to Weston-super-Mare, where Henry had a teaching post. There Mary became homesick for her native Shropshire and began writing what was to be her first novel The Golden Arrow, in which she created a fictional version of
the Shropshire world that she knew so well.
The Webbs returned to Shropshire in 1914, and spent the two
years at Pontesbury. They moved briefly to Chester in 1916,
but returned to Shropshire in 1917 when Henry secrured a job at
the Priory School in Shrewsbury and the couple went to live at
Spring Cottage in nearby Lyth Hill. The Golden Arrow was
published in 1916 under her married named and followed by
Gone to Earth in 1917. Further novels followed in 1920
and 1922 all of which were favourably reviewed and suggested that
Mary had a future as a novelist.
In 1921 the Webbs decided to move to London in order to further
Mary's literary career (Henry found a teaching post at the King
Alfred School). Mary reviewed books, firstly for The
Spectator (1922–1925) and then for The Bookman
(1925–27) whilst writing her fifth and best-known novel,
Precious Bane (1924), which won the Femina Vie
Heureuse Prize. But although her literary career benefited from the move to London her health suffered and she died of combination of pernicious anaemia and Graves' disease at the Quarry Hill Nursing Home in St Leonards, Sussex, on the 8th October 1927, at
the age of forty-six, and was later buried at Shrewsbury cemetery
on 12th October. Her sixth unfinished novel, Armour Wherein
he Trusted was published after her death in 1929.
Although her work was supported by a number of literary
heavyweights such as Walter de la Mare, John Buchan and Rebecca West, Mary received little in the form of popular acclaim during her lifetime. It was only after her death that her work became popular, thanks largely to the efforts of the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin. He wrote her a letter of appreciation shortly before her death in January 1927 and afterwards eulogised
her work at a Royal Literary Fund dinner held on the 25th April
1928. Her novels subsequently became best-sellers throughout the
1930s and 1940s although interest waned rapidly thereafter as
tastes changed.
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger filmed Gone to Earth
in 1950, much of which was shot on location in Shropshire and
featured Jennifer Jones in the starring role. The film's
American release was much delayed as David Selznick felt it
needed improvement and insisted that much of it should be reshot
for its American release. When the film finally emerged in May
1952 it was under a new title The Wild Heart and made little
impact. The original version was unavailable until the National
Film Archive released a new print at the 1985 London Film
Festival. Some hailed it as a a masterpiece; others sympathise
with the original view of the New Statesman which
described the film as "the worst bit of kitsch its makers have yet
produced".
This reflects a persistent divergence of opinion regarding the
value of Mary Webb's novels. There are enthusiasts such as Gladys
Mary Coles who argue that her work is becoming increasingly
relevant because of "her perception of the natural environment and
man's relationship with it", Mary Webb's work can firmly be placed
in the 'rural genre' which was so ably satirised by Cold
Comfort Farm and regard it as the sort of nonsense that it best forgotten about. Some remain enthusiastic about her work. There is (or at least was until recently) a Mary Webb Society founded in 1972 which has arranged for commemorative plaques to be placed at the Mary
Webb Library in Shrewsbury, and at the house which she briefly lived at Weston-super-Mare; while Shropshire Tourism has sought to take advantage of the fact that all her novels are set in south Shropshire by designating a Mary Webb Trail which highlights many of the locations which are featured in her work. Shropshire County Council also has a fairly comprehensive website on Mary Webb's work as part of the West Midlands Creative Literature Collection which includes downloadable copies of all her novels which are now out of copyright.
Bibliography
Novels
Other
REFERENCES
Gladys Mary Coles, ‘Webb , Mary Gladys (1881–1927)’, Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
Mary Webb 1881-1927 Profile by Gladys Mary Coles
http://www3.shropshire-cc.gov.uk/webb.htm
Mary Webb Trail
http://www.shropshiretourism.info/mary-webb/