Mary Webb

Mary Gladys Webb (25 March 1881 – 8 October 1927) was an English romantic novelist and poet of the early 20th century, whose work is set chiefly in the Shropshire countryside and among Shropshire characters and people which she knew. Her novels have been successfully dramatized, most notably the film Gone to Earth in 1950 by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. They inspired the famous parody Cold Comfort Farm.

She was born Mary Gladys Meredith in 1881 at Leighton Lodge in the Shropshire village of Leighton, 8 miles (13 km) southeast of Shrewsbury. Her father, George Edward Meredith, a private schoolteacher, inspired his daughter with his own love of literature and the local countryside. On her mother's side, Sarah Alice, she was descended from a family related to Sir Walter Scott. Mary explored the countryside around her childhood home, 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 1895.

Her parents moved the family again in Shropshire, north to Stanton upon Hine Heath in 1896, before settling at Meole Brace, now on the outskirts of Shrewsbury, in 1902.

At the age of 20, she developed symptoms of Graves' disease, a thyroid disorder which resulted in bulging protuberant eyes and throat goitre, caused ill health throughout her life and probably contributed to her early death. This affliction resulted in her being empathic with the suffering, and finds its fictional counterpart in the disfiguring harelip of Prue Sarn, the heroine of Precious Bane.

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