Mary Webb Knihy

Příběh z anglického venkova na sklonku napoleonských válek. Dějovou linii tvoří osud mladého sedláka, který obětuje touze po bohatství své nejbližší i sebe. Dílo je svázáno s přírodou, doznívajícími starobylými tradicemi, zvyky a pověrami.

In the depths of Dormer Forest, nestling in a valley, lies Dormer Old House, inhabited by the Drake family: Solomon and Rachael with their four grown children: intense, idealistic Jasper, Ruby, pretty but silly, black-eyed Peter, and the odd one out, Amber, a girl with a genius for loving - and laughing. There too lives cousin Catherine of the slanting eyes, whose pleasure it is to ensnare men's hearts. Brooding over all is the great matriarch, Grandmother Velindre, with her religious texts and reprimands, her beady eye ever upon the five young people in search of love and happiness. As the fate of each unfolds, it is Amber who emerges triumphant: one still June morning, she is found under a blossom tree by a strange and noble man...

A bold reissue of a stunning novel in the tradition of Thomas Hardy and the Brontes - and a perennial favourite on the Virago Modern Classics list.

The gate clicked and she was there. She had never looked so frail, so provocative; she had never been more purposeful or less desirous of admiration. They went in. Lily was genuinely pleased; after the rambling ruin at home, impossible to keep in order even for more industrious hands than hers, the compact, neat little home was delightful. She thought how easy the work would be. She was not meant for the hardy magnificence of manual labour.

Mary Webb was passionately devoted to revealing nature in all of its expressions and forms. She was diagnosed with Graves' disease at the age of 20, and in times of recovery she early noticed that her love of nature sped her healing. She also, in these sensitive times of contemplation and struggle, saw the natural world more tenderly and luminously; the urgencies of life were clearer. The Spring of Joy collects together a group of exquisite essays of appreciation, written with the idea of succouring 'the weary and wounded in the battle of life.' They are an extraordinary record of a woman's empathy, not only for the beauty, colour, form, delicacy and majesty of the natural world, but also for her fellow human beings who suffer.

The daughter of a Welsh gypsy and a crazy bee-keeper, Hazel Woodus is happiest living in her forest cottage in the remote Shropshire hills, at one with the winds and seasons, protector and friend of the wild animals she loves. But Hazel's beauty and innocence prove irresistible to the men in her orbit. Both Jack Reddin, the local squire, and Edward Marston, the gentle minister, offer her human - and carnal - love. Hazel's fate unfolds as simply and relentlessly as a Greek tragedy as a child of nature is drawn into a world of mortal passion in which she must eternally be a stranger.

Mary Webb was an English romantic novelist of the early 20th century, whose novels were set chiefly in the Shropshire countryside and among Shropshire characters and people which she knew and loved well. Although she was acclaimed by John Buchan and by Rebecca West, who hailed her as a genius, and won the Prix Femina of La Vie Heureuse for Precious Bane (1924), she won little respect from the general public. It was only after her death that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Stanley Baldwin, earned her posthumous success through his approbation, referring to her as a neglected genius at a Literary Fund dinner in 1928. Her writing is notable for its descriptions of nature, and of the human heart. She had a deep sympathy for all her characters and was able to see good and truth in all of them. Among her most famous works are: The Golden Arrow (1916), Gone to Earth (1917), and Seven for a Secret (1922).