Precious Bane
- Author Mary Webb
- Narrator Justine Eyre
- Publisher Blackstone Publishing
- Publish Date 15 December 2020
- Run Time 9 hours and 21 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Classic fiction, Romance.
Flexible Pricing & Rewards For Listening
At xigxag, the more you read, the less you pay* on select audiobook and x-book® titles, as in the table below. Pricing updates automatically in the app and resets one year after your first purchase. And you can always find a selection of brilliant titles available for only £3.99.
Titles Purchased
- 1-5
- 6-10
- 11-15
- 16-20
- Over 20
Price per title
- £8.99
- £7.99
- £6.99
- £5.99
- £4.99
*Only the full price titles you buy count toward your personal pricing tier. Full price titles don’t include Listen for Less or other books bought with a voucher or discount code.
Listen to a sample
What to expect
A haunting tale of passion set in Shropshire in the 1800s
Born at the time of Waterloo in the wild countryside of Shropshire, England, Prudence Sarn is a passionate girl, cursed with a harelip—her “precious bane.” She is cursed for it, too, by the superstitious people amongst whom she lives. Prue loves two things: the remote countryside of her birthplace and, hopelessly, Kester Woodseaves, the weaver. The tale of how Kester gradually discerns Prue’s true beauty is set against the tragic drama of Prue’s brother, Gideon, a man who is out of harmony with the natural world and whose recklessness may ensnare them all in tragedy.
Winner of the 1926 Prix Femina Vie Heureuse Prize, which was similarly awarded to such books as Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India, and Stella Gibbons’s Cold Comfort Farm, Precious Bane is a novel that haunts us with its beauty and its timeless truths about our deepest hopes.
Critics Review
“It is a genuine pleasure to listen to Justine Eyre narrate this treasure of an audiobook set in the English countryside of the early nineteenth century. There is a naturalness and fluidity to her performance that renders the formal language fresh for contemporary ears. Eyre’s characterizations are excellent as she shifts among the male and female personalities, giving each a beating heart and a textured vibrancy.”
“[Webb] was a great mystic and a master of both ‘inscape’ and landscape. Any dull afternoon in London is lifted by being transported to the Mary Webb country of the Shropshire hills and the Welsh borderland.”
“Mary Webb need fear no comparison with any writer who has attempted to capture the soul of nature in words.”
| Author | Mary Webb |
|---|---|
| Narrator | Justine Eyre |
| Duration | 9 hours and 21 minutes |
| Release Date | |
| ISBN | 9781799928072 |
| Format | Audiobook |
| Publisher | Blackstone Publishing |
| Genre | Classic fiction, Romance |
| Availability | AU, GB, IE, US |
More from the same
Author
About xigxag
xigxag is an independent, UK-based audiobook platform and the UK’s only B Corp certified audiobook company. We offer nearly 150,000 audiobooks, all with professional human narration. No AI-generated voices. xigxag is rated an Ethical Consumer Best Buy for audiobooks and a top-rated ethical bookshop.
There is no subscription. You buy the audiobooks you want, you own them permanently, and prices start at £8.99. The more you listen over the year, the less you pay per book, and there is always a selection in Listen for Less from £3.99. You can also send audiobooks as gifts using our audiobook gift cards or in-app gifting.
Every audiobook on xigxag has honest reviews covering both the book and the narration, and our community features make it easy to share what you are listening to, discover what others recommend, and find your next listen.
Download or stream on iOS, Android, or in your browser. Browse the full catalogue at xigxag.co.uk.