Now that Mr. Jonathan Cape is publishing a Collected Edition
of her works, it will be interesting to see whether the name of Mary Webb becomes as widely associated with her other stories as it has done with the novel which the Prime Minister has made famous. The first of the seven promised volumes, to be issued at five shillings each, lies before us, in its tasteful green binding. Gone to Earth, to which Mr. John Buchan contributes an introduction, first appeared in 1917. The scene is the Welsh Border, which inspired Mary Webb as Wessex inspired Hardy ; while the period is about fifty years ago. The heroine is a wild, elemental girl, with gipsy blood in her veins. Passionately fond of all the lower creation, she is capable, too, of deep human affection, but is unable to adapt herself to conven- tional social standards. A yeoman squire and the local minister are attracted to her, and, the victim at once of the love and cruelty of man, she passes through fiery trials to the inevitable tragedy. Gone to Earth has no scenes quite so memorable as, for example, the funeral in Precious Bane. But, with its subtly drawn rustic portraits and its even subtler communication of natural magic, it belongs unmis- takably to the same genre.
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