In her diary on 3 May 1921, Virginia Woolf
, who had not yet read the novel, accurately predicted that it would win the Hawthornden Prize. Six days later, she recorded her disappointment in it:...
Literary responses
Mary Webb
Robert Lynd
noted with admiration this novel's tempestuous energy.
qtd. in
Davies, Linda. Mary Webb Country. Palmers Press, 1990.
29
Though it was praised to some degree by critics on its appearance, it did not sell above a thousand copies. (No book of MW
Literary responses
Mary Webb
This exemplifies the double-edged nature of MW
's reputation. On the one hand she has become almost synonymous in the public mind with the genre she made famous: the romantic, earthy, rural novel. Her early...