Precious Bane

Gideon is set to wed his sweetheart Jancis, but he incurs the wrath of her father, the cruel and scheming self-proclaimed wizard Beguildy.

The setting for the story has been attributed to the Meres of northern Shropshire, but is more likely to have been the area around Bomere Pool which was closer to the author's own home at Spring Cottage on Lyth Hill.

In one of the most moving passages in the book, she relates: "...there came to me, I cannot tell whence, a most powerful sweetness that had never come to me afore... as if some creature made all of light had come on a sudden from a great way off, and nestled in my bosom....

[6] In 1957 the book was made into a six-part BBC television drama series starring Patrick Troughton and Daphne Slater.

In 1989 it was again adapted for British television by the BBC, directed by Christopher Menaul and starring John Bowe, Clive Owen and Janet McTeer.