Gone to Earth

"Gone to Earth" by Mary Gladys Meredith Webb is a novel set in the early 1900s that follows Hazel Woodus, a spirited young woman deeply connected to the natural world. Living rurally, Hazel possesses a wild, untamed nature and finds comfort among the woods and animals, especially a fox. The daughter of a Welsh gypsy, she inherits a sense of wanderlust and mystical traditions from her mother, and has a complex, indifferent relationship with her father, Abel. As Hazel longs for adventure, the land around her reveals a sense of foreboding, suggesting the struggles she will face as she tries to find her place in a restrictive world, where her freedom and identity are constantly challenged by societal constraints and threatening forces.