‘Stella Gibbons is the Jane Austen of the twentieth century’ The Times
Perhaps most famous for her first novel, Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons’s Westwood tells the story of Margaret and her schoolfriend Hilda in wartime London.
When Margaret finds a ration book on Hampstead Heath the pompous writer Gerard Challis enters both their lives. Margaret adores Challis and his artistic circle while Challis idolizes Hilda for her looks and Hilda is completely uninterested in Challis’s romantic advances. This is a delightfully comic and wistful tale of love and longing.
Reviewed by Chris Saunders in Slightly Foxed Issue 79
Too Sharp for Her Own Good
Stella Gibbons is hardly a forgotten writer, but she wrote more forgotten works than almost anyone else. Her first book, Cold Comfort Farm (1940: see SF no.10), has a secure and well-deserved place...
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