Armed with common sense and a strong will, she resolves to take each of the family in hand.

But Flora loves nothing better than to organise other people. At the aptly-named Cold Comfort Farm, she meets the doomed Starkadders: cousin Judith, heaving with remorse for unspoken wickedness Amos, preaching fire and damnation their sons, lustful Seth and despairing Reuben child of nature Elfine and crazed old Aunt Ada Doom, who has kept to her bedroom for the last twenty years. When sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste is orphaned at nineteen, she decides her only choice is to descend upon relatives in deepest Sussex. very probably the funniest book ever written' Sunday Times Stella Gibbons died in 1989.One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World' Amongst her other novels are Miss Linsey and Pa (1936), Nightingale Wood (1938), Westwood (1946), Conference at Cold Comfort Farm (1949) and Beside the Pearly Water (1954). Her first publication was a book of poems, The Mountain Beast (1930), and her first novel, Cold Comfort Farm (1932), won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize. She then worked for ten years on various papers, including the Evening Standard. She went to North London Collegiate School and studied journalism at University College, London. Stella Gibbons was born in London in 1902. 'One of the finest parodies written in English.a wickedly brilliant skit' Robert Macfarlane, Guardian Wodehouse and the comic aplomb of Evelyn Waugh's Scoop' Independent Cold Comfort Farm has the sunniness of a P. 'Screamingly funny and wildly subversive' Marian Keyes, Guardian 'Very probably the funniest book ever written' Sunday Times There is Judith in a scarlet shawl, heaving with remorse for an unspoken wickedness raving old Ada Doom, who once saw something nasty in the woodshed lustful Seth and despairing Reuben, Judith's two sons and there is Amos, preaching fire and damnation to one and all.Īs the sukebind flowers, Flora takes each of the family in hand and brings order to their chaos.Ĭold Comfort Farm is a sharp and clever parody of the melodramatic and rural novel.

When she is orphaned at twenty, she decides her only option is to descend on relatives - the doomed Starkadders at the aptly named Cold Comfort Farm. Sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste has been expensively educated to do everything but earn a living. 'We are not like other folk, maybe, but there have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm.' One of the BBC's '100 Novels that Shaped the World'Ī Hay Festival and The Poole VOTE 100 BOOKS for Women SelectionĪ hilarious and merciless parody of rural melodramas and one of the best-loved comic novels of all time, Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons is beautifully repackaged as part of the Penguin Essentials range.

Cold comfort farm author