A 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. 'We
are not like other folk, maybe, but there have always been Starkadders
at Cold Comfort Farm...' Sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste has been
expensively educated to do everything but earn a living. 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.
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. As the
sukebind flowers, Flora takes each of the family in hand and brings
order to their chaos. Cold Comfort Farm is a sharp and clever parody of
the melodramatic and rural novel. 'Very probably the funniest book ever
written' Sunday Times 'Screamingly funny and wildly subversive' Marian
Keyes, Guardian 'Delicious ... Cold Comfort Farm has the sunniness of a
P. G. Wodehouse and the comic aplomb of Evelyn Waugh's Scoop'
Independent 'One of the finest parodies written in English...a wickedly
brilliant skit' Robert Macfarlane, Guardian Stella Gibbons was born in
London in 1902. She went to North London Collegiate School and studied
journalism at University College, London. She then worked for ten years
on various papers, including the Evening Standard. 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. 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). Stella Gibbons died in 1989.
