Stella Dorothea Gibbons (5 January 1902 – 19 December 1989) was an English writer, journalist, and poet. She established her reputation with her
first novel
A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to pu ...
, ''
Cold Comfort Farm
''Cold Comfort Farm'' is a comic novel by English author Stella Gibbons, published in 1932. It parodies the romanticised, sometimes doom-laden accounts of rural life popular at the time, by writers such as Mary Webb.
Plot summary
Following ...
'' (1932) which has been reprinted many times. Although she was active as a writer for half a century, none of her later 22 novels or other literary works—which included a sequel to ''Cold Comfort Farm''—achieved the same critical or popular success. Much of her work was long out of print before a modest revival in the 21st century.
The daughter of a London medical doctor, Gibbons had a turbulent and often unhappy childhood. After an indifferent school career she trained as a journalist, and worked as a reporter and features writer, mainly for the ''
Evening Standard
The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format.
In October 2009, after be ...
'' and ''
The Lady''. Her first book, published in 1930, was a collection of poems which was well received, and through her life she considered herself primarily a poet rather than a novelist. After ''Cold Comfort Farm'', a satire on the genre of rural-themed "loam and lovechild" novels popular in the late 1920s, most of Gibbons's novels were based within the middle-class suburban world with which she was familiar.
Gibbons became a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Literature in 1950. Her style has been praised by critics for its charm, barbed humour and descriptive skill, and has led to comparison with
Jane Austen. The success of ''Cold Comfort Farm'' dominated her career, and she grew to resent her identification with the book to the exclusion of the rest of her output. Widely regarded as a one-work novelist, she and her works have not been accepted into the canon of English literature—partly, other writers have suggested, because of her detachment from the literary world and her tendency to mock it.
Life
Family background and childhood
The Gibbons family originated from Ireland. Stella's grandfather, Charles Preston Gibbons, was a civil engineer who spent long periods in
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
building bridges. He and his wife Alice had six children, the second of whom—the eldest of four sons—was born in 1869 and was known by his fourth Christian name of "Telford". The Gibbons household was a turbulent one, with tensions arising from Charles Gibbons's frequent adulteries. Telford Gibbons trained as a doctor, and qualified as a physician and surgeon at the
London Hospital
The Royal London Hospital is a large teaching hospital in Whitechapel in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is part of Barts Health NHS Trust. It provides district general hospital services for the City of London and Tower Hamlets and sp ...
in 1897. On 29 September 1900 he married Maude Williams, the daughter of a
stockbroker. The couple bought a house in Malden Crescent,
Kentish Town
Kentish Town is an area of northwest London, England in the London Borough of Camden, immediately north of Camden Town. Less than four miles north of central London, Kentish Town has good transport connections and is situated close to the open ...
, a working-class district of North London, where Telford established the medical practice in which he continued for the remainder of his life.
Stella, the couple's first child, was born on 5 January 1902; two brothers, Gerald and Lewis, followed in 1905 and 1909 respectively. The atmosphere in the Kentish Town house echoed that of the elder Gibbons's household, and was dominated by Telford's frequent bouts of ill-temper, drinking, womanising and occasional acts of violence. Stella later described her father as "a bad man, but a good doctor". He was charitable to his poorer patients and imaginative in finding cures, but made life miserable for his family. Initially Stella was his favourite, but by the time she reached
puberty
Puberty is the process of physical changes through which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of sexual reproduction. It is initiated by hormonal signals from the brain to the gonads: the ovaries in a girl, the testes in a bo ...
he frequently mocked her looks and size.
[ Fortunately, her mother was a calm and stabilising influence.][ ] Until Stella reached the age of 13 she was educated at home by a succession of governesses, who never stayed long. The family's bookshelves provided reading material, and she developed a talent for storytelling with which she amused her young brothers.
In 1915 Stella became a pupil at the North London Collegiate School
North London Collegiate School (NLCS) is an independent school with a day school for girls in England. Founded in Camden Town, it is now located in Edgware, in the London Borough of Harrow. Associate schools are located in South Korea, Jeju I ...
, then situated in Camden Town.[ The school, founded in 1850 by ]Frances Buss
Frances Mary Buss (16 August 1827 – 24 December 1894) was a British headmistress and a pioneer of girls' education.
Life
The daughter of Robert William Buss, a painter and etcher, and his wife, Frances Fleetwood, Buss was one of six of thei ...
, was among the first in England to offer girls an academic education, and by 1915 was widely recognised as a model girls' school. After the haphazard teaching methods of her governesses, Stella initially had difficulty in adjusting to the strict discipline of the school, and found many of its rules and practices oppressive.[Oliver, pp. 26–29] She shared this attitude with her contemporary Stevie Smith
Florence Margaret Smith, known as Stevie Smith (20 September 1902 – 7 March 1971), was an English poet and novelist. She won the Cholmondeley Award and was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. A play, '' Stevie'' by Hugh Whitemore, ba ...
, the future Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry
The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry is awarded for a book of verse published by someone in any of the Commonwealth realms. Originally the award was open only to British subjects living in the United Kingdom, but in 1985 the scope was extended to in ...
winner, who joined the school in 1917.[ ] Although a moderate performer in school subjects, Stella found outlets for her talents by writing stories for her fellow-pupils, becoming vice president of the Senior Dramatic Club, and featuring prominently in the school's Debating Society, of which she became the honorary secretary.[
]
Student years
While at school, Gibbons formed an ambition to be a writer, and on leaving in 1921 began a two-year Diploma in Journalism at University College, London
, mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £143 million (2020)
, budget = ...
(UCL).[Oliver, pp. 33–38] The course had been established for ex-servicemen returning from the First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
,[ but attracted several women, among them the future novelist ]Elizabeth Bowen
Elizabeth Bowen CBE (; 7 June 1899 – 22 February 1973) was an Irish-British novelist and short story writer notable for her books about the "big house" of Irish landed Protestants as well her fiction about life in wartime London.
Life
...
. As well as English Literature, the curriculum covered economics, politics, history, science and languages; practical skills such as shorthand and typing were not included.[
After the stifling experience of school, Gibbons found university exhilarating and made numerous friendships, particularly with ]Ida Affleck Graves
Ida Florence Affleck Graves (March 1902 – 14 November 1999) was a British artist, poet, novelist, and children's writer, and member of the Bloomsbury Group.Jacqueline Simms (1999Obituary: Ida Affleck GravesIndependent Online, undated.
Earl ...
, an aspiring poet who, although on a different course, attended some of the same lectures.[ The two shared a love of literature and a taste for subversive humour. Graves lived until 1999, and recalled in an interview late in life that many of the jokes they shared found their way into ''Cold Comfort Farm'', as did some of their common acquaintances. Soon after Gibbons began the course she contributed a poem, "The Marshes of My Soul", to the December 1921 issue of ''University College Magazine''. This parody, in the newly fashionable '']vers libre
Free verse is an open form of poetry, which in its modern form arose through the French '' vers libre'' form. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech.
Defini ...
'' style, was her first published literary work. During the next two years she contributed further poems and prose to the magazine, including "The Doer, a Story in the Russian Manner", which foreshadows her later novels in both theme and style. Gibbons completed her course in the summer of 1923, and was awarded her diploma.[
]
Journalism and early writings
Gibbons's first job was with the British United Press
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
(BUP) news agency, where she decoded overseas cables which she rewrote in presentable English. During slack periods she practised at writing articles, stories and poems. She made her first trips abroad, travelling to France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
in 1924 and Switzerland in 1925. Swiss Alpine scenery inspired several poems, some of which were later published. In 1924 she met Walter Beck, a naturalised German employed by his family's cosmetics firm. The couple became engaged, and enjoyed regular weekends together, signing hotel registers as a married couple using false names.
In May 1926 Gibbons's mother, Maude, died suddenly at the age of 48. With little reason to remain with her father in the Kentish Town surgery, Gibbons took lodgings in Willow Road, near Hampstead Heath. Five months later, on 15 October, her father died from heart disease aggravated by heavy drinking. Gibbons was now the family's principal breadwinner;[Truss 2006, p. xii] her youngest brother Lewis was still at school, while the elder, Gerald, was intermittently employed as an actor. The three set up home in a cottage on the Vale of Health
Hampstead Heath (locally known simply as the Heath) is an ancient heath in London, spanning . This grassy public space sits astride a sandy ridge, one of the highest points in London, running from Hampstead to Highgate, which rests on a band ...
, a small settlement in the middle of Hampstead Heath, with literary connections to Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculos ...
(whom Gibbons revered),[ ]Leigh Hunt
James Henry Leigh Hunt (19 October 178428 August 1859), best known as Leigh Hunt, was an English critic, essayist and poet.
Hunt co-founded '' The Examiner'', a leading intellectual journal expounding radical principles. He was the centre ...
and D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer, novelist, poet and essayist. His works reflect on modernity, industrialization, sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. His best-k ...
. Later that year, as a result of an error involving the calculation and reporting of foreign exchange rates, Gibbons was sacked from the BUP, but quickly found a new position as secretary to the editor of the London ''Evening Standard
The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format.
In October 2009, after be ...
''. Within a short time she was promoted, and became a reporter and features writer at the then substantial salary of just under £500 a year, although she was not given a by-line until 1928.
During her ''Evening Standard'' years, Gibbons persevered with poetry, and in September 1927 her poem "The Giraffes" appeared in ''The Criterion
''The Criterion'' was a British literary magazine published from October 1922 to January 1939. ''The Criterion'' (or the ''Criterion'') was, for most of its run, a quarterly journal, although for a period in 1927–28 it was published monthly. It ...
'', a literary magazine edited by T. S. Eliot. This work was read and admired by Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
Woolf was born i ...
, who enquired if Gibbons would write poems for the Woolf publishing house, the Hogarth Press
The Hogarth Press is a book publishing imprint of Penguin Random House that was founded as an independent company in 1917 by British authors Leonard Woolf and Virginia Woolf. It was named after their house in Richmond (then in Surrey and n ...
. In January 1928 , a leading voice in the "Georgian" poetry movement, began to publish Gibbons's poems in his magazine, '' The London Mercury''. Squire also persuaded Longman
Longman, also known as Pearson Longman, is a publishing company founded in London, England, in 1724 and is owned by Pearson PLC.
Since 1968, Longman has been used primarily as an imprint by Pearson's Schools business. The Longman brand is also ...
s to publish the first collection of Gibbons's verses, entitled ''The Mountain Beast'', which appeared in 1930 to critical approval. By this time her by-line was appearing with increasing frequency in the ''Standard''. As part of a series on "Unusual Women" she interviewed, among others, the former royal mistress Lillie Langtry
Emilie Charlotte, Lady de Bathe (née Le Breton, formerly Langtry; 13 October 1853 – 12 February 1929), known as Lillie (or Lily) Langtry and nicknamed "The Jersey Lily", was a British socialite, stage actress and producer.
Born on the isla ...
.[ The paper also published several of Gibbons's short stories.
Despite this evident industry, Gibbons was dismissed from the ''Standard'' in August 1930. This was ostensibly an economy measure although Gibbons, in later life, suspected other reasons, particularly the increasing distraction from work that arose from her relationship with Walter Beck. The engagement had ended painfully in 1928, primarily because Gibbons was looking for a fully committed relationship whereas he wanted something more open. Her biographer and nephew, Reggie Oliver, believes Gibbons never entirely got over Beck, even after 1929 when she met Allan Webb, her future husband. She was not unemployed for long; she quickly accepted a job offer as an editorial assistant at the women's magazine, '' The Lady''. Here, according to '']The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...
'' writer Rachel Cooke
Rachel Cooke (born 1969) is a British journalist and writer.
Early life
Cooke was born in Sheffield, and is the daughter of a university lecturer.
She went to school in Jaffa, Israel, until she was 11, before returning to Sheffield, and atten ...
, "she applied her versatility as a writer to every subject under the sun bar cookery, which was the province of a certain Mrs Peel." At the same time she began work on the novel that would become ''Cold Comfort Farm
''Cold Comfort Farm'' is a comic novel by English author Stella Gibbons, published in 1932. It parodies the romanticised, sometimes doom-laden accounts of rural life popular at the time, by writers such as Mary Webb.
Plot summary
Following ...
''; her colleague and friend Elizabeth Coxhead recorded that Gibbons "neglected her duties disgracefully" to work on this project.
''Cold Comfort Farm''
In her time with ''The Lady'', Gibbons established a reputation as a caustic book reviewer, and was particularly critical of the then fashionable "loam and lovechild" rural novels.[Truss 2006, p. xiii] Novelists such as Mary Webb
Mary Gladys Webb (25 March 1881 – 8 October 1927) was an English romance novelist and poet of the early 20th century, whose work is set chiefly in the Shropshire countryside and among Shropshire characters and people whom she knew. Her ...
and Sheila Kaye-Smith
Sheila Kaye-Smith (4 February 1887 – 14 January 1956) was an English writer, known for her many novels set in the borderlands of Sussex and Kent in the English regional tradition. Her 1923 book ''The End of the House of Alard'' became a best- ...
had achieved considerable popularity through their depictions of country life; Webb (who was no relation of Gibbons' future husband and had died in 1927) was a favourite of the British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. Gibbons had first become familiar with the genre when she provided summaries of Webb's ''The Golden Arrow'' for the ''Evening Standard's'' 1928 serialisation. She found the writing overblown and the plotting ridiculous, and decided that her own first novel would be a comic parody of the genre.[ By February 1932 she had completed the manuscript and delivered it to her publishers, Longmans.][Oliver, pp. 88 and 111]
Gibbons's chosen title for her novel had been "Curse God Farm", before her friend Elizabeth Coxhead, who had connections in the Hinckley
Hinckley is a market town in south-west Leicestershire, England. It is administered by Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council. Hinckley is the third largest settlement in the administrative county of Leicestershire, after Leicester and Loughbo ...
district of Leicestershire, suggested "Cold Comfort" as an alternative, using the name of a farm in the Hinckley area. Gibbons was delighted with the suggestion, and the work was published as ''Cold Comfort Farm
''Cold Comfort Farm'' is a comic novel by English author Stella Gibbons, published in 1932. It parodies the romanticised, sometimes doom-laden accounts of rural life popular at the time, by writers such as Mary Webb.
Plot summary
Following ...
'' in September 1932. The plot concerns the efforts of "a rational, bossy London heroine"[ to bring order and serenity to her rustic relations, the Starkadders, on their run-down Sussex farm. According to the ''Feminist Companion to Literature in English'', Gibbons's parody " emolishesnbsp;... the stock-in-trade of earthy regionalists such as Thomas Hardy, Mary Webb, Sheila Kaye-Smith and D. H. Lawrence".][ The literary scholar ]Faye Hammill
Faye Hammill FRSE is a professor in the University of Glasgow, specialising in North American and British modern writing in the first half of the twentieth century, what is often called ' middlebrow'. Her recent focus is ocean liners in litera ...
describes the work as "an extremely sophisticated and intricate parody whose meaning is produced through its relationship with the literary culture of its day and with the work of such canonical authors as D. H. Lawrence, Thomas Hardy, and Emily Brontë".[ ] In her history of the 1930s, Juliet Gardiner ascribes a socio-economic dimension to the book: "a picture of rural gloom caused by government lassitude and urban indifference".
The work was an immediate critical and popular success. The satire was heightened by Gibbons's mockery of purple prose
In literary criticism, purple prose is overly ornate prose text that may disrupt a narrative flow by drawing undesirable attention to its own extravagant style of writing, thereby diminishing the appreciation of the prose overall. Purple prose i ...
, whereby she marked the most florid and overwritten passages of the book with asterisks, "for the reader's delectation and mirth".[ One critic found it hard to accept that so well-developed a parody was the work of a scarcely known woman writer, and speculated that "Stella Gibbons" was a pen-name for ]Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires '' Decl ...
. Gibbons suddenly found herself in demand in literary circles and from fellow writers, raised to a celebrity status that she found distasteful. She acquired an agent, who advised her that she could confidently expect a regular and comfortable income as a novelist. This assurance prompted her, at the end of 1932, to resign her position with ''The Lady'' and to embark on a full-time writing career.
In March 1931 Gibbons had become engaged to Allan Webb, a budding actor and opera singer five years her junior. He was the son of a cricketing parson, and the grandson of Allan Becher Webb
Allan Becher Webb (also spelled "Alan"; 1839–1907) was the second Anglican Bishop of Bloemfontein, afterward Bishop of Grahamstown and, later, Dean of Salisbury.
Early years
Webb was born in 1839 in Calcutta, India, the son of Allan Webb, a ...
, a former Bishop of Bloemfontein who served as Dean of Salisbury Cathedral. On 1 April 1933 the couple were married at St Matthew's, Bayswater
St Matthew's is a Church of England parish church, located in St. Petersburgh Place, Bayswater, London, near the New West End Synagogue and Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Sophia. It is a Grade II* listed building, executed in the Victorian ...
.
Later in 1933 she learned that ''Cold Comfort Farm'' had been awarded the ''Prix Étranger'', the foreign novel category of the prestigious French literary prize, the ''Prix Femina
The Prix Femina is a French literary prize created in 1904 by 22 writers for the magazine '' La Vie heureuse'' (today known as '' Femina''). The prize is decided each year by an exclusively female jury. They reward French-language works writte ...
''. It had won against works by two more experienced writers, Bowen and Rosamond Lehmann
Rosamond Nina Lehmann (3 February 1901 – 12 March 1990) was an English novelist and translator. Her first novel, ''Dusty Answer'' (1927), was a ''succès de scandale''; she subsequently became established in the literary world and intimate ...
. This outcome irritated Virginia Woolf, herself a former ''Prix Étranger'' winner, who wrote to Bowen: "I was enraged to see they gave the £40 (the cash value of the prize) to Gibbons; still, now you and Rosamond can join in blaming her". Cooke observes that of all the ''Prix Étranger'' winners from the inter-war years, only ''Cold Comfort Farm'' and Woolf's ''To the Lighthouse
''To the Lighthouse'' is a 1927 novel by Virginia Woolf. The novel centres on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920.
Following and extending the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel ...
'' are remembered today, and that only the former has bequeathed a phrase that has passed into common usage: "something nasty in the woodshed".
Established author
1930s
During the remainder of the 1930s Gibbons produced five more novels, as well as two poetry collections, a children's book, and a number of short stories. From November 1936 the family home was in Oakshott Avenue, on the Holly Lodge Estate
The Holly Lodge Estate is a housing estate in Highgate, north London.
Early history
Holly Lodge Estate is located on the site and grounds of a house built in 1798 by Sir Henry Tempest on the south-facing slopes of Highgate, London adjacen ...
off Highgate West Hill, where Gibbons regularly worked in the mornings from ten until lunchtime. Her novels were generally well received by critics and the public, though none earned the accolades or attention that had been given to ''Cold Comfort Farm'';[ readers of '']The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'' were specifically warned not to expect Gibbons's second novel, ''Bassett'' (1934), to be a repetition of the earlier masterpiece. ''Enbury Heath'' (1935) is a relatively faithful account of her childhood and early adult life with, according to Oliver, "only the thinnest veil of fictional gauze cover ngraw experience". ''Miss Linsey and Pa'' (1936) was thought by Nicola Beauman, in her analysis of women writers from 1914 to 1939, to parody Radclyffe Hall
Marguerite Antonia Radclyffe Hall (12 August 1880 – 7 October 1943) was an English poet and author, best known for the novel ''The Well of Loneliness'', a groundbreaking work in lesbian literature. In adulthood, Hall often went by the name Jo ...
's 1928 lesbian novel ''The Well of Loneliness
''The Well of Loneliness'' is a lesbian novel by British author Radclyffe Hall that was first published in 1928 by Jonathan Cape. It follows the life of Stephen Gordon, an Englishwoman from an upper-class family whose " sexual inversion" (hom ...
''. Gibbons's final prewar novels were ''Nightingale Wood'' (1935)—"Cinderella brought right up to date"—and ''My American'' (1939), which Oliver considers her most escapist novel, "a variant of Hans Christian Andersen's ''The Snow Queen''."
Gibbons always considered herself a serious poet rather than a comic writer.[Truss 2006, pp. xi–xii] She published two collections of poetry in the 1930s, the latter of which, ''The Lowland Verses'' (1938) contains "The Marriage of the Machine", an early lament on the effects of industrial pollution: "What oil, what poison lulls/Your wings and webs, my cormorants and gulls?" Gibbons's single children's book was the fairy tale collection ''The Untidy Gnome'', published in 1935 and dedicated to her only child Laura, who was born that year.
War years, 1939–1945
The advent of the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
in September 1939 did not diminish Gibbons's creative energy. In November she began a series of articles, "A Woman's Diary of the War", for ''St Martin's Review'', the journal of the London church of St Martin-in-the-Fields
St Martin-in-the-Fields is a Church of England parish church at the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, London. It is dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours. There has been a church on the site since at least the mediev ...
.[Oliver, pp. 164–66] The series ran until November 1943, and includes many of Gibbons's private reflections on the conflict. In October 1941 she wrote: " e war has done me good ... I get a dour satisfaction out of managing the rations, salvaging, fire watching, and feeling that I am trying to work for a better world". In July 1940 her husband Allan Webb enlisted in the Middlesex Regiment
The Middlesex Regiment (Duke of Cambridge's Own) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 until 1966. The regiment was formed, as the Duke of Cambridge's Own (Middlesex Regiment), in 1881 as part of the Childers R ...
, and the following year was commissioned into the King's Royal Rifle Corps. He later served overseas, mostly in Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...
.
The title story in Gibbons's 1940 collection, ''Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm'', failed to equal the success of the original.[ When the collection was reissued many years later it was described as "oddly comforting and amusing ... and possibly a truer depiction of the times than we might think". Gibbons published three novels during the war: ''The Rich House'' (1941), ''Ticky'' (1942) and ''The Bachelor'' (1944). ''Ticky'', a satire on mid-nineteenth century army life, was Gibbons's favourite of all her novels, although she acknowledged that hardly anyone liked it. It failed commercially, despite a favourable review in '']The Times Literary Supplement
''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp.
History
The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication ...
''. Oliver surmises that "the middle of the Second World War was perhaps the wrong time to satirise ... the ridiculous and dangerous rituals that surround the male aggressive instinct". ''The Bachelor'' won critical praise for its revealing account of life in war-torn Britain—as did several of Gibbons's postwar novels.[
]
Post-war years
Gibbons's first post-war novel was ''Westwood'' (1946). The book incorporates a comic depiction of the novelist Charles Morgan, whose novel ''The Fountain'' Gibbons had reviewed before the war and found "offensive as well as wearisome".[ In ''Westwood'', Morgan appears in the guise of the playwright "Gerard Challis", a pompous, humourless bore.][ Oliver considers this characterisation to be one of Gibbons's "most enjoyable and vicious" satirical portraits. In her introduction to the book's 2011 reprint, ]Lynne Truss
Lynne Truss (born 31 May 1955) is an English author, journalist, novelist, and radio broadcaster and dramatist. She is arguably best known for her championing of correctness and aesthetics in the English language, which is the subject of her ...
describes it as "a rich, mature novel, romantic and wistful, full of rounded characters and terrific dialogue" that deserved more commercial success than it received. The public's expectations were still prejudiced by ''Cold Comfort Farm'', which by 1949 had sold 28,000 copies in hardback and 315,000 in paperback.[Truss 2006, p. xvi] Anticipating that a sequel would be popular, that year Gibbons produced ''Conference at Cold Comfort Farm'', her shortest novel, in which the farm has become a conference centre and tourist attraction.[ There is much mockery of contemporary and indeed future artistic and intellectual trends, before the male Starkadders return from overseas, wreck the centre and restore the farm to its original primitive state. The book was moderately successful but, Oliver remarks, does not compare with the original.][Oliver, pp. 200–04]
In 1950 Gibbons published her ''Collected Poems'', and in the same year was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.[ Throughout the 1950s she continued, at roughly two-year intervals, to produce politely received novels, none of which created any particular stir. Among these was ''Fort of the Bear'' (1953), in which she departed from her familiar London milieu by setting the story largely in the wilder regions of ]Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
.[Blain et al., pp. 420–21] This was the last of her books handled by Longmans; thereafter her work was published by Hodder and Stoughton. A journey to Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
and Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...
in 1953 provided material for her novel ''The Shadow of a Sorcerer'' (1955). From 1954, having accepted an invitation from Malcolm Muggeridge
Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge (24 March 1903 – 14 November 1990) was an English journalist and satirist. His father, H. T. Muggeridge, was a socialist politician and one of the early Labour Party Members of Parliament (for Romford, in Essex). In ...
, the editor of ''Punch
Punch commonly refers to:
* Punch (combat), a strike made using the hand closed into a fist
* Punch (drink), a wide assortment of drinks, non-alcoholic or alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice
Punch may also refer to:
Places
* Pun ...
'', Gibbons provided frequent contributions to the magazine for the following 15 years. Among these was a science fiction story, "Jane in Space", written in the style of Jane Austen. Gibbons, who wrote the introduction to the 1957 Heritage edition of ''Sense and Sensibility
''Sense and Sensibility'' is a novel by Jane Austen, published in 1811. It was published anonymously; ''By A Lady'' appears on the title page where the author's name might have been. It tells the story of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor (age 19) a ...
'',[Gibbons: "Introduction" in ] was a long-time admirer of Austen, and had described her in a ''Lady'' article as "one of the most exquisite" of woman artists.
After the war, Allan Webb resumed his stage career with the role of Count Almaviva in the 1946 Sadler's Wells
Sadler's Wells Theatre is a performing arts venue in Clerkenwell, London, England located on Rosebery Avenue next to New River Head. The present-day theatre is the sixth on the site since 1683. It consists of two performance spaces: a 1,500-seat ...
production of '' The Marriage of Figaro''. In 1947 he appeared in the original run of the Vivian Ellis
Vivian John Herman Ellis, CBE (29 October 1903 – 19 June 1996) was an English musical comedy composer best known for the song "Spread a Little Happiness" and the theme " Coronation Scot".
Life and work
Ellis was born in Hampstead, London in ...
musical '' Bless the Bride'', and made several further stage appearances in the following two years. During this time he had a brief affair with the actress Sydney Malcolm, for which Gibbons quickly forgave him.[ He left the theatre in 1949 to become a director of a book club specialising in special editions, and later bought a bookshop in the Archway district of London. His health failed in the late 1950s and in 1958 he was diagnosed with liver cancer. He died in July 1959 at Oakshott Avenue.
]
Late career
After Webb's death, Gibbons remained at Oakshott Avenue and continued to write novels. From 1961 she rented a summer house at Trevone
Trevone ( kw, Treavon, meaning ''river farm'') is a seaside village and bay ( kw, Porth Musyn, meaning ''Musun cove'') near Padstow in Cornwall, England, UK.
Geography
Trevone Bay is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). It contains fo ...
in Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
, which became the setting for her 1962 novel ''The Weather at Tregulla''. She returned to literary criticism after many years, when in 1965 she contributed an essay to ''Light on C.S. Lewis'', a review of that writer's work edited by Jocelyn Gibb. In 1966 she wrote an essay for ''Punch'', "Genesis of a Novel", in which she mused on the detrimental effect of ''Cold Comfort Farm'' on her long-term career. She likened the book to "some unignorable old uncle, to whom you have to be grateful because he makes you a handsome allowance, but is often an embarrassment and a bore".[ Gibbons made her last overseas trip in 1966, to ]Grenoble
lat, Gratianopolis
, commune status = Prefecture and commune
, image = Panorama grenoble.png
, image size =
, caption = From upper left: Panorama of the city, Grenoble’s cable cars, place Saint- ...
in France where she visited her old friend Elizabeth Coxhead. This visit provided material for her 1968 novel ''The Snow Woman'' in which Gibbons overcame her habitual distaste for emotional excess by opening the book with a melodramatic birth on a sofa.[ ''The Woods in Winter'' (1970) was her last published novel; she decided at that point that she was no longer prepared to subject her work to editorial control. In the 1980s she wrote two more novels for private circulation among friends, ''The Yellow Houses'' and ''An Alpha''.] These books – ''An Alpha'' retitled ''Pure Juliet'' – were published by Vintage Classics in 2016, after the manuscripts were released by Gibbons's family.
Final years
The last two decades of Gibbons's life were uneventful and lived almost entirely beyond the public eye. She kept her health and looks until almost the end of her life—in a biographical sketch, Jill Neville recorded that "her beauty endured, as did her upright carriage, typical of Edwardian ladies who were forced as girls to walk around with a book balanced on their heads."[ As well as her unpublished novels she wrote occasional short stories, two of which were rejected by the ]BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
's 1986 anthology ''Occasional Poets'', a work which included verses from part-time poets such as
.
These were Gibbons's last published works. One of Gibbons's poems in the anthology was "Writ in Water", inspired by her love for the poetry of Keats. In 2013 the manuscript of this poem was presented to the
museum in Rome.
Gibbons maintained a wide circle of friends, who in her later years included Adams, the entertainer
.