Book description
Thrown out of her long-established office job, Miss Christine Smith
takes up a new role as housekeeper for a group of middle-aged artists.
Charmed by a previous mystical experience, her spirituality is nurtured
further by the tenants, who seem stuck in their own personal lull.
Written in the 1960s, surrounded by social and political transitions,
the novel focuses on change, or the lack thereof. Stella Gibbons was
born in London in 1902. She went to the North London Collegiate School
and studied journalism at University College, London. She then worked
for ten years on various papers, including the Evening Standard. Stella
Gibbons is the author of twenty-five novels, three volumes of
short-stories, and four volumes of poetry. Her first publication was a
book of poems
The Mountain Beast
(1930) and her first novel Cold Comfort Farm
(1932) won the Femina Vie Heuruse Prize for 1933. Amongst her works are
Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm
(1940) Westwood
(1946), Conference at Cold Comfort Farm
(1959) and Starlight
(1967). She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in
1950. In 1933 she married the actor and singer Allan Webb. They had one
daughter. Stella Gibbons died in 1989.
