Voting Station

Stella Gibbons

Please vote to return to collections.

Author

The Resume

    (January 5, 1902-December 19, 1989)
    Born in London, United Kingdom
    Best known for the novel 'Cold Comfort Farm' (1932)
    Also wrote the novels 'Bassett' (1933), 'Enbury Heath' (1935), 'Nightingale Wood' (1938), 'The Rich House' (1941), 'The Matchmaker' (1949), 'Here Be Dragons' (1956), 'The Charmers' (1965) and 'The Woods in Winter' (1970)
    Wrote the poetry collections 'The Mountain Beast' (1930), 'The Priestess' (1933), 'The Lowland Venus' (1938) and 'Collected Poems' (1950)
    Wrote the children's book 'The Untidy Gnome' (1935)

Why she might be annoying:

    She was fired from a British news agency when her miscalculation of the exchange rates in a story caused a sudden fluctuation in the currency markets (1926).
    When 'Cold Comfort Farm' won the Prix Femina-Vie Heureuse literary prize, Virginia Woolf wrote, 'I was enraged to see they gave the £40 to Gibbons.... Who is she? What is this book?'
    She considered herself a poet first, but is remembered for one of her novels.
    She said that 'Cold Comfort Farm' was 'like some unignorable old uncle, to whom you have to be grateful because he makes you a handsome allowance, but who is often an embarrassment and a bore.'

Why she might not be annoying:

    'Cold Comfort Farm' parodied the overwrought 'loam and lovechild' genre of historical novels with rural settings.
    She knew 'Cold Comfort Farm' would be a success when the girls typing up the manuscript laughed out loud at it.
    She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (1950).
    'The Guardian' described her as 'a sworn enemy of the flatuent, the pompous and the excessively sentimental.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2022, Out of 4 Votes: 25.00% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 11 Votes: 81.82% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 4 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 8 Votes: 62.50% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 16 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 11 Votes: 63.64% Annoying