Stella Gibbons 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 in France where she visited her
Stella Gibbons This parody, in the newly fashionable "vers libre" 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. Gibbons's first job was with the British United Press (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