Stella Gibbons 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, 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. Later that year 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". It had won against works by two more experienced writers,
Stella Dallas (novel) Stella Dallas (novel) Stella Dallas is a 1923 novel by Olive Higgins Prouty, written in response to the death of her three-year-old daughter from encephalitis. It tells the story of a woman who sacrifices her own happiness for the sake of her daughter. The novel was subsequently adapted into a stage play in 1924 and movies in 1925, 1937, and 1990, the latter titled "Stella" and starring Bette Midler. It was also the basis for the radio serial "Stella Dallas", which aired daily for 18 years and is often credited as being the first soap opera. Prouty was reportedly displeased