Stella Gibbons detestation of pomposity and pretence. Truss has described Gibbons as "the Jane Austen of the 20th century", a parallel which the novelist Malcolm Bradbury thought apt; Flora Poste in "Cold Comfort Farm", with her "higher common sense", is "a Jane-ite heroine transformed into a clear-eyed modern woman". Bradbury also observed that many of Gibbons's novels end in Austen-like nuptials. Truss highlights the importance that Gibbons places on detachment as a necessary adjunct to effective writing: "Like many a good doctor, she seems to have considered sympathy a peculiar and redundant emotion, and a terrible waste of time." This matter-of-fact quality
Floyd Gibbons began as a radio program in which Gibbons paid twenty-five dollars for the best story submitted by a listener. In 1927 he wrote a biography of the Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron) titled "The Red Knight of Germany". He also wrote the speculative fiction novel "The Red Napoleon" in 1929. Gibbons was the narrator for the documentary film "With Byrd at the South Pole" (1930). In 1929, he had his own half-hour radio program heard Wednesday nights on the NBC Red Network at 10:30. Competition from Paul Whiteman's show on CBS Radio, however, brought Gibbons' show to an end