Stella Gibbons "she applied her versatility as a writer to every subject under the sun bar cookery, which was the province of a certain Mrs Peel." At the same time she began work on the novel that would become "Cold Comfort Farm"; her colleague and friend Elizabeth Coxhead recorded that Gibbons "neglected her duties disgracefully" to work on this project. In her time with "The Lady", Gibbons established a reputation as a caustic book reviewer, and was particularly critical of the then fashionable "loam and lovechild" rural novels. Novelists such as Mary Webb and Sheila Kaye-Smith had achieved considerable popularity through their
Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle a necessary book, radiant and rapturous" and said that it "provides further evidence that he is a peer of Kafka, Proust and Joyce". According to David Eagleman, Nabokov named the title character in part after his favorite butterfly. An avid (and professional) collector of butterflies, Nabokov especially liked one species with yellow wings and a black body. As a synesthete, he associated colors with each letter; "A" with yellow, and "D" with black. Thus he saw a reflection of his favorite butterfly (yellow-black-yellow) in the name "Ada". His character, Ada, wanted to be a lepidopterist. "Ada" is also a pun,