Stella Gibbons of Gibbons's "most enjoyable and vicious" satirical portraits. In her introduction to the book's 2011 reprint, Lynne Truss describes it as "a rich, mature novel, romantic and wistful, full of rounded characters and terrific dialogue" that deserved more commercial success than it received. The public's expectations were still prejudiced by "Cold Comfort Farm", which by 1949 had sold 28,000 copies in hardback and 315,000 in paperback. Anticipating that a sequel would be popular, that year Gibbons produced "Conference at Cold Comfort Farm", her shortest novel, in which the farm has become a conference centre and tourist attraction. There is much
Mavis Cheek Arnold Bennett, Stella Gibbons, William Boyd and Beryl Bainbridge as "literary heroes". For "A Good Read" on the BBC Radio 4 programme of that name broadcast on 7 June 2011 she chose "Micka" by Frances Kay. Her own novel, "Janice Gentle Gets Sexy", was chosen for A Good Read in its year of paperback publication, 1994. "The Sex Life of My Aunt" (2002), her tenth novel, draws liberally on her own background and childhood, including something of her family uneasy relationships. There are strong autobiographical elements also in her twelfth novel, "Yesterday's Houses" (2006), about the beginning of a woman's