Stella Gibbons "Cold Comfort Farm"; it mentions none of her other works—while providing her "bêtes noires" Morgan and Mary Webb with full entries. To Gibbons, "Cold Comfort Farm" became "That Book" or "You-Know-What", its title never mentioned. Despite her growing irritation and expressed distaste for it, the book continued to be lauded by successive generations of critics, Boston described it as "one of those rare books of comic genius that imprints itself on the brain and can never afterwards be eradicated". A more negative view of the book has been expressed by the literary critic Mary Beard, who considers it "a rather
Stella Linden Stella Linden Stella Linden (born Stella M Marsden on 5 June 1919 - 23 January 2005) was an actress and writer, best known for mentoring playwright John Osborne and for writing the film "Two a Penny". She was the wife of actor Terrence Edward Duff—better known by his stage name Patrick Desmond. She died in 2005 in New Mexico. Stella was born to Ruby Mary Wimbush and Charles W Marsden in 1919. Her mother shared ownership of the Wimbush chain of confectionery shops in Birmingham with other members of the family. Stella was particularly close to her aunt, Olive Wimbush,