Stella Gibbons many years, when in 1965 she contributed an essay to "Light on C.S. Lewis", a review of that writer's work edited by Jocelyn Gibb. In 1966 she wrote an essay for "Punch", "Genesis of a Novel", in which she mused on the detrimental effect of "Cold Comfort Farm" on her long term career. She likened the book to "some unignorable old uncle, to whom you have to be grateful because he makes you a handsome allowance, but is often an embarrassment and a bore". Gibbons made her last overseas trip in 1966, to Grenoble in France where she visited her
Stella Gibbons quickly forgave him. He left the theatre in 1949 to become a director of a book club specialising in special editions, and later bought a bookshop in the Archway district of London. His health failed in the late 1950s and in 1958 he was diagnosed with cancer of the liver. He died in July 1959 at Oakshott Avenue. After Webb's death, Gibbons remained at Oakshott Avenue and continued to write novels. From 1961 she rented a summer house at Trevone in Cornwall, which became the setting for her 1962 novel "The Weather at Tregulla". She returned to literary criticism after