Cold Comfort Farm Cold Comfort Farm Cold Comfort Farm is a comic novel by English author Stella Gibbons, published in 1932. It parodies the romanticised, sometimes doom-laden accounts of rural life popular at the time, by writers such as Mary Webb. Following the death of her parents, the book's heroine, Flora Poste, finds she is possessed "of every art and grace save that of earning her own living". She decides to take advantage of the fact that "no limits are set, either by society or one's own conscience, to the amount one may impose on one's relatives", and settles on visiting her distant
Stella Gibbons a leading voice in the "Georgian" poetry movement, began to publish Gibbons's poems in his magazine, "The London Mercury". Squire also persuaded Longmans to publish the first collection of Gibbons's verses, entitled "The Mountain Beast", which appeared in 1930 to critical approval. By this time her by-line was appearing with increasing frequency in the "Standard". As part of a series on "Unusual Women" she interviewed, among others, the former royal mistress Lillie Langtry. The paper also published several of Gibbons's short stories. Despite this evident industry, Gibbons was dismissed from the "Standard" in August 1930. This was ostensibly an economy