Stella Gibbons even visit literary squares, or love in literary triangles". Truss posits further reasons why Gibbons did not become a literary canon. Because she was a woman who wrote amusingly, she was classified as "middlebrow"; furthermore, she was published by Longmans, a non-literary publisher. Her lampooning of the literary establishment in the spoof dedication of "Cold Comfort Farm" to one "Anthony Pookworthy" did not amuse that establishment, who were further offended by the book's mockery of the writing of such canonical figures as Lawrence and Hardy—hence Virginia Woolf's reaction to the "Prix Étranger" award. Her belief in what she called "the
Stella Gibbons 1850 by Frances Buss, was among the first in England to offer girls an academic education, and by 1915 was widely recognised as a model girls' school. After the haphazard teaching methods of her governesses, Stella initially had difficulty in adjusting to the strict discipline of the school, and found many of its rules and practices oppressive. She shared this attitude with her contemporary Stevie Smith, the future Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry winner, who joined the school in 1917. Although a moderate performer in school subjects, Stella found outlets for her talents by writing stories for her fellow-pupils, becoming