Stella Gibbons detestation of pomposity and pretence. Truss has described Gibbons as "the Jane Austen of the 20th century", a parallel which the novelist Malcolm Bradbury thought apt; Flora Poste in "Cold Comfort Farm", with her "higher common sense", is "a Jane-ite heroine transformed into a clear-eyed modern woman". Bradbury also observed that many of Gibbons's novels end in Austen-like nuptials. Truss highlights the importance that Gibbons places on detachment as a necessary adjunct to effective writing: "Like many a good doctor, she seems to have considered sympathy a peculiar and redundant emotion, and a terrible waste of time." This matter-of-fact quality
Charles Gibbons for the Postal Telegraph Company. In 1932 he started The Minute Man Messenger Service. In 1940, Gibbons was an unsuccessful candidate for the Stoneham, Massachusetts Board of Selectmen. He ran again the following year and was elected easily. In 1942 he was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Gibbons soon became a major figure in state Republican politics. In 1949 he was elected Republican floor leader and four years later was elected Speaker of the House. The Republicans lost control of the House in 1955 and Gibbons spent the next two years as Minority Leader. In 1956, Gibbons was