Stella Gibbons flashes of the novels' wit". Such lines as "my thoughts, like purple parrots / Brood / In the sick light" come dangerously close indeed to the overblown rhetoric she satirized in "Cold Comfort Farm": "How like yaks were your drowsy thoughts". The immediate and enduring success of "Cold Comfort Farm" dominated the rest of Gibbons's career. Neville thought that after so singular a success at the start of her career, the rest was something of an anticlimax, despite her considerable industry and undoubted skills. The 1985 edition of "The Oxford Companion to English Literature" defines Gibbons solely in terms of
Wieland (novel) Wieland (novel) Wieland: or, The Transformation: An American Tale, usually simply called Wieland, is the first major work by Charles Brockden Brown. First published in 1798, it distinguishes the true beginning of his career as a writer. "Wieland" is the first – and most famous – American Gothic novel. It has often been linked to "Caleb Williams" by William Godwin. Godwin's influence is clear, but Brown's writing is unique in its style. "Wieland" is often categorized under several subgenres other than gothic fiction, including horror, psychological fiction and epistolary fiction, which are listed at Project Gutenberg. Set sometime between the