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
The Water Gipsies (novel) The Water Gipsies (novel) The Water Gipsies is a romantic comedy novel by the British writer A. P. Herbert, which was first published in 1930. It portrays the adventures of Jane Bell and her sister Lily, who operate a barge along England's rivers and canals. Jane enjoys several romantic entanglements during the story. The novel is Herbert's best-known work, and reflected his lifelong love of British waterways. He lived in Hammersmith Terrace, and a thinly disguised version of "The Dove" pub appears as "The Pigeons". In 1932 the novel was made into a film directed by Maurice Elvey and starring