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Review
? Quite simply one of the funniest satirical novels of the last century.?
?Nancy Pearl, NPR's "Morning Edition"
? Delicious . . . "Cold Comfort Farm" has the sunniness of a P. G. Wodehouse and the comic aplomb of Evelyn Waugh's "Scoop".?
?"The Independent" (London)
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
?Nancy Pearl, NPR's "Morning Edition"
? Delicious . . . "Cold Comfort Farm" has the sunniness of a P. G. Wodehouse and the comic aplomb of Evelyn Waugh's "Scoop".?
?"The Independent" (London)
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Book Description
Stella Gibbons' novel is a wickedly funny portrait of British rural life in the 1930s. Flora, a recently orphaned socialite, moves in with her country relatives, the gloomy Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm.
- A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition with French flaps, rough front, and luxurious packaging
- Features an introduction from Lynne Truss and cover illustrations by Roz Chast
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First Sentence
The education bestowed on Flora Poste by her parents had been expensive, athletic and prolonged; and when they died within a few weeks of one another during the annual epidemic of the influenza or Spanish Plague which occurred in her twentieth year, she was discovered to possess every art and grace save that of earning her own living. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
The education bestowed on Flora Poste by her parents had been expensive, athletic and prolonged; and when they died within a few weeks of one another during the annual epidemic of the influenza or Spanish Plague which occurred in her twentieth year, she was discovered to possess every art and grace save that of earning her own living. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Somethin' nasty in the wqoodshed,
By E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME) (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Cold Comfort Farm: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (Paperback)
"There have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm."That rather ominous announcement sets the tone for "Cold Comfort Tale," a slyly comic tale about a modern young woman who decides to "tidy up" a backward Sussex farm. Gibbons' deft sense of humour and entertaining characters bring alive what could have been just another coming-of-age novel. Young Flora Poste unexpectedly finds herself orphaned, with only a tiny yearly allowance. But instead of getting a job and apartment, she decides to go live with relatives, so she can get life experience, tidy up, and make life nice and orderly. After a few vetos, Flora decides to go to Cold Comfort Farm, a "doomed house" whose inhabitants feel they owe a debt to her. When she arrives, she finds a clan of inbred Sussex hillbillies, including her grimly religious uncle, depressed aunt, "highly sexed" cousins, a very fertile farm girl, and the crazed matriarch, Aunt Ada Doom, who "saw something nasty in the woodshed." Even worse, a pompous writer is infatuated with her. But Flora is determined to make things orderly, and so she begins changing Cold Comfort Farm... It takes a really good writer to straddle the line between spoofery and a serious book. Stella Gibbons was one such writer, and like Anita Loos, she was happy to eye everything humorously: the idle wealthy (Mary Smiling and her bra collection), people who live in squalor and hate it, but aren't willing to change (the Farm inhabitants), and even intellectuals ("Do you believe women have souls?"). Even the livestock gets funny names like Feckless, Graceless and Arsenic. For the most part, "Cold Comfort Farm" does seem orderly and tidy -- Flora drags it into the 20th century, sends people off to better lives, and arranges marriages, including one for her fey cousin to a young aristocrat. The only flaw is the ending: Gibbons never tells us what Flora's "rights" are, what Aunt Ada saw, or what happened with Flora's dad. At first, Flora comes across as rather manipulative and shallow. The odd thing is, as the book progresses, we see that Flora's liking for tidiness is essentially good-hearted. Like one of Jane Austen's heroines, she does these things not just for herself, but for their sakes as well -- she wants a "happily-ever-after" for everybody, including the mad matriarch, her womanizing cousin, and fire-and-brimstone uncle. This edition is a particularly nice one, with a whimsical cartoony cover that suits the tone of the book very well, and an interesting foreword by Lynn Truss, who knows a few things about tidiness, order, and humorous language herself. While the ending of the book is not as tidy and orderly as I'd hoped, "Cold Comfort Farm" is still an entertainingly wry novel -- call it a comedy of improving manners.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
SOMETHING NASTY HAPPENED IN THE WOODSHED...,
By
This review is from: Penguin Classics Cold Comfort Farm (Paperback)
Published in 1932, this novel is a hysterically funny, tongue in cheek parody of the heavy handed, gloomy novels of some early twentieth century English writers who had previously been so popular. Tremendously successful when first published, "Cold Comfort Farm" caused quite a stir in its time.The novel starts out innocuosly enough, when well educated Flora Poste finds herself orphaned at the age of twenty. Discovering that her father was not the wealthy man she believed him to be, she is resigned to the fate of having to live on a hundred pounds a year. Opting to live with relatives, rather than earn her bread, she seeks out a most unlikely set of relations, the odd Starkadder family who live in Howling, Sussex. Therein begins what is certainly one of the funniest novels ever written. When Flora arrives in Howling, she meets her odd relatives, who live in neglected, ramshackle "Cold Comfort Farm", where they still wash the dishes with twigs, and have cows named Graceless, Pointless, Feckless, and Aimless. Headed by a seventy nine year old matriarch, Flora's aunt, Ada Doom Starkadder, who has not been right in the head since she "saw something nasty happen in the woodshed" nearly seventy years ago, they are a motley and strange crew indeed. Confronted with their dismal and gloomy existence, Flora sets about trying to put things to right. Peppered with eccentric, memorable characters, this book will take the reader on a journey not easily forgotten. It is one that is sure to make the reader revisit this novel yet again, like an old friend who is missed too soon.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful little know novel,
By Shields R. Failing (Kelowna BC) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Cold Comfort Farm: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (Paperback)
If you like Adrian Mole, Nick Hornby, Ben Elton, Nancy Mitford, Evelyn Waugh, you will love Cold Comfort Farm, one of the most under-rated and little know comic masterpieces in the english language.You owe it to yourself to find your inner Flora Poste.
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