Product Description

A classic of its kind, a dazzling parody of the earthy, melodramatic novels of the period. Flora Poste has been expensively educated to do everything but earn her own living. When she is orphaned at twenty, she decides her only option is to go and live with her relatives the Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm. What relatives, though: Judith, alone in her grief; raving old Ada Doom, who once saw something nasty in the woodshed; Amos, called by God; Seth, smouldering with sex; and Elfine, whojust needs a little polish. Flora feels it incumbent upon her to bring order into the chaos. And she turns out to be remarkably good at it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26059 in Books
• Published on: 1998-09-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

About the Author
Stella Gibbons was born in 1902. She studied journalism at University College, London, and then worked for ten years on various papers, including The Evening Standard. COLD COMFORT FARM, her first novel, was published in 1932, and was followed by other novels, short stories, and poems. She died in 1989.

Customer Reviews

SOMETHING NASTY HAPPENED IN THE WOODSHED...
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 innocuously 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.

A total joy!
Cold Comfort Farm is a total joy from beginning to end. Stella Gibbons populated her book with wonderful characters and takes delight in using her command of the English language to extract humour from their every whim. Her style is not unlike Evelyn Waugh and none the worse for the comparison. Small wonder that this slim volume has become among the most loved comic novels of the 20th Century. Heartily recommended for the pleasure of one and all.

A timeless treasure.
Cold Comfort Farm is the tale of Flora Poste, an orphan of 19, who is in every sense of the word a modern women. She decides to spend time with her farmer cousins the Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm in deepest Sussex. The Starkadder family consists of an amazing array of characters. Aunt Ada Doom, a control freak of serious proportions; who when no bigger than a 'titty wren' "saw something" in the woodshed. What, we are never told. Aunt Ada uses this incident to help maintain her all prevading control over the family. Cousin Judith and her husband Amos, who's spare time is spent preaching "hell fire and brimstone" to a local sect called the "Brethern" His yet unrecognised goal, but soon to be fulfilled, is to become a Preacher touring the county in a Ford van. There are the sons, Seth and Rubin. Seth is a smooth, oily, handsome young man who's abiding passion is the movies closely followed by "molloking". When Flora asks what molloking is, she quickly decides that she need not know. Rubin the eldest son is a man of the soil. His only interest is the farm. His whole world stops and starts at the farm gate. Elfine, a woodland sprite of the most intidy sort, in severe need of guidance. Adam Lambsbreath, so sunk in the ways of Cold Comfort Farm as to be at one with the dumb beasts he tends. The animals themselves, Viper the great gelding, Big Business the bull and of course, Aimless, Feckless, Graceless and Pointless the milk cows, who seem to understand more than their human guardians. These are the people that Flora takes her on herself to "help and guide", to what in her opinion are more fulfilled, satisfactory and tidy lifes. Needless to say not without a great deal of opposition. The humour is wicked, irreverent and eagle eyed. The very absurdities of the story are so true to real life that it is completely believable. A gem that must give pleasure to any reader, a must for any library.