Product Description

Life is not quite a fairytale for poor Viola. Left penniless, the young widow is forced to live with her late husband's family in a joyless old house. There's Mr Wither, a tyrannical old miser, Mrs Wither, who thinks Viola is just a common shop girl, and two unlovely sisters-in-law, one of whom is in love with the chauffeur. Only the prospect of the charity ball can raise Viola's spirits - especially as Victor Spring, the local prince charming, will be there. But Victor's intentions towards our Cinderella are, in short, not quite honourable ...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18775 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Review
'NIGHTINGALE WOOD is in essence, a sprawling, delightful, eccentric fairy tale ... There is romance galore, a transformative dress, and a ball, much dizzy kissing in hedgerows and beyond, spying, retribution and runaways, fights and a fire, poetry and heartbreak, a few weddings AND funerals, and a fairytale ending with a twist. What luxury to stumble upon this quirky book, and the fascinating modern woman who wrote it. It is a rare unadulterated pleasure and high time for its encore' Sophie Dahl

About the Author
Stella Dorothea Gibbons was born in London in 1902. She studied journalism at University College, London, and worked for ten years on various papers, including the Evening Standard. Her first novel Cold Comfort Farm (1932) was (and is) hugely successful. She married the actor and singer Allan Webb, who died in 1959. They had one daughter. Stella Gibbons died in 1989.

Customer Reviews

A delightful reprint. More please....
Nightingale Wood is a kind of buffer state outside the village; a handy place for confrontational or dramatic meetings, but most of the action takes place in, and the outside world is seen through the prism of, the Withers' household in Essex, where the newly widowed daughter-in-law Viola is shortly to arrive and take up residence. The patriarchical Mr Withers could be said, in Siegfried Sassoon's words, "to hunt a bitch pack" as there are two unmarried daughters, his wife, and three women in the kitchen, and only the god-like chauffeur Saxon to redress the balance. One further "character" haunts the book, like a spectre at the feast, and that is Money. The ups and downs of Mr Withers's financial affairs govern the daily happiness at The Eagles and affect the atmosphere crucially. He is like a marionette whose puppeteer is £sd.

"never could be sure what his money was up to........ he prowled uneasily after it in the financial columns of the Press".

"Mr. Withers's heart was fairly light as he set out for a walk ....... it was a fine day, the money was better..."

"Mr Withers, because the money had again rallied, was on top of the world. He showed it by suddenly giving the four women a pound each."

"It is a beautiful sight, Victor's money. It grows: it runs healthily round the country like a sound bloodstream: it never suffers from the palpitations and nerve storms that affect Mr. Withers's money".

It could be said that worrying about his money has robbed Mr Withers of many simple pleasures, and he acts in an emotional vacuum, completely unaware of the concerns and desires of the other women under his roof, except to deny and control them. In the main, they manage to subvert his plans, and each of the three young women achieves what she wants out of life despite his intervention. Stella Gibbons writes with delicate irony and a wry comic touch; having read of Mr Withers's combover on page 1, it is quite hard to take him seriously after that. A recurring motif after the Infirmary Ball, as the ladies prepare for bed, is the decreasing cost of their face cream........ Phyllis's at 6/6 a pot, Tina's at 2/6, while Viola "was already dreaming, with her face covered with a cream at sixpence a tube and a dance programme under her pillow".

If any publishers are out there wondering which seam to mine next, consider the OOP novels of Stella Gibbons.

More reprints from this author please
Oh what a lovely lovely book.

I am learning humility late in life as I discover and love authors I turned my nose up at years ago. Stella Gibbons joins these distinguished ranks and I am going to own up and say I have never read Cold Comfort Farm (I now have a copy waiting to go), despite the fact that the author used to be a regular reader at HIghgate Library where I worked in the 1960s. She was a very quiet, elegant, charming lady and though I knew who she was, I was not overwhelmed with excitement as I was then a stripling of 18 and not impressed by what I saw as authors of 'nice' books. I do remember her coming in one morning looking rather cross and her telling me that she had had a wonderful idea for a book which came to her in the middle of the night, only she did not write it down, and now she had forgotten it. I wonder which one that was?

In Nightingale Wood we meet Viola Withers, a young penniless widow, who is forced to live with her late husband's family in a cold joyless house. Mr Wither, a miser and a misery who rules the roost and who will not let his daughter Madge have a dog, Mrs Wither who thinks Viola is just a common shop girl and Tina, who is in love with Saxon, the chauffeur.

Viola meets and falls in love with Victor Spring, the local Prince Charming, dashing, handsome, rich and clever, but who dallies with her feelings while becoming engaged to the oh so suitable, but shrewish, Phyllis. Viola finds her life repressive and boring but can see no future other than to stay where she is and moulder away. She yearns for freedom and happiness:

"She looked across the saltings to where the sea was and as she lifted her face, rosy with the steady smoothing of the cold wind, the sun darted a bright gold beam across the marshes......she heard a strangely thrilling noise....nearer and nearer it came, until suddenly there swept over her head a flock of wild swans, rushing on white gold wings into the sunset. Laughing with excitement, she ran down the track the follow their flight but the sunset, and tears, dazzled her and she could not see.

They were so beautiful....wouldn't it be wonderful if she could always feel like she had felt when they thundered over her head, not wanting anyone, happy to be quite alone and looking at something as beautiful as those swans?

But the sun had gone behind the clouds again and the wind was getting up, it was nearly half past three and the last bus left at four."

This book is sheer delight from start to finish. It is funny, witty and amusing, but also sympathetic and gentle, even to the ghastly Mr Withers, who really is a tyrant in his home:

"Mrs Withers came in but he took no notice of her because he had seen her before"

but

"Emmie's a good wife to me, a very good wife, suddenly thought Mr Wither. And then, like a cold wind - What shall I do when she's gone?"

The story of how the Withers family find love and/or fulfilment and whether Viola marries her Prince Charming or not against all the odds, is just lovely (sorry to overuse this word but cannot think of an alternative), and kept me up till late last night fighting to keep awake in order to finish Nightingale Wood. Cornflower Books has also reviewed this title so check out what she has to say here .


Off now to check all of Stella Gibbon's output and make a note of all their titles as I am compiling my wish list for my visit to Hay on Wye next month. I have a sneaky feeling I am going to come back with a bootful of books.

Oh I do hope so....

Nightingale Wood... should be reprinted...
"Nightingale Wood" by Stella Gibbons is a book which deserves to be reprinted. I own an old battered copy which I treasure dearly. More than any other author she reminds me of Jane Austin. A similar sly humour and pithy comment in characterization.. This is the first book by Stella Gibbons I have read and have not met anyone else who has read it. I am eagerly seeking other books written by her of which the most well known is "Cold Comfort Farm" If you can get a copy of "Nightingale Wood" read it and you will love it.