What genre is Cold Comfort Farm?
Cold Comfort Farm is a comic novel by English author Stella Gibbons, published in 1932. It parodies the romanticised, sometimes doom-laden accounts of rural life popular at the time, by writers such as Mary Webb.
What is Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons about?
Cold Comfort Farm is the amusing story of Flora Poste, a sensible young woman from London who goes to live with relatives in Sussex, the eccentric Starkadders. The author, Stella Gibbons, had grown up among weird relations. When she was just eleven she had to talk her father out of committing suicide,...
How many times has Cold Comfort Farm been adapted?
Adaptations Cold Comfort Farm has been adapted several times, including twice by BBC television. In 1968 a three-part serial was made, starring Sarah Badel as Flora Poste, Brian Blessed as Reuben, Peter Egan as Seth, and Alastair Sim as Amos. Joan Bakewell was the narrator.
What is cold farm farm?
Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Winner of the 1933 Femina Vie Heureuse Prize, COLD COMFORT FARM is a wickedly funny portrait of British rural life in the 1930s.
What is Cold Comfort Farm a parody of?
Cold Comfort Farm is a parody of the doomy, tragic, close-to-the-earth gothic novels of writers like Mary Webb and DH Lawrence, and, earlier, Thomas Hardy.
When was Cold Comfort Farm written?
1932Cold Comfort Farm, comic novel by Stella Gibbons, published in 1932, a successful parody of regional and rural fiction by such early 20th-century English writers as Mary Webb and D.H. Lawrence.
What is the story of Cold Comfort Farm?
Briefly summarized, Cold Comfort Farm concerns a London woman, Flora Poste, who loses her parents at the age of nineteen and decides to live with some of her relatives until she marries. She chooses a family of Sussex farming cousins, the Starkadders, and resolves to tidy up their lives for them.
Is Cold Comfort Farm a good book?
A hilarious and ruthless parody of rural melodramas and purple prose, Cold Comfort Farm is one of the best-loved comic novels of all time.
What was in the woodshed in Cold Comfort Farm?
Something illicit, immoral, illegal, or scandalous that is kept secret or hidden away from public sight. A line taken from Stella Gibbon's 1933 novel Cold Comfort Farm, in which a character discusses "something nasty in the woodshed" she witnessed as a child. Primarily heard in UK.
Who does Flora marry in Cold Comfort Farm?
AmosFlora is determined to sort all of them out, in particular her Cousin Judith, her husband Amos, and their three children, Reuben, Seth, and Elfine, who all live under the thumb of elderly Aunt Ada. Aunt Ada is the family matriarch, and she stays in an upstairs room, rarely coming down to make an appearance.
Who was obsessed about something nasty in the woodshed?
Ada Doom: Judith's mother, a reclusive, miserly widow, owner of the farm, who constantly complains of having seen "something nasty in the woodshed" when she was a girl. Adam Lambsbreath: 90-year-old farm hand, obsessed with his cows and with Elfine.
Where is Cold Comfort Farm filmed?
The production visited Kent where they filmed at Kent & East Sussex Railway which provided the trains for Flora's journey from London to her relatives at Cold Comfort Farm and Northiam station in East Sussex which is the fictional railway station of Beershorne.
What is the meaning of cold comfort in English?
Definition of cold comfort : quite limited sympathy, consolation, or encouragement.
How long does it take to read Cold Comfort Farm?
4 hours and 16 minutesThe average reader will spend 4 hours and 16 minutes reading this book at 250 WPM (words per minute).
What is Sukebind?
One of the greatest ironies of the book is that the word 'sukebind,' a plant invented by Gibbons to symbolise unbridled human lust, has now found its way into the OED. Indeed, the book is full of delightful parodies, many aimed at the pomposity of the literary establishment.
Where was cold Harbour farm filmed?
The production filmed on location in Kent at Kent & East Sussex Railway which provided the trains for Flora's journey from London to her relatives at Cold Comfort Farm and Northiam station which is the fictional railway station of Beershorne.
Where is the farm in Cold Comfort Farm?
SussexOn the death of her parents, Flora Poste decides to visit her relatives at Cold Comfort Farm in the fictional village of Howling in Sussex. Here she sets about trying to sort out their problems with the application of common sense and by bringing the farm firmly into the 20th Century.
Who were the actors in Cold Comfort Farm?
If, like me, you've seen the 1996 movie adaptation of Cold Comfort Farm, with Kate Beckinsa le, Ian McKellan, Joanna Lumley, Stephen Fry and Rufus Sewell (mmmm yum!), you'll know that there have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm and that Aunt Ada Doom saw something "narsty" in the woodshed when she was two.
Where was the bull's shed in the farm?
The bull's shed abutted upon the right corner of the dairy, which faced the cowsheds. The cowsheds faced the house, but the back door faced the bull's shed. From here a long-roofed barn extended the whole length of the octangle until it reached the house. Here it took a quick turn, and ended....The dairy overlooked the front door, in face of the extreme point of the triangle which formed the ancient buildings of the farmhouse.
What is Stella Gibbons's book Let Other Pens dwell on?
Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. Stella Gibbons turns her attention instead on having a good time and on romance, penning a rusticated novel of manners in which Flora Poste, a highly educated and sophisticated young lady from the London high society sets out to clear up the muddle of Cold Comfort Farm.
Is Flora a mean spirited book?
Everyone, in fact. Even Flora is not exempt from gentle ridicule. But it's not a mean-spirited book, nor a snobbish one.
Is Cold Comfort Farm satire?
Lawrence and Thomas Hardy. I haven't read much by the former mentioned authors to appreciate the full extent of Gibbons jabs, but it doesn 't matter because the humor is obvious. Gibbons writing was very clever and her cast of characters would have made Dickens proud. Very funny and very entertaining. 4.5 stars.
What year was Cold Comfort Farm filmed?
Cold Comfort Farm is a 1995 British comedy film directed by John Schlesinger and produced by the BBC and Thames Television, an adaptation of Stella Gibbons ' 1932 book of the same name, the film stars Kate Beckinsale, Joanna Lumley, Ian McKellen and Rufus Sewell. Originally broadcast on 1 January 1995 on the BBC, it was Schlesinger's final film shot in his home country of Britain, and was picked up for theatrical release in North America through Gramercy Pictures, where it was a small success.
How much did Cold Comfort Farm grosse?
In the opening weekend of the film's release in the United States, it grossed $4,139,000. During its theatrical release in North America, the film grossed $5,682,429.
What is Cold Comfort Farm?
Cold Comfort Farm is a parody of the doomy, tragic, close-to-the-earth gothic novels of writers like Mary Webb and DH Lawrence, and, earlier, Thomas Hardy. Where, for Webb or Hardy, a misstep, malformation or sin inexorably predicts a wasted, prematurely-ended life, or at least an awful lot of misery, Gibbons rolls up her sleeves ...
Who plays Amos in Cold Comfort Farm?
Home from loam … Ian McKellen as Amos Starkadder in ITV's adaptation of Cold Comfort Farm. Photograph: Alamy
Storyline
In England in the early 1930s, twenty-year-old Flora Poste (Kate Beckinsale), recently orphaned, and left with only one hundred pounds sterling a year, goes to stay with distant relatives on Cold Comfort Farm. Everyone on the gloomy farm is completely around the twist, but Flora tries to sort everything out. — John Oswalt <[email protected]>
Did you know
Director John Schlesinger had to pay for the blow-up from 16mm to 35mm, because neither the BBC, nor Thames Television, who owned the overseas rights, thought the movie would work in the theater, and therefore would not waste their money on the print. It was the fifth highest-earning British movie released in U.S. theaters that year.
When was Cold Comfort Farm published?
Gibbons was delighted with the suggestion, and the work was published as Cold Comfort Farm in September 1932 . The plot concerns the efforts of "a rational, bossy London heroine" to bring order and serenity to her rustic relations, the Starkadders, on their run-down Sussex farm.
What genre was Cold Comfort Farm?
After Cold Comfort Farm, a satire on the genre of rural-themed "loam and lovechild" novels popular in the late 1920s, most of Gibbons's novels were based within the middle-class suburban world with which she was familiar. Gibbons became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1950.
What was the atmosphere in the Kentish Town House?
The atmosphere in the Kentish Town house echoed that of the elder Gibbons's household, and was dominated by Telford's frequent bouts of ill-temper, drinking, womanising and occasional acts of violence. Stella later described her father as "a bad man, but a good doctor".
What was the name of the farm in the book Curse God Farm?
Gibbons's chosen title for her novel had been "Curse God Farm", before her friend Elizabeth Coxhead, who had connections in the Hinckley district of Leicestershire, suggested "Cold Comfort" as an alternative, using the name of a farm in the Hinckley area.
Who was the editor of Punch magazine?
From 1954, having accepted an invitation from Malcolm Muggeridge, the editor of Punch, Gibbons provided frequent contributions to the magazine for the following 15 years. Among these was a science fiction story, "Jane in Space", written in the style of Jane Austen.
Storyline
Young Flora Poste leaves the funeral of her parents and finds herself alone with insubstantial means ("barely enough to keep her in stockings and furs") in mid-1930's London. The young 20-something has no means (nor intentions) of developing her own career save to follow in the footsteps of Jane Austen in becoming an author . when she's 50.
Did you know
Freddie Jones also starred in the 1995 version of Cold Comfort Farm (1995) as Adam Lambsbreath.
