Cold Comfort Farm

First published in 1932, Stella Gibbons has created a cast of largely morbid characters inhabiting a family property in Sussex, Cold Comfort Farm. The book was written as a parody of rural novels popular at the time. Nineteen year old Flora Poste lives in the city but when her parents die from the Spanish flu and leave her with little money she contacts relatives to locate a new home. The only invitation received is from her cousins at Cold Comfort Farm. Flora survives this culture shock by deciding to change the lives of the people she meets in this country environment. References are made to a wrong done to her family previously but this is never explained. Neither do we learn what Aunt Ada Doom saw in the woodshed when she was young. The book is populated with amusing characters and events. It is best read in one sitting.