Westwood - Softcover

Gibbons, Stella

Softcover

ISBN 10: 009952872X ISBN 13: 9780099528722

Publisher: Vintage Classics, 2011

Synopsis

Set in wartime Highgate, Westwood tells the story of Margaret Steggles, a plain bookish girl whose mother has told her that she is ‘not the type that attracts men.’ What she lacks for in looks she makes up for with a romantic nature and cultural aspirations. By contrast, Margaret’s best friend, Hilda, has a sunny temperament and is effortlessly attractive.

When Margaret finds a ration book in Hampstead Health the playwright Gerard Challis enters both their lives. Challis is delighted with his own work and lines such as, ‘Suffering is the anvil upon which the crystal sword of integrity is hammered’. He has no use for humour. Margaret slavishly adores Challis and his artistic circle; Challis idolizes Hilda for her hair, her eyes and Hilda find’s Gerard’s romantic overtures a bit of a bind. This is a delightful wistful tale of romantic entanglements and self-reliance.

About this title

About the Author

Stella Gibbons was born in London in 1902. She went to the North London Collegiate School and studied journalism at University College, London. She then worked for ten years on various papers, including the Evening Standard. Stella Gibbons is the author of twenty-five novels, three volumes of short stories, and four volumes of poetry. Her first publication was a book of poems, The Mountain Beast (1930) and her first novel Cold Comfort Farm (1932) won the Femina Vie Heuruse Prize for 1933. Among her works are Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm (1940) Westwood (1946), Conference at Cold Comfort Farm (1959) and Starlight (1967). She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1950. In 1933 she married the actor and singer Allan Webb. They had one daughter. Stella Gibbons died in 1989.

Review

"Westwood captures the heart, right from its opening pages... as an account of what it was like to be an ordinary young woman in wartime London - no stockings, no chocolate, no men - it can hardly be bettered. How did it, I wonder, evade fresh new soft covers for so long?" -- Rachel Cooke * Observer * "A wartime masterpiece" * Evening Standard * "Stella Gibbons is the Jane Austen of the 20th century" -- Lynne Truss "Gibbons was an acute and witty observer, and her dissection of the British class system is spot-on" * Mail on Sunday * "You show up a group of characters, all of whom are discontented and unhappy. Yet the feeling that comes through very powerfully is that life is wonderful, in spite of individual bitterness and frustration." -- Fan letter * Letter to Stella Gibbons from Henry Parris *

Edition details

• Publisher: Vintage Classics
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 009952872X
• ISBN 13: 9780099528722
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 464