Cold Comfort Farm (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) - Softcover

Gibbons, Stella

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0143039598 ISBN 13: 9780143039594

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2006

Synopsis

"Quite simply one of the funniest satirical novels of the last century." —Nancy Pearl, NPR's Morning Edition

The deliriously entertaining Cold Comfort Farm is "very probably the funniest book ever written" (The Sunday Times, London), a hilarious parody of D. H. Lawrence's and Thomas Hardy's earthy, melodramatic novels. When the recently orphaned socialite Flora Poste descends on her relatives at the aptly named Cold Comfort Farm in deepest Sussex, she finds a singularly miserable group in dire need of her particular talent: organization.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About this title

About the Author

Stella Dorothea Gibbons (1902-1989) was born in London. A novelist, poet and short-story writer, her first novel, Cold Comfort Farm, won the Femina Vie Heuruse Prize for 1933. Amongst her other novels are Miss Linsey and Pa,Nightingale Wood, Westwood, Conference at Cold Comfort Farm, and Beside the Pearly Water (1954).

Lynne Truss is a writer and journalist. She is the author of the number one bestseller, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, which has sold more than two million copies, won the national British Book Award, and was on the New York Times bestseller list or forty-five weeks. She lives in Brighton, England.

Roz Chast is a regular cartoonist for The New Yorker, and her work has also appeared in Redbook, Scientific American, Fast Company, and the Harvard Business Review. Her memoir, Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, was a finalist for the National Book Award.

From AudioFile

Narrator Anna Massey has her work cut out for her as she takes on the eccentric Starr family of Cold Comfort Farm. Massey conveys humor and even a touch of suspense. The sights, sounds, even the smells of the farm are evoked amid the minutia of Gibbons's details. The very sounds of the words have as much effect as the tale they tell. Gibbons's use of melodrama popular in the early 1900's, to tell a romantic tale while simultaneously satirizing the genre, makes Massey's job more challenging. She manages quite well. The resurrection of the farm from brooding ineffectuality to normal human activity is worth listening to over and over. D.P.D. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0143039598
• ISBN 13: 9780143039594
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256
• Illustrator: Chast Roz