Nightingale Wood
'Gibbons is superb on middle class life' SAM JORDISON, GUARDIAN
'A sharp-edged romantic comedy, we have a chance to see what we've been missing' DAILY MAIL
'What luxury to stumble upon this quirky book, and the fascinating modern woman who wrote it' SOPHIE DAHL
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 . . .
Stella Dorothea Gibbons (1902-1989) was born in London. She studied journalism at University College, London and worked for ten years on various papers, including the Evening Standard. She married the actor and singer Allan Webb. They had one daughter.
Gibbons is the author of twenty-five novels, three volumes of short stories, and four volumes of poetry. Her first novel Cold Comfort Farm (1932) was an immediate success and won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize for 1933. Among her works are Nightingale Wood (1938), The Bachelor (1944), Westwood (1946) and Starlight (1967). She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1950.