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Zusatztext NIGHTINGALE WOOD is in essence! a sprawling! delightful! eccentric fairy tale . . . There is romance galore! a transformative dress! and a ball! much dizzy kissing in hedgerows and beyond! spying! retribution and runaways! fights and a fire! poetry and heartbreak! a few weddings AND funerals! and a fairytale ending with a twist. What luxury to stumble upon this quirky book! and the fascinating modern woman who wrote it. It is a rare unadulterated pleasure and high time for its encore Informationen zum Autor 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. Klappentext Introduced by Sophie Dahl 'What luxury to stumble upon this quirky book, and the fascinating modern woman who wrote it. It is a rare unadulterated pleasure and high time for its encore' Sophie Dahl Life is not quite a fairytale for Viola. Left penniless, the young widow is forced to live with her late husband's dour family in a joyless old house. There's Mr Wither, a tyrannical miser; Mrs Wither, who is certain that her son married beneath him; and two unlovely sisters-in-law - one of whom is secretly 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 toward our Cinderella are, in short, not quite honourable . . . 'Nightingale Wood is very impressive . . . Gibbons is superb on middle class life in the years immediately before the Second World War, on the erosions of class division and ongoing snobbery . . . relying on icicle wit and sharp observation to lambast conventional morality. Gibbons also displays a tender side. There is real sadness in some of her characters, instead of deliberately heightened rural dolour - and it winds up as a love story that would please Jane Austen . . . I've loved every minute' Sam Jordison, Guardian Vorwort A modern, satirical fairytale that has been unavailable for decades, by the author of Cold Comfort Farm . Zusammenfassung A modern, satirical fairytale that has been unavailable for decades, by the author of Cold Comfort Farm....
