Cold Comfort Farm

Stella Gibbons was born on January 5, 1902 in London. She married Allan Bourne Webb in 1933 and had one child. Raised in a poor and unhappy home, she used her vivid imagination as a means of escape, often telling stories to entertain her younger brothers and other children in the neighborhood. She held numerous jobs including drama critic, reporter, and fashion writer and was a frequent contributor to magazines such as Punch and Tattler, writing short stories and poetry. Gibbons is best known for her novel Cold Comfort Farm. A satirical portrait of rural British life in the 1930's, it won the Femina Vie Heureuse prize in 1933. In the book, Flora, a socialite, is orphaned and forced to live with relatives in the country. Flora tries to bring order and sense to the gloomy Starkadders on Cold Comfort Farm. To the delight of readers, this novel has been adapted several times as successful British films. Stella Gibbons died on December 19, 1989 in London. Award-winning illustrator and children's author, Quentin Blake was born in 1932. His first drawings were published in "Punch" when he was 16. He has illustrated almost 300 titles some in collaboration with famous writers such as Russell Hoban, John Yeoman and Roald Dahl. He is the creator of characters such as Mister Magnolia and Mrs. Armitage. His works have earned him numerous awards including the Whitbread Award, the Kate Greenaway Medal, the Emil/Kurt Maschler Award, the Bologna Ragazzi Prize, and in 2002 the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration. In 1999, he was selected as the First Children's Laureate.