Nightingale Wood
By (Author) Stella Gibbons
Introduction by Sophie Dahl
Little, Brown Book Group
Virago Press Ltd
1st June 2009
2nd April 2009
United Kingdom
Paperback
400
Width 127mm, Height 197mm, Spine 26mm
276g
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...
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 - Sophie Dahl
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 - Sophie DahlStella Dorothea Gibbons was born in London in 1902. She studied journalism at University College, London, and worked for ten years on various papers, including the Evening Standard. Her first novel Cold Comfort Farm (1932) was (and is) hugely successful. She married the actor and singer Allan Webb, who died in 1959. They had one daughter. Stella Gibbons died in 1989.