New Releases by Stella GIBBONS

Esta Navidad llegan las Hermanas Raras, una deliciosa antología de cuentos firmados por las grandes damas del pulp, seleccionados con mano experta por Mike Ashley. Brujas, vampiras, mujeres que se funden con sus deseos más oscuros, madres monstruosas, hijas vengativas, damas con el alma podrida y jovencitas que ríen mientras todo arde... Esta Navidad llegan las Hermanas Raras, una deliciosa antología de cuentos firmados por las grandes damas del pulp, seleccionados con mano experta por Mike Ashley para la British Library. Catorce autoras —de la célebre Margaret St. Clair a la enigmática Allison V. Harding, pasando por Tanith Lee, la baronesa Greye La Spina o incluso Lucy Maud Montgomery en su noche más gótica— firman estos relatos turbios, sugestivos y altamente adictivos, nacidos en las páginas de Weird Tales y otras revistas míticas entre los años veinte y los setenta. Tesoros recuperados del subsuelo del horror, el suspense y la ciencia ficción, estas historias están habitadas por ratas que piensan, niños con secretos atroces, amantes espectrales, figuras que se duplican en el espejo y presencias que te observan desde la alacena... con mucha paciencia. Son cuentos que arañan, que ríen entre dientes, que brillan de puro malicia, y que nos recuerdan que las mujeres siempre han sabido jugar —y reinar— en los márgenes de lo raro.

Cold Comfort Farm is a comic novel by English author Stella Gibbons, published in 1932. It parodies the romanticised, sometimes doom-laden accounts of rural life popular at the time, by writers such as Mary Webb. Following the death of her parents, the book and ''s heroine, Flora Poste, finds she is possessed "of every art and grace save that of earning her own living". She decides to take advantage of the fact that "no limits are set, either by society or one and ''s own conscience, to the amount one may impose on one and ''s relatives", and settles on visiting her distant relatives at the isolated Cold Comfort Farm in the fictional village of Howling in Sussex. The inhabitants of the farm – Aunt Ada Doom, the Starkadders, and their extended family and workers – feel obliged to take her in to atone for an unspecified wrong once done to her father.

Wilfred Davis, quiet, retired, respectable widower, is sitting and sobbing on a park bench. He has lost his daughter and any sense of purpose. A mysterious stranger passes him a handkerchief, and strikes up a conversation that leads to friendship and an unconventional new home for Wilfred. Mary Davis wants only four things out of life: a husband and three children, so at seventeen she runs away from school, her father and her home and moves to London to find them. Only a few months later Mary is engaged, but love and marriage promise to be very different from her childhood daydreams. For Mary and Wilfred, it seems Fate has taken a hand, or is there another kind of guiding spirit at play? Stella Gibbons'' final novel, written in the 1970s but only discovered many years after her death, is published here for the first time.

Angleterre, dans le comté de Herts. Seconde Guerre mondiale. Constance Fielding est horrifiée par le conflit, mais règne, satisfaite, sur la confortable demeure familiale, Sunglade. Elle y vit avec une cousine faussement effacée et son frère, Kenneth, qu''elle a condamné au célibat. Mais la guerre et le blitz l''obligent à remplir les chambres. Elle accueille, bon gré mal gré, Betty, trop belle à son goût, – amour de jeunesse de Kenneth – et Richard, son fils. Sans oublier Vartouhi, jeune réfugiée baïramienne, travailleuse et pimpante, qui devient vite indispensable à Miss Fielding et à laquelle Ken ne semble pas insensible. À moins que Betty n''emporte finalement la mise ? À cela s''ajoute les visites imprévues, notamment de Fielding père, indigne vieillard, et de Cupidon, au grand désarroi de Constance. Triomphera-t-elle de ce tourbillon d''émotions qui menace sa tranquillité ? Stella Gibbons nous emporte dans un savoureux chassé-croisé amoureux. Son Célibataire alterne réflexions grinçantes et descriptions brillantes pour ressusciter l''Angleterre en guerre et sa bourgeoisie pétrie de certitudes qui vacillent. Divertissement ? Sans doute, mais où la romancière fait montre de son habileté, en jouant des conventions pour mieux les dénoncer.

Creepy. Peculiar. Fairy. Goblin. Liar. Weirdo. Crank. Genius. No one knows what to make of Juliet Slater, not even her mother. And clothes, boys, school, friends, the changing seasons and what other people think - none of these things seem to matter to Juliet. She spends hours in her room with incomprehensible mathematical text books, her mind voyaging in strange seas of thought, alone. Is she a genius? It might take the rest of her life to find out. While Stella Gibbons was celebrated for her beloved bestseller Cold Comfort Farm, the manuscript for Pure Juliet lay unseen and forgotten until it was brought to light by her family in 2014, and is published here for the first time in Vintage Classics. A tale that travels from an eco-millionaire''s British country idyll to an Arabian Nights-style fantasy of the Middle East, this is a treat for fans of this witty, curious and always surprising author.

Ruinée après la mort de son mari, la jeune Viola est contrainte de quitter Londres pour s''installer chez sa belle-famille, dans l''Essex. Celle-ci la méprise en raison de ses origines modestes et se montre peu chaleureuse. Viola peine à trouver sa place dans cette grande maison austère et sombre peu à peu dans la déprime. Jusqu''à ce qu''elle croise le chemin de Victor, un riche et bel héritier, avec qui elle se laisse aller à flirter... Ignorant que ce dernier est sur le point de se marier.

Thrown out of her long-established office job, Miss Christine Smith takes up a new role as housekeeper for a group of middle-aged artists. Charmed by a previous mystical experience, her spirituality is nurtured further by the tenants, who seem stuck in their own personal lull. Written in the 1960s, surrounded by social and political transitions, the novel focuses on change, or the lack thereof.

** AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4 BOOK AT BEDTIME ** ''Stella Gibbons''s gift is very special'' Daily Express Amy, a neglected motherless child in 1920s London meets Robert, a wealthy American boy. It''s an encounter she will never forget. My American follows the lives and loves of Amy Lee and Robert Vorst: from a chance childhood meeting to the comic, tragic and romantic trysts that follow. Amy, a baker''s daughter, has dreams of becoming a writer, whilst Robert is destined to be a doctor. Later, embarking on a lecture tour in Depression-era America, she is reminded of her childhood friend and endeavours to find him. My American is an unashamedly romantic novel by Stella Gibbons, author of the beloved satire Cold Comfort Farm.

Available for the first time since its original publication more than fifty years ago, Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm is a charming collection whose hilarious title story features Christmas dinner with the Starkadders before Flora''s arrival. With Adam playing Santa while draped in Mrs. Starkadders''s shawls, the family shares their traditional "Christmas pudding"-a mélange containing random objects of doom foretelling the coming year: a coffin nail for death, a bad sixpence for financial ruin, and a menthol cone to indicate that the lucky recipient will go "blind wi'' headache." These lively tales will delight anyone who loves Stella Gibbons and her signature wit.

Gladys and Annie Barnes are sisters living in near poverty in a cottage in Highgate. When they discover that a new landlord is about to take over and install his ill wife in the cottage next door, the sisters are in fear of being thrown out of their home. What does happen involves the sisters, their friends and neighbors, and the landlord and his wife and daughter in something much more frightening and bizarre.

An emotionally cold woman thaws out when brought into contact with a young family of different social background.

Left penniless, young widow Viola is forced to live with her late husband''s family. There''s Mr Wither, a tyrannical old miser, Mrs Wither, who thinks Viola is just a common shop girl, & two sisters-in-law, one of whom is in love with the chauffeur.

In St Alberics, Hertfordshire, stands a newly built family home: Sunglades. Its seven rooms house Kenneth and Constance Fielding, middle-aged bachelor and spinster, along with Kenneth''s old flame, an industrious Balkan exile, a young economist and the Fieldings'' raffish father. Together they attempt to create a rural idyll.