Saturday 25 January 2014

Stella Gibbons



A very, very quick weekend miscellany (this week has been so hectic!) which is only one link, and one related thought - a friend forwarded me a link yesterday to the fact that two unpublished novels by Stella Gibbons have been discovered.

"How exciting!" thought I.  And then I remembered that two dozen of her novels have been published, and I've read three and a half of them.

12 comments:

  1. I do hope they finally publish them, but it's so odd that they're being presented in the news as if they had just been discovered in the attic (or, more appropriately perhaps, in the woodshed...). Gibbons's biographer, Reggie Oliver (also her nephew), had summaries on his website, which inspired me to add them to my Hopeless Wish List last year. And if I knew about them, then it's very odd if the agent for Gibbons' work didn't, as one of the stories claims. Perhaps she should have me as her assistant! :-)

    Oliver's website seems to have been archived now at http://web.archive.org/web/20061022091606/http://www.catharton.com/stellagibbons/works.html, if you're interested in his summaries.

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    1. How intriguing that they're not news! Good PR work from the agent, maybe...

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  2. Two dozen, really? Gawd. Now I feel overwhelmed and under-read! ;-)

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    1. Ha! So many of that period's writers seemed to get a book out every couple of years. Very demanding to their latterday fans...

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  3. Stella Gibbons fan checking in here! I've read all of her novels apart from 'Ticky' and 'The Swiss Summer', plus I've read the Reggie Oliver biography. I'm a little concerned that these 2 unpublished books may be the ones that he mentions as having been written at the very end of her life and not really considered up to her usual standard at the time. I certainly noticed a 'falling away' in her last published book, 'The Snow Woman'.

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    1. I remember you putting in a good word for her at the Possibly Persephone evening - but hadn't realised quite how many of her books you'd read! I'll be reviewing Here Be Dragons before too long... and have to admit it's my least favourite so far.

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  4. Ha! Ditto, Simon. Well, in my case it's only one title on my shelf waiting to be read.

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  5. My reaction was exactly the same Simon, except that I've only read two of her books! Intriguing, though...

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    1. Isn't it funny? I'll probably never read all 24, but I'm still excited about these extras.

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  6. I've read a few of her less-known novels, like Ticky (just weird) and My American (formulaic romance) and concluded that CCF was her one great work. Is that wrong?

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    1. I would definitely agree based on the few I've read, but Westwood was very good, and half of Bassett was great.

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