
Cold Comfort Farm
by Stella Gibbonsliterary work· published 1932
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When sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste is orphaned at nineteen, she decides her only choice is to descend upon relatives in deepest Sussex. At the aptly named Cold Comfort Farm, she meets the doomed Starkadders: cousin Judith, heaving with remorse for unspoken wickedness; Amos, preaching fire and damnation; their sons, lustful Seth and despairing Reuben; child of nature Elfine; and crazed old Aunt Ada Doom, who has kept to her bedroom for the last twenty years. But Flora loves nothing better than to organize other people. Armed with common sense and a strong will, she resolves to take each of the family in hand. A hilarious and merciless parody of rural melodramas, Cold Comfort Farm (1932) is one of the best-loved comic novels of all time.
Adaptations (2)
Cold Comfort Farm has been adapted 2 times, across film and miniseries (1995).
Cold Comfort Farm1995 · film · 105 min · dir. John Schlesinger · IMDb ↗In this adaptation of the satirical British novel, Flora Poste, a plucky London society girl orphaned at age 19, finds a new home with some rough relatives, the Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm. With a take-charge attitude and some encouragement from her mischievous friend, Mary, Flora changes the Starkadders' lives forever when she settles into their rustic estate, bringing the backward clan up to date and finding inspiration for her novel in the process.
Cold Comfort Farm? · miniseries · 150 min · IMDb ↗IMDb7.1Adaptation of Stella Gibbons's comic novel of the same name. Following the death of her parents, 20-year-old Flora Poste (Sarah Badel) finds herself alone with insubstantial means in 1930s London. Fascinated by the little she knows of her distant relatives the Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm in Sussex, she goes to stay with her aunt Judith Starkadder (Rosalie Crutchley) and a colourful array of cousins. There she finds a variety of earthy, passionate relations, dominated by Great Aunt Ada Doom (Fay Compton) who long ago saw "something nasty in the woodshed" and now holds the rest of the household in thrall. Flora decides to put to rights the lives of all of them.