Nightingale Wood (Virago Modern Classics) [Paperback]

Stella Gibbons (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2, 2009 | Series: Virago Modern Classics

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 ...

Editorial Reviews

Review

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

About the Author

Stella 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.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Virago (April 2, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1844085724
• ISBN-13: 978-1844085729
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 7.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #268,287 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars totally out of print, totally worth reading..., August 1, 2006

By 

Mrs. W. Ardoin (Louisiana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nightingale wood, (Hardcover)

I had to request this book through an out of state library because it is so rare, particularly here in the U.S. I hope it is put back into print because it is quite good. Maybe not as good as Cold Comfort Farm but anyone who likes Stella's masterpiece would probably enjoy this one. It basically follows her usual fairy tale format, with just a bit of Jane Austen thrown in and focuses on life in a small village and its upperclass residents (and some of its lower class ones). I won't go into the plot details as there is a fairly lengthy description on Ms. Gibbons' nephew's website. It would be difficult to convey the best part of the book, which is the biting humor, so you'll have to check it out for yourself, which I urge anyone who liked Cold Comfort Farm to do.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wiser, deeper, funnier book, June 2, 2010

By 

Judith Killen - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Nightingale Wood (Virago Modern Classics) (Paperback)

Lovers of Stella Gibson's Cold Comfort Farm (her first novel), should know this is a wiser, deeper and funnier book. Using fairy tales and Shakespeare comedies as plot devices (The Tempest, A Mid-Summer's Night's Dream, Cinderella, Snow White and Red Rose....)and set in an Essex Village in 1938, it examines (punctures) the British class system and middle-class snobbery, anti-semitism and the totalitarian family system. The characters are funny, human and the writing is wonderful...and it ends as all comedies should in a marriage (or two) and paired sets of lovers...

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I loved this book!, July 17, 2010

By 

K. Huff (Radnor, PA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nightingale Wood: A Novel (Paperback)

Viola is newly widowed when she's invited by her husband's family to come live with them in Sible Pelden. There's Mr. Wither, who's a fantastic bore; Mrs. Wither, who doesn't quite care for her new daughter-in-law (due to the fact that she's the daughter of a shop owner); and Tina and Madge, their middle-aged daughters who have never quite grown up and are waiting for something to happen to them. The story follows these characters and others over the course of a year, the highlight being a charity ball at which a local eligible bachelor named Victor Spring will be present.

One of the things that Stella Gibbons is famous for was her sense of humor, and nowhere is this more apparent than in Nightingale Wood. Stella Gibbons's humor is a little more maniacally funny, but the characters and plot of this one never fail to be entertaining.

There's a very surreal, Midsummer Night's Dream-esque feeling to this book--all kinds of people slipping away to the woods to conduct love affairs, licit and otherwise. So, often, this book reads like a fairy tale--a fairy tale with a twist, especially since the two Prince Charmings in this book doesn't always have the purest intentions...

The characterizations in this novel are especially strong. Viola isn't quite what you'd expect from a woman who married someone twenty years older than she; but she's all the more interesting for that because there's so much more to her personality than meets the eye. Mr. Wither is, as described above, a frightful bore; Madge is a middle-aged woman who's never totally grown up (as seen in her childlike delight over her new dog Polo); and Tina is a woman just dying to be loved. Well, she gets her wish, but not in the way she expected... the only character I didn't tally love (for good and for worse) was Victor Spring, who was a bit stereotypical; and every time Saxon, the chauffer, appeared, I kept thinking of Thomas from Upstairs, Downstairs. Also, the plot moved a bit too quickly in some places. However, this is a well-written, funny novel; I actually found myself guffawing out loud in several places. This book is definitely worth a read if you enjoy this type of novel. I'm almost ashamed to admit that I haven't read Stella Gibbons's other, better-known book, Cold Comfort Farm; a problem that I should remedy as soon as possible.