by Kimberly Davis

Created on: January 23, 2012   Last Updated: January 24, 2012

Stella Dorothea Gibbons was born on January 5, 1902 in London, England to parents Telford Gibbons and Maude Phoebe Standish Williams Gibbons. Stella grew up in Kentish Town where she and her two younger brothers Gerald and Lewis were home schooled. Eventually Stella began attending regular school when she was enrolled at the North London Collegiate School for Girls. Stella’s father was a great doctor who worked in a poorer section of London often caring for patients with no means to pay. However, he was a different man in the home and was often cruel and demeaning to his wife, as well as being unfaithful.

Gibbons began writing while in school graduation with a two year degree in journalism in 1921. It wasn’t easy finding work and it took her a year or more before finding a position with the British United Press in 1924. In 1926, Stella’s beloved mother died and several months later so did her father. She and her brothers remained in the family home and she often resented them for their needy behaviors.

In 1930, a collection of Stella’s poems that she dedicated to her mother were published and she became instantly successful. In 1932, Gibbon’s first novel was published entitled “Cold Comfort Farm.” It was immediately popular. In 1934, Stella received the Prix Femina-Vie Heureuse for the book and sequels followed in 1940 and 1949. 

Stella and singer/actor Allan Webb married in 1933 and the couple had one child, a daughter, Laura, in 1935. After giving birth to her daughter, Gibbons wrote and published the children’s book “The Untidy Gnome.” Laura gave Stella two grandchildren, after marrying Joseph Richardson in 1957, Benjamin and Daniel. One year later Stella’s husband Allan was diagnosed with cancer and he passed away in July of 1959. After the death of her husband, Stella pretty much dropped out of the public eye and concentrated mainly on family.

She wrote two more novels after her husband’s death entitled “The Yellow Houses,” and “An Alpha” neither were published until after her death in December of 1989. Stella spent her entire adult lifetime in the home she and her beloved Allan bought after they were married. She continued to publish some of her work up until 1971, after which she retired from writing to concentrate on her family. It is in that little house on the hill that Stella penned her two final novels and it is where she lived until the day she died. Stella Gibbons was laid to rest alongside her beloved husband Allan in London’s Highgate Cemetery. 

Learn more about this author, Kimberly Davis.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.