COLD COMFORT FARM. (Stella Gibbons)

This title is a classic of its kind, a dazzling parody of the earthy, melodramatic novels of the period. Flora Poste has been expensively educated to do everything but earn her own living. When she is orphaned at twenty, she decides her only option is to go and live with her relatives the Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm. What relatives, though: Judith, alone in her grief; raving old Ada Doom, who once saw something nasty in the woodshed; Amos, called by God; Seth, smouldering with sex; and Elfine, who just needs a little polish. Flora feels it incumbent upon her to bring order into the chaos. And she turns out to be remarkably good at it.