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Vintage Classics editorial director Laura Hassan has bought rights to 14 novels by Stella Gibbons, all of which have been out of print for the past decade.
Gibbons' first and most famous novel, Cold Comfort Farm (1932), in which the sensible Flora Poste sorts out the grim lives of the Starkadder family in a parody of the rural melodramas of the time, is published by Penguin as a Penguin Classic.
Vintage Classics will publish four books - Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm, Conference at Cold Comfort Farm, Westwood and Starlight - in print editions in August 2011. A further 10 - including The Bachelor, The Matchmaker, Bassett, Ticky and Here Be Dragons - will be published simultaneously in print on demand (POD).
Hassan, who acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to the titles from Anna Davis at Curtis Brown, said: “Like Nancy Mitford, PG Wodehouse or Barbara Pym, her novels are deliciously funny and her dissection of the British class system is spot on. We’re delighted to be able to bring these books
back into print for her legions of fans and to introduce her to a new audience.”
Gibbons’ grandsons Ben and Daniel Richardson said they were "delighted" that the stories were being reissued, adding: "Readers can now discover what happened to the inhabitants of Cold Comfort Farm before and after Flora Poste transformed their lives."
Vintage Classics followed a similar programme with the collected works of Nevil Shute, which were returned to print last year with four titles published conventionally and the rest available through Random House's POD offering, The Random Collection. The demand for Shute's books was such that the entire backlist has now been moved back into conventional print.