THE WOODS IN WINTER

THE BACHELOR

Brother and sister, Constance and Kenneth Fielding live in calm respectability, just out of reach of London and the Blitz. But when a series of uninvited guests converge upon them – from a Balkan exile to the siblings’ own raffish father – the household struggles to preserve its precious peace. In this full house, in a quiet corner of suburbia, no one expects to find romance.

CHRISTMAS AT COLD COMFORT FARM AND OTHER STORIES

Entertaining short stories from the author of 'Cold Comfort Farm' (10223).

COLD COMFORT FARM

Flora Poste, a recently orphaned socialite, moves in with her country relatives, the gloomy Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm, and becomes enmeshed in a web of violent emotions, despair, and scheming, until Flora manages to set things right.

CONFERENCE AT COLD COMFORT FARM

Robert Poste's child is back at Cold Comfort Farm. But all is not well. Flora finds the farm transformed into a twee haven filled with Toby jugs and peasant pottery, and rooms labelled 'Quiete Retreate' and 'Greate laundrie'. It is, Flora winces, 'exactly like being locked in the Victoria and Albert Museum after closing time'. Worse, the farm is hosting a conference of the pretentious International Thinkers Group - a group made up of the 'sadistic owl' Mr Peccavi, loathsome Mr Mybug and the overpowering Mrs Ernestine Thump. And worst of all, there are no Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm. Once again the sensible Flora decides to take the situation in hand.

THE MATCHMAKER

After a war-time bomb destroyed their house, a family finds new relationships when they move to a temporary home in a country cottage.

NIGHTINGALE WOOD

Viola is a young widow left penniless by her late husband. She is forced to live with his family : a miserly father-in-law, a snobbish mother-in-law and two sisters-in-law. A satirical tale of a modern-day Cinderella.