Stella Gibbons - Early Writing

Early Writing

Stella Gibbons began a two-year diploma in journalism in 1921, and secured employment with the British United Press in 1924 after a year without work. It was during this time that she began a relationship with Walter Beck, which was to form the basis of characters in her second novel Bassett.

In 1926 Stella’s mother died, aged 48. During the funeral service Stella’s father, probably drunk, was heard to say of his wife: "Oh, she was a bitch! She never cooked properly! What I had to put up with!" Stella’s father died later in the same year, a death that was not regretted by his daughter.

From 1927 Stella lived with her two brothers in Vale Cottage in Hampstead Heath. Stella was the main breadwinner at this time and somewhat resentful of her brothers for their spendthrift, dissolute ways. She also felt that her domestic efforts were taken for granted and unappreciated.

Gibbons later worked for the Evening Standard, and then the Lady. It was in 1928, while working for the Standard, that the novels of Mary Webb enjoyed a resurgence in popularity thanks to the advocacy of the then Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin. It was Gibbons' job to summarise the plot of Webb's novel The Golden Arrow, which was being serialised in the newspaper, for those readers who had missed the previous installment. Stella Gibbons was not a fan of Mary Webb.

In 1930 The Mountain Beast, a collection of Gibbons' poetry, was published. The collection was dedicated to Stella's mother. Her most widely known poems from this collection are 'The Giraffes', which was admired by Virginia Woolf, and 'Coverings'. Although her poetry collection attracted considerable positive attention at the time of publication it, like much else in Gibbons' body of work, has now fallen into obscurity.