 Stella Dorothea Gibbons ( 5 January 1902 – 19 December 1989 ) was an English author , journalist , and poet . She established her reputation with her first novel , Cold Comfort Farm ( 1932 ) , which won the literary Prix Femina Étranger and has been reprinted many times . Although she was active as a writer for half a century , none of her later 22 novels or other literary works — which included a sequel to Cold Comfort Farm — achieved the same critical or popular success . Much of her work was long out of print before a modest revival in the 21st century . 
