 The immediate and enduring success of Cold Comfort Farm dominated the rest of Gibbons 's career . Neville thought that after so singular a success at the start of her career , the rest was something of an anticlimax , despite her considerable industry and undoubted skills . The 1985 edition of The Oxford Companion to English Literature defines Gibbons solely in terms of Cold Comfort Farm ; it mentions none of her other works — while providing her bêtes noires Morgan and Mary Webb with full entries . To Gibbons , Cold Comfort Farm became " That Book " or " You @-@ Know @-@ What " , its title never mentioned . Despite her growing irritation and expressed distaste for it , the book continued to be lauded by successive generations of critics , Boston described it as " one of those rare books of comic genius that imprints itself on the brain and can never afterwards be eradicated " . A more negative view of the book has been expressed by the literary critic Mary Beard , who considers it " a rather controlling victory of modern order , cleanliness , contraception and medicine over these messy , different , rural types ... I found myself screaming for the rights of these poor country folk NOT to fall into the hands of people like Flora " . 
