Cold Comfort Farm

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This comic novel by Stella Gibbons was written in 1932 and takes place "in the near future." It seemed to me to be a bit of a spoof of the 19th century British novels of writers like Jane Austen and the Brontes. It even includes a very funny character with a weird theory about the novels of the Bronte sisters.
The main character, Flora Poste, is a practical young woman (in her own mind anyway) who sets about arranging things in a very Austen-like way and making observations on the world as she finds it.
“You have the most revolting Florence Nightingale complex,' said Mrs. Smiling.
It is not that at all, and well you know it. On the whole, I dislike my fellow beings; I find them so difficult to understand. But I have a tidy mind and untidy lives irritate me. Also, they are uncivilized.” 

This book could count toward several different categories for the Back to the Classics challenge: 20th century classic, by a woman author, a romance, or an award winning classic (it was the Winner of the 1933 Femina Vie Heureuse Prize).
This book also counts toward the What's in a Name challenge as an alliterative title.