Writer. Growing up in a household racked by her father's intemperate moods, she found solace in reading and story telling to her two younger brothers. After a series of governesses, she enrolled at the North London Collegiate School, where she began writing stories. While at University College in London, her first poem "The Marshes of My Soul" was published in the university magazine and she continued to submit to that publication. After graduation in 1923, the British United Press hired her to rewrite overseas news cables. While working at London's Evening Standard," her poem "The Giraffes" appeared in T.S. Eliot's magazine, "The Criterion." Over the next few years, her poetry appeared in a variety of publications and some of her short stores were published in the "Evening Standard." Despite this success, Gibbons was let go from the paper. She was quickly hired by the women's magazine "The Lady." As a book reviewer, she was highly critical of the current novel genre known as "loam and lovechild." These story lines featured roughneck men entangled with passionate women in often combative families. The language was often histrionic and the plots absurd. It was during this time, she began work on "Cold Comfort Farm" that would be a satire of this style. Published in September of 1932, it was an immediate success, critics found the parody to be droll and sophisticated. Her success with this first novel led her to resign her position with "The Lady" to become a full time writer. In 1933, Gibbons married Allan Webb, and later was awarded the Prix Etranger, a prestigious French literary prize by the "Prix Femina." During that decade, she wrote five more novels, two poetry collections, short stories and a children's book. In 1939, for "St. Martin's Review" she began to pen the series "A Woman's Diary of the War, " and published three novels during that same time. "Westwood" published in 1946 was another amusing satire of writer Charles Morgan. She became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1950. She continued to write and publish over the next twenty years and returned to literary criticism briefly in 1965. After 1970, she decided that subsequent writings would only be circulated to friends. Two of these novels were published posthumously. Over her lifetime, Gibbons would produce over thirty novels, several volumes of short stories and poetry and an autobiography. Whether due to her criticism of other writers, her reluctance at being a public figure or the over whelming success of her first novel, her later work never merited the same public recognition. Health problems exacerbated by smoking hastened her death. "Cold Comfort Farm" was made into a television movie by the BBC in 1995.