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The Woods in Winter
Ivy Gower, a curmudgeonly middle-aged charwoman with some slightly witchy talents, inherits a rural cottage in Buckinghamshire and takes up residence near the tiny village of Little Warby. Having settled in with a rescued dog and a pet pigeon, she manages, despite her anti-social instincts, to have surprising effects on her new neighbours, including Angela Mordaunt, a spinster still mourning her dead beau, Coral and Pearl Cartaret, ditzy sisters who have just opened a tea shop, the local vicar, and wealthy Lord Gowerville, whose devotion she earns by healing his beloved dog. But her biggest challenge will likely be the 12-year-old runaway who shows up at her door...
Blending vivid characters and a deep knowledge of human nature, this is also a funny and poignant tale of the challenges and freedoms of old age and solitude. The Woods in Winter was first published in 1970 and was the last novel Stella Gibbons wrote for publication. This new edition features an introduction by twentieth-century women’s historian Elizabeth Crawford.
Blending vivid characters and a deep knowledge of human nature, this is also a funny and poignant tale of the challenges and freedoms of old age and solitude. The Woods in Winter was first published in 1970 and was the last novel Stella Gibbons wrote for publication. This new edition features an introduction by twentieth-century women’s historian Elizabeth Crawford.
209 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
131 people are currently reading
687 people want to read
About the author
Stella Gibbons
57 books412 followersStella Dorothea Gibbons was an English novelist, journalist, poet and short-story writer.
Her first novel, Cold Comfort Farm, won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize for 1933. A satire and parody of the pessimistic ruralism of Thomas Hardy, his followers and especially Precious Bain by Mary Webb -the "loam and lovechild" genre, as some called it, Cold Comfort Farm introduces a self-confident young woman, quite self-consciously modern, pragmatic and optimistic, into the grim, fate-bound and dark rural scene those novelists tended to portray.
Her first novel, Cold Comfort Farm, won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize for 1933. A satire and parody of the pessimistic ruralism of Thomas Hardy, his followers and especially Precious Bain by Mary Webb -the "loam and lovechild" genre, as some called it, Cold Comfort Farm introduces a self-confident young woman, quite self-consciously modern, pragmatic and optimistic, into the grim, fate-bound and dark rural scene those novelists tended to portray.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 81 reviews
December 12, 2021
Ivy is one of the most peculiar characters I've come across in fiction but so much fun to read about. One of the characters describes her as "like a tidy gipsy; ignorant and slap-dash and unlike any woman he'd ever known, and unforgettable", there is more to her than this though.
Living in London, though preferring the countryside, she is very pleased when her great uncle dies and leaves her his cottage in the middle of the woods. It is shabby and not too comfortable with no running water, an outside loo, and a big hole in the thatch letting in the rain, never the less, she thinks it's just right for her and Neb, a neighbours mistreated dog she has just made away with. She is a gruff, unfriendly, no-nonsense character who prefers animals to people and the cottage soon welcomes mice and cockroaches, (people is funny about inseks), but would rather keep people away; that is, until she comes across a young boy in the woods.
The story didn't go where I expected at all. I really enjoyed reading Ivy's story and that of the various other characters that pop up in the book, particularly Helen, and Angela and Sam. I've only read Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons before, but I'm looking forward to reading more of her novels in the future.
Living in London, though preferring the countryside, she is very pleased when her great uncle dies and leaves her his cottage in the middle of the woods. It is shabby and not too comfortable with no running water, an outside loo, and a big hole in the thatch letting in the rain, never the less, she thinks it's just right for her and Neb, a neighbours mistreated dog she has just made away with. She is a gruff, unfriendly, no-nonsense character who prefers animals to people and the cottage soon welcomes mice and cockroaches, (people is funny about inseks), but would rather keep people away; that is, until she comes across a young boy in the woods.
The story didn't go where I expected at all. I really enjoyed reading Ivy's story and that of the various other characters that pop up in the book, particularly Helen, and Angela and Sam. I've only read Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons before, but I'm looking forward to reading more of her novels in the future.
January 31, 2021
I don't think I've read a bad Stella Gibbons novel yet. I loved this one and fell in love with Ivy Gower. Maybe because I'd love to curmudgeonly live in a cottage in the woods with my dog and a dog-fox... but I do rather draw the line at cockroaches and mice.
August 1, 2021
So, this is the sixth novel I have read by Stella Gibbons, the others being Cold Comfort Farm (1932 – I gave it 4 stars), A Pink Front Door (1959 - I gave it 4 stars), The Swiss Summer (1951 – I gave it 2 stars), The Snow-Woman (1969 – I gave it 4 stars), and Weather at Tregulla (1962 - I gave it 3 stars).
This was the last novel that she had published before she died in 1989. She had written two more after this one got published but she declined to submit them to her publisher because “She no longer felt able to deal with the anguish and anxiety of exposing her work to a publisher’s editor, or to the critics (from ‘Out of the Woodshed’ by Reggie Oliver). They were The Yellow Houses and An Alpha (retitled Pure Juliet) and released by Vintage Classics in 2016.
I came across a phrase of Gibbons’ that I had never seen before and when I read it, I laughed out loud. Here tis in the sentence from which it came:
• And he was not going round crying Onions for Sale over Ive Gower, not him. 😊
Then there was this:
• The silence following this announcement was so charged with outrage, disapproval and collective shock that she actually glanced quickly around the room. What faces! Like Satan’s on washing-day. 😊
The story line to this novel is rather mundane (see below). So, if you’re in the mood for a somewhat quiet and non-disturbing read (and we all need that every now and then, don’t we?) then settle back and enjoy. It was just the right length for me…if it was substantially more that would have diminished my enthusiasm.
Reviews
• https://randomjottings.typepad.com/ra...
• A paragraph in this review of a number of Gibbons’ works is devoted to The Woods in Winter: http://furrowedmiddlebrow.blogspot.co...
Note:
Here is an overview of the cast of characters…I took it from the back of the novel…
• Ivy Gower, a curmudgeonly middle-aged charwoman with some slightly witchy talents, inherits a rural cottage in Buckinghamshire and takes up residence near the tiny village of Little Warby. Having settled in with a rescued dog and a pet pigeon, she manages, despite her anti-social instincts, to have surprising effects on her new neighbours, including Angela Mordaunt, a spinster still mourning her dead beau, Coral and Pearl Cartaret, ditzy sisters who have just opened a tea shop, the local vicar, and wealthy Lord Gowerville, whose devotion she earns by healing his beloved dog. But her biggest challenge will likely be the 12-year-old runaway who shows up at her door...Blending vivid characters and a deep knowledge of human nature, this is also a funny and poignant tale of the challenges and freedoms of old age and solitude.
This was the last novel that she had published before she died in 1989. She had written two more after this one got published but she declined to submit them to her publisher because “She no longer felt able to deal with the anguish and anxiety of exposing her work to a publisher’s editor, or to the critics (from ‘Out of the Woodshed’ by Reggie Oliver). They were The Yellow Houses and An Alpha (retitled Pure Juliet) and released by Vintage Classics in 2016.
I came across a phrase of Gibbons’ that I had never seen before and when I read it, I laughed out loud. Here tis in the sentence from which it came:
• And he was not going round crying Onions for Sale over Ive Gower, not him. 😊
Then there was this:
• The silence following this announcement was so charged with outrage, disapproval and collective shock that she actually glanced quickly around the room. What faces! Like Satan’s on washing-day. 😊
The story line to this novel is rather mundane (see below). So, if you’re in the mood for a somewhat quiet and non-disturbing read (and we all need that every now and then, don’t we?) then settle back and enjoy. It was just the right length for me…if it was substantially more that would have diminished my enthusiasm.
Reviews
• https://randomjottings.typepad.com/ra...
• A paragraph in this review of a number of Gibbons’ works is devoted to The Woods in Winter: http://furrowedmiddlebrow.blogspot.co...
Note:
Here is an overview of the cast of characters…I took it from the back of the novel…
• Ivy Gower, a curmudgeonly middle-aged charwoman with some slightly witchy talents, inherits a rural cottage in Buckinghamshire and takes up residence near the tiny village of Little Warby. Having settled in with a rescued dog and a pet pigeon, she manages, despite her anti-social instincts, to have surprising effects on her new neighbours, including Angela Mordaunt, a spinster still mourning her dead beau, Coral and Pearl Cartaret, ditzy sisters who have just opened a tea shop, the local vicar, and wealthy Lord Gowerville, whose devotion she earns by healing his beloved dog. But her biggest challenge will likely be the 12-year-old runaway who shows up at her door...Blending vivid characters and a deep knowledge of human nature, this is also a funny and poignant tale of the challenges and freedoms of old age and solitude.
January 18, 2025
Such a unique story! I’m so glad I read this for the Cozy Reader book club. It’s almost more like a village story than one with a central heroine like I was expecting. Except it’s not really a village (more an area of the countryside) and Ivy is definitely the heroine. But there are lots of side characters and they take up a good portion of the book. It’s hard to describe… I’m not even sure it’s wholly successful as a novel and yet I enjoyed it immensely. 😂
I possibly liked Angela’s storyline best. Her story reminded me of Nightingale Woods that Stella wrote earlier in her career. I loved Mike’s entrance into the story too. The vicar’s storyline was the most disappointing and rather fizzled out. He had more promise at the beginning before P. I liked Helen a lot but she felt underdeveloped. She was a secondary heroine but without the story to back it up. I’m still a bit creeped out by Ivy’s cottage. I didn’t wholly love Ivy as a character. I would find her off-putting in real life, but she is so eccentric that she’s curiously endearing.
I possibly liked Angela’s storyline best. Her story reminded me of Nightingale Woods that Stella wrote earlier in her career. I loved Mike’s entrance into the story too. The vicar’s storyline was the most disappointing and rather fizzled out. He had more promise at the beginning before P. I liked Helen a lot but she felt underdeveloped. She was a secondary heroine but without the story to back it up. I’m still a bit creeped out by Ivy’s cottage. I didn’t wholly love Ivy as a character. I would find her off-putting in real life, but she is so eccentric that she’s curiously endearing.
December 5, 2021
I’ve never been able to finish Cold Comfort Farm, so discovering the other novels of Stella Gibbons this year has been a revelation. The Woods in Winter was a treat that I devoured in a couple of days.
Published in 1970, it harks back to the 1930s—the time of Bright Young Things and a scarcity of young men, of new mores clashing with the surviving but elderly Victorian old guard. This might have been tired ground save for the fact that the central character is a charwoman, the delightfully unregenerate Ivy Gover, who is dying slowly in London until she inherits a rural cottage formerly inhabited by an uncle. She steals/rescues a dog in her neighborhood who has been chained up and left in his own filth, and absconds with him for rural climes. I’ve done that a time or two myself, and it endeared me to her.
Ivy has some gypsy blood, little education, and no manners but she has her own wisdom and knows her own mind; she lives in her little cottage in a way that repels attachments but earns her some wary respect from the more observant among the country folk. She is one of those people who has a Way with animals, and they respond to her with love and confidence that provide her a degree of family. Another human comes to live in her solitude for a time, in one of the more poignant developments of this novel.
Other people whose lives have touched Ivy’s get their moments in the story—the local lord whose income has vanished; two cheap, smart sisters who open a Tea Shoppe; the spinster daughter of an old gentry family. The latter, Angela Mordaunt, has some of the most telling scenes in the book, showing that Gibbons was fully aware of the social upheavals taking place in England and approved of the best of them. Finding herself wooed by a strapping young laboring man, Angela contemplates the shibboleths of class separation that had ruled her life and gives them up with joyful grace. “How vulgar, what a low view of the solemn devotion to their ideals in which she and her mother shared,” the narrator says during her pivotal encounter with the strapping lad. “It occurred to her that all her life she had been taught to be truthful, but never to be truthful to herself about what she felt and wanted.” And just like that, she is off to escape the shackles of a hollowed-out way of life.
Less satisfactory—probably because the portrait is too autobiographical—is the story of Helen Green, a young writer who employs Ivy in London and retains a sort of fondness for her after Ivy has moved to the country. In a coda set around 1970 that wraps up the book we discover that the heartbroken Helen has found a husband, but we don’t get any sense of how her character has developed.
This coda also shows the changes that have come to the rural area described so lovingly in the story, and it casts a shadow of melancholy over the whole, which felt fragile enough while we were in the middle of it. This mood of clear-eyed nostalgia for a world that is lost exactly suits my own mind-set, which might account for the enormous pleasure I took in reading this book. (As Brad Kessler has said, “Wherever the notion of paradise exists, so does the idea that it was lost.”)
But Gibbons’s own gifts are enough to reward the reader. She has a way with characters, drawing them in clear lines that avoid cliché or sentiment and occasionally, just often enough, skewering them with a phrase, like the judgmental Mrs. Threader who prides herself on hiding her judginess: “Mrs. Threader’s face retained its usual suggestion of an unawakened bun.”
The fiction of England between the wars has a humanity and expansiveness of spirit, despite its embeddedness in national and class assumptions, that never fails to give me hope for humanity. Perhaps that’s why in these days of rage and cynicism I turn to it over and over again.
Published in 1970, it harks back to the 1930s—the time of Bright Young Things and a scarcity of young men, of new mores clashing with the surviving but elderly Victorian old guard. This might have been tired ground save for the fact that the central character is a charwoman, the delightfully unregenerate Ivy Gover, who is dying slowly in London until she inherits a rural cottage formerly inhabited by an uncle. She steals/rescues a dog in her neighborhood who has been chained up and left in his own filth, and absconds with him for rural climes. I’ve done that a time or two myself, and it endeared me to her.
Ivy has some gypsy blood, little education, and no manners but she has her own wisdom and knows her own mind; she lives in her little cottage in a way that repels attachments but earns her some wary respect from the more observant among the country folk. She is one of those people who has a Way with animals, and they respond to her with love and confidence that provide her a degree of family. Another human comes to live in her solitude for a time, in one of the more poignant developments of this novel.
Other people whose lives have touched Ivy’s get their moments in the story—the local lord whose income has vanished; two cheap, smart sisters who open a Tea Shoppe; the spinster daughter of an old gentry family. The latter, Angela Mordaunt, has some of the most telling scenes in the book, showing that Gibbons was fully aware of the social upheavals taking place in England and approved of the best of them. Finding herself wooed by a strapping young laboring man, Angela contemplates the shibboleths of class separation that had ruled her life and gives them up with joyful grace. “How vulgar, what a low view of the solemn devotion to their ideals in which she and her mother shared,” the narrator says during her pivotal encounter with the strapping lad. “It occurred to her that all her life she had been taught to be truthful, but never to be truthful to herself about what she felt and wanted.” And just like that, she is off to escape the shackles of a hollowed-out way of life.
Less satisfactory—probably because the portrait is too autobiographical—is the story of Helen Green, a young writer who employs Ivy in London and retains a sort of fondness for her after Ivy has moved to the country. In a coda set around 1970 that wraps up the book we discover that the heartbroken Helen has found a husband, but we don’t get any sense of how her character has developed.
This coda also shows the changes that have come to the rural area described so lovingly in the story, and it casts a shadow of melancholy over the whole, which felt fragile enough while we were in the middle of it. This mood of clear-eyed nostalgia for a world that is lost exactly suits my own mind-set, which might account for the enormous pleasure I took in reading this book. (As Brad Kessler has said, “Wherever the notion of paradise exists, so does the idea that it was lost.”)
But Gibbons’s own gifts are enough to reward the reader. She has a way with characters, drawing them in clear lines that avoid cliché or sentiment and occasionally, just often enough, skewering them with a phrase, like the judgmental Mrs. Threader who prides herself on hiding her judginess: “Mrs. Threader’s face retained its usual suggestion of an unawakened bun.”
The fiction of England between the wars has a humanity and expansiveness of spirit, despite its embeddedness in national and class assumptions, that never fails to give me hope for humanity. Perhaps that’s why in these days of rage and cynicism I turn to it over and over again.
January 24, 2022
"Think, Ivy - it's a cottage of your very own, in the country!"
Suddenly, there swept along the landscape ruled by her mind's eye the majestic vision of the Nethersham beeches; towers and castles of rustling green; benign father-gods of the woods, filled with their gently-stirring life in the blue air of summer or roaring slowly in winter's gales.
"Just think, Ivy. It's beautiful country there. I . . . know it quite well."
This is definitely not one of Gibbons' strongest novels, but I enjoyed it in a limited sort of way. Charm can be found in the atmosphere and characterisation, but it is rather short on plot. Set in the late 20s, or perhaps early 30s, it is full of single women - young, middle-aged and old - although some of them do get married off in the course of the novel. The first World War is touched on with the theme of a superfluity of women, and also the breakdown of the rigid class system. The majestic beeches of the Nethersham estate are threatened because the master can no longer afford his estate: he must choose to either repair his roof or sell his woods. I need not even mention this fact, though, because in fact it is not that important to the story's unwinding - or at least only in the sense that this is a nostalgia piece, written in 1970, when the 'progress' and development had already irrevocably changed both countryside and social order.
In a biography of Stella Gibbons written by her nephew Reggie Oliver, he mentions that the character of Helen Green is "perhaps Stella's fullest portrait of her younger self, complete with the raffish, artistic friends, a talent for poetry and a cottage in the Vale of Health." Helen peeks in and out of the novel, but really it is Ivy Gover - her charwoman - who is the novel's main character. I wouldn't go as far as to call Ivy a protagonist, though, as she's merely the most concentrated portrait in an ensemble of minor characters. Helen's observation (below) captures the kind of characterisation to be found in the novel: all running along the surface with very little revealed of the inner workings.
She was usually so interested in observing human beings, in a dreamy yet concentrated way, that it seldom occurred to her to wonder if they were unhappy or worried; she only studied them, taking them into her mind, and then enjoyably imagining what they were. When people were beautiful, she just watched them, without thinking about them at all, as if they were giraffe or deer.
At the beginning of the novel, the thrice-widowed Ivy inherits the cottage of an old uncle and thus she leaves London to go live in the countryside. There, Ivy exists peaceably with a variety of animals (domesticated and wild) and for a brief time, with a runaway boy with a talent for drawing. Ivy goes on lots of walks, she repels visitors and suitors - and these make up some of the best comic bits of the novel - and she lives how she pleases. She is described as both gipsy and witch, but really she is just a middle-aged woman who defers to no man (or woman) and lives with as little purpose as the birds and other animals that she feeds and takes pleasure in observing. Of course, living without due deference or purpose could be characterised as an interesting rebellion of its own.
The Woods in Winter was Gibbons' last published novel, and its a funny sort of coda to her long writing career. It manages to show off some of her talents as a writer while not really adding up to all that much. It reminded me of Lolly Willowes in lots of ways, but somehow all of those similar elements don't have the same kind of sharp-edged emphasis.
March 19, 2022
Having decided to read more of Stella Gibbons, I tackled this one with enthusiasm but was slightly disappointed because the story sort of falters to a stop. Nevertheless, I enjoyed her brilliant writing style and her truly unforgettable characters, the main one being Ivy, the independent-minded charwoman who inherits a cottage in the country and absconds to live with the birds and the animals. Ivy is attractive to men but cares nothing for them, aside for her third husband who died in the Second World War. Her one unexpected weakness is her love for a child. The book is rounded out with a cast of memorable minor characters. I paid a pittance for this book and got more than my money's worth.
November 26, 2022
Really enjoyed this. I loved Ivy! what a marvelous character.
More to come. I hope...
More to come. I hope...
January 27, 2022
The presiding spirit of this 1970 novel, which is set forty years earlier, is Ivy, a grumpy, functionally illiterate, thrice widowed cockney-accented char woman, with much more to her than meets the eye. A new life unfolds for Ivy when she unexpectedly inherits from a great-uncle a tumbledown cottage out in the countryside where she spent her youth, and she absconds there with an abused dog she steals/rescues just as she leaves London. In counterpoint, we also follow the story of Helen, a writer, and Gibbons' self-portrait, who was Ivy's employer, and who visits the countryside around Ivy's new home often in the company of a man she loves who makes her unhappy. Helen is also connected with two rich sisters, Coral and Pearl, who as a lark, open a fancy tea shop in the nearby village. Other local characters also have their parts to play. I enjoyed it all immensely. Ivy is a wonderful character, but just off-putting enough to keep the reader at arm's length, saving the novel from being overly sentimental. It's only the second book by Stella Gibbons that I've read (the other being Cold Comfort Farm some thirty years ago), but won't be the last.
January 9, 2025
I read this as a book club pick and I'm not sure I would have picked it up otherwise, mostly because I had never heard of this author. That being said I wasn't too impressed by this book.
The writing style is older, which is fine. But, I actually need to be invested in the story to be able to appreciate the writing style and this story just did not do it for me. I found the many characters hard to follow and they were all incredibly brusk, something I did not enjoy... Overall, the story wasn't horrible or anything, which is why I'm giving it 3 stars. Didn't hate it, didn't love it.
The writing style is older, which is fine. But, I actually need to be invested in the story to be able to appreciate the writing style and this story just did not do it for me. I found the many characters hard to follow and they were all incredibly brusk, something I did not enjoy... Overall, the story wasn't horrible or anything, which is why I'm giving it 3 stars. Didn't hate it, didn't love it.
November 8, 2024
Stella Gibbons offers an evocative portrayal of solitude, nature, and unconventional bonds in The Woods in Winter. The story introduces us to Ivy Gover, a gritty, middle-aged charwoman, whose life of modest resilience is grounded in London. Ivy sustains herself on a meager pension and her charring income, quietly dreaming of the countryside of her youth.
Her life shifts unexpectedly when a letter arrives, informing her of an inheritance: a secluded cottage in the Buckinghamshire countryside. With newfound freedom, Ivy moves quickly, adopting a mistreated dog, Neb, as her fierce companion. The winter setting envelops the cottage in atmospheric details, from the sagging thatch roof to the intruding mice and cockroaches, which Ivy, with peculiar kindness, accepts as part of her new world.
Ivy’s character radiates a rare wisdom, her kinship with nature underscoring her independence and determination. Gibbons subtly draws her as a “wise woman,” someone in harmony with the land and its creatures. As Ivy navigates life in her cottage, her quiet influence begins to affect the local community. The narrative introduces a mix of characters—Angela Mordaunt, a sorrowful spinster with a domineering mother; the charming but idealistic vicar; and a pair of society sisters attempting to bring modernity to the quaint village.
The novel’s heart, however, lies in Ivy’s poignant connection with a runaway boy named Mike. Their bond is forged in unexpected ways, revealing Ivy’s inherent kindness and protective instincts, even as she faces difficult choices.
Gibbons’ writing captures the tension between tradition and change, echoing broader societal divides. Her portrayal of Ivy’s life is both tender and fierce, layered with the bittersweet nature of aging and the quiet endurance of the human spirit.
I almost wished this book were infinite, always there to be dipped into and walked around, so I could pop by to see how everyone was getting along.
A perfect winter read.
Her life shifts unexpectedly when a letter arrives, informing her of an inheritance: a secluded cottage in the Buckinghamshire countryside. With newfound freedom, Ivy moves quickly, adopting a mistreated dog, Neb, as her fierce companion. The winter setting envelops the cottage in atmospheric details, from the sagging thatch roof to the intruding mice and cockroaches, which Ivy, with peculiar kindness, accepts as part of her new world.
Ivy’s character radiates a rare wisdom, her kinship with nature underscoring her independence and determination. Gibbons subtly draws her as a “wise woman,” someone in harmony with the land and its creatures. As Ivy navigates life in her cottage, her quiet influence begins to affect the local community. The narrative introduces a mix of characters—Angela Mordaunt, a sorrowful spinster with a domineering mother; the charming but idealistic vicar; and a pair of society sisters attempting to bring modernity to the quaint village.
The novel’s heart, however, lies in Ivy’s poignant connection with a runaway boy named Mike. Their bond is forged in unexpected ways, revealing Ivy’s inherent kindness and protective instincts, even as she faces difficult choices.
Gibbons’ writing captures the tension between tradition and change, echoing broader societal divides. Her portrayal of Ivy’s life is both tender and fierce, layered with the bittersweet nature of aging and the quiet endurance of the human spirit.
I almost wished this book were infinite, always there to be dipped into and walked around, so I could pop by to see how everyone was getting along.
A perfect winter read.
July 2, 2019
To be fair, every Stella book gets five stars from me. I enjoyed this one greatly, but I wouldn't put with my top 5 of her novels.
The Woods in Winter is very typical of the author - lovely descriptions of flowers & trees, Bloomsbury-types, and spinster-types. However, Ivy, the main character, is quite unusual. She has some of Flora Poste's ability to set things straight, but she certainly doesn't share Flora's ideas of neatness. Another character is a very clear self-insert that I got a kick out of. All in all, it's a great book for Gibbons's fans, but it's not the book to start with.
The Woods in Winter is very typical of the author - lovely descriptions of flowers & trees, Bloomsbury-types, and spinster-types. However, Ivy, the main character, is quite unusual. She has some of Flora Poste's ability to set things straight, but she certainly doesn't share Flora's ideas of neatness. Another character is a very clear self-insert that I got a kick out of. All in all, it's a great book for Gibbons's fans, but it's not the book to start with.
September 3, 2012
This seemed to be a nostalgic look back to the author's youth. However, it was agreeably written. It did get a little whimsical in places, but this was cut through with a pithy humour, so it didn't get cloying. The plot looked initially like it was going to be really simple (maybe even simplistic) but things were not quite what they seemed in that respect. Overall I enjoyed it, but I think Stella Gibbons has written much better books than this.
February 18, 2025
I was really hoping to love this one because Cold Comfort Farm is one of my favorite books. But, unfortunately, I never really connected with the characters in this book. I was thankful for the Cozy Reader Book Club discussion because it did make me appreciate this more than I did when I first finished it.
March 10, 2021
Many of the characters in this book are odd, not quirky but outright odd and not always particularly likeable. However I liked the story despite the ending not being very satisfying as it jumps 40 years ahead to wrap it up. Slightly melancholic.
3.5 stars
3.5 stars
March 22, 2022
Originally posted on my book blog, http://www.tinybookfort.wordpress.com
The Woods in Winter (1970) is my introduction to Gibbons’ writing, the irony being that it was the last novel she submitted to her publisher. It’s beautiful and melancholic and has made me want to read all of her work.
Where do I begin? For a small book The Woods in Winter contains a large and eclectic cast as well as a multitude of understated thoughts on issues ranging from poverty to gender roles to mental health to conservation and more. Let’s start with Ivy, the most central character of the book. The story opens in what is suggested to be 1930; Ivy is middle-aged (it’s repeated many times that she’s “nearer fifty than forty”), widowed three times, has no children, outspoken when she finds it necessary (which is regularly), a char-woman since age 11, and marooned in a dingy part of London with few prospects outside of a fourth marriage. She’s surprised to discover her great-uncle has recently died and left her a tumbledown cottage not far from London and only a couple of miles from where she was born. With a stable home, albeit humble, and a small annuity due to her last husband being killed at sea, Ivy is relieved to be free of the ugliness and hard labor of the city, and discovers the solitude of the country perfectly suits her.
I greatly admire Ivy. She isn’t a sentimental person, unsurprising given her hard life, but she’s certainly not hardened and regularly demonstrates compassion. She has so much to give to the vulnerable, the weak, and those in need, expecting nothing in return. Once she’s settled in her cottage, a rescued puppy in tow, this typically means extending grace and generosity to small creatures like birds and the occasional fox, but one winter night a desperate boy finds her, and this event marks another turning point in Ivy’s life.
Early in the book Ivy has the thought that she’s always figured herself lucky to never have had children, and this makes a lot of sense considering the sheer terror many women experienced (and still experience) in having little to no control over their own reproduction. Later, after several weeks of unexpectedly finding herself in a motherly role, she reconsiders; perhaps having a child would have brought her great joy. It’s a bittersweet realization. Surely being a mother shouldn’t have to be all or nothing, and yet, hasn’t this been exactly her reality?
I find it interesting that a common complaint about this book is that the characters aren’t likable, and yes, some of them are downright nasty. Even the heroine of the story (Ivy, in my opinion) isn’t a “warm” or “confiding” person. What of it? I think Ivy and Stella Gibbons would both laugh at this criticism. They may ask the reader, “Is it our responsibility to fit your ideal of social acceptability, femininity, likability?” What a tepid measure of a character and, by extension, a book.
Many of the things Ivy does could be considered socially deviant: she rejects marriage proposals, is the only woman to frequent her new village’s tavern, confronts the local estate manager and lord about the condition of her cottage’s roof (legally his responsibility to maintain), exhibits eerie healing powers, feels no obligation to invite unexpected visitors in, and even colludes with a messy pigeon to drive an unwanted guest away. Perhaps most jarring for some readers is her habit of allowing different creatures to shelter inside of her cottage, including mice and cockroaches. Yes, I’m not a fan of roaches, but I don’t think we should be hasty to judge. An image slowly emerges of Ivy finding emotional and physical peace, her cottage taking on the balance of a miniature ecosystem, each group of beings in their place and contributing [something — I have different theories about this but won’t belabor the point]. She reaches a compromise with nature that I deeply respect, reflected in her relationship with the critters she shares her cottage with as well as the larger outside world she tramps everyday.
Sometimes Ivy wonders if she’s “letting herself go,” and local villagers resent her and what they consider to be her “poor” housekeeping skills. I don’t think this is a valid view because when we first meet Ivy in London her flat is tidy, she has starched, white curtains, and she obsessively cleans her tables throughout the book. She’s very particular, just not about the same things the villagers are. I wondered as I was reading if, due to her eccentric habits and contentment with the very basics, Ivy would be considered mentally ill by today’s Western social, living, and clinical standards. This doesn’t make me concerned about Ivy, who’s obviously well-adjusted and thriving after her move to the cottage; however, I do think it should make the reader wonder about the harm that Western social and medical institutions have done and are doing to people who don’t fit into their narrow perspective on “healthy” and “normal” lifestyles.
My one major criticism of the book is that the slur “gypsy” is used several times to describe Ivy, sometimes as an observation, other times as an insult. However it’s used, it’s inappropriate and demonstrates that even if an author has interesting commentary to offer regarding social issues like classism, they often fall short when it comes to ethnic and/or racial awareness.
The Woods in Winter offers much to ponder and discuss, especially since, as I mentioned, Ivy is only one character of many. I’d like to give special mention to Angela as, next to Ivy’s, her story is my favorite. If you’ve read this book, I’d love to hear your thoughts! If you haven’t, and you appreciate a contemplative narrative that isn’t preachy, I recommend giving it a go.
The Woods in Winter (1970) is my introduction to Gibbons’ writing, the irony being that it was the last novel she submitted to her publisher. It’s beautiful and melancholic and has made me want to read all of her work.
Where do I begin? For a small book The Woods in Winter contains a large and eclectic cast as well as a multitude of understated thoughts on issues ranging from poverty to gender roles to mental health to conservation and more. Let’s start with Ivy, the most central character of the book. The story opens in what is suggested to be 1930; Ivy is middle-aged (it’s repeated many times that she’s “nearer fifty than forty”), widowed three times, has no children, outspoken when she finds it necessary (which is regularly), a char-woman since age 11, and marooned in a dingy part of London with few prospects outside of a fourth marriage. She’s surprised to discover her great-uncle has recently died and left her a tumbledown cottage not far from London and only a couple of miles from where she was born. With a stable home, albeit humble, and a small annuity due to her last husband being killed at sea, Ivy is relieved to be free of the ugliness and hard labor of the city, and discovers the solitude of the country perfectly suits her.
I greatly admire Ivy. She isn’t a sentimental person, unsurprising given her hard life, but she’s certainly not hardened and regularly demonstrates compassion. She has so much to give to the vulnerable, the weak, and those in need, expecting nothing in return. Once she’s settled in her cottage, a rescued puppy in tow, this typically means extending grace and generosity to small creatures like birds and the occasional fox, but one winter night a desperate boy finds her, and this event marks another turning point in Ivy’s life.
Early in the book Ivy has the thought that she’s always figured herself lucky to never have had children, and this makes a lot of sense considering the sheer terror many women experienced (and still experience) in having little to no control over their own reproduction. Later, after several weeks of unexpectedly finding herself in a motherly role, she reconsiders; perhaps having a child would have brought her great joy. It’s a bittersweet realization. Surely being a mother shouldn’t have to be all or nothing, and yet, hasn’t this been exactly her reality?
I find it interesting that a common complaint about this book is that the characters aren’t likable, and yes, some of them are downright nasty. Even the heroine of the story (Ivy, in my opinion) isn’t a “warm” or “confiding” person. What of it? I think Ivy and Stella Gibbons would both laugh at this criticism. They may ask the reader, “Is it our responsibility to fit your ideal of social acceptability, femininity, likability?” What a tepid measure of a character and, by extension, a book.
Many of the things Ivy does could be considered socially deviant: she rejects marriage proposals, is the only woman to frequent her new village’s tavern, confronts the local estate manager and lord about the condition of her cottage’s roof (legally his responsibility to maintain), exhibits eerie healing powers, feels no obligation to invite unexpected visitors in, and even colludes with a messy pigeon to drive an unwanted guest away. Perhaps most jarring for some readers is her habit of allowing different creatures to shelter inside of her cottage, including mice and cockroaches. Yes, I’m not a fan of roaches, but I don’t think we should be hasty to judge. An image slowly emerges of Ivy finding emotional and physical peace, her cottage taking on the balance of a miniature ecosystem, each group of beings in their place and contributing [something — I have different theories about this but won’t belabor the point]. She reaches a compromise with nature that I deeply respect, reflected in her relationship with the critters she shares her cottage with as well as the larger outside world she tramps everyday.
Sometimes Ivy wonders if she’s “letting herself go,” and local villagers resent her and what they consider to be her “poor” housekeeping skills. I don’t think this is a valid view because when we first meet Ivy in London her flat is tidy, she has starched, white curtains, and she obsessively cleans her tables throughout the book. She’s very particular, just not about the same things the villagers are. I wondered as I was reading if, due to her eccentric habits and contentment with the very basics, Ivy would be considered mentally ill by today’s Western social, living, and clinical standards. This doesn’t make me concerned about Ivy, who’s obviously well-adjusted and thriving after her move to the cottage; however, I do think it should make the reader wonder about the harm that Western social and medical institutions have done and are doing to people who don’t fit into their narrow perspective on “healthy” and “normal” lifestyles.
My one major criticism of the book is that the slur “gypsy” is used several times to describe Ivy, sometimes as an observation, other times as an insult. However it’s used, it’s inappropriate and demonstrates that even if an author has interesting commentary to offer regarding social issues like classism, they often fall short when it comes to ethnic and/or racial awareness.
The Woods in Winter offers much to ponder and discuss, especially since, as I mentioned, Ivy is only one character of many. I’d like to give special mention to Angela as, next to Ivy’s, her story is my favorite. If you’ve read this book, I’d love to hear your thoughts! If you haven’t, and you appreciate a contemplative narrative that isn’t preachy, I recommend giving it a go.
August 18, 2022
This was a very interesting book - set in the 30s - and Ivy Gower was a very interesting character, I admired her a lot. I would have loved to join her on her walks with Neb in the woods and fields and even 5 miles to Nethersham! Ivy is described as curmudgeonly but I don't think she is at all, she is direct and knows her own mind, isn't beyond asking for help if she needs it and also offers helps if it's sorely needed.
She has an affinity with animals and nature and there's nothing wrong with that! (I have an urban garden but can feed birds and squirrels and occasionally a fox.)
The other characters were good too and I enjoyed following their own stories.
The last chapter was poignant as we returned to the 70s and two characters meet up again - with such differing view points of the changes that have been made - fancy restaurants replacing tea shops, more cars, new towns, less countryside. I liked that the "Hippies" were protecting the land.
I'll be returning to this book again and again. And need to read more Stella Gibbons.
She has an affinity with animals and nature and there's nothing wrong with that! (I have an urban garden but can feed birds and squirrels and occasionally a fox.)
The other characters were good too and I enjoyed following their own stories.
The last chapter was poignant as we returned to the 70s and two characters meet up again - with such differing view points of the changes that have been made - fancy restaurants replacing tea shops, more cars, new towns, less countryside. I liked that the "Hippies" were protecting the land.
I'll be returning to this book again and again. And need to read more Stella Gibbons.
January 18, 2022
Read on my Kindle in a late night sitting. A curious story that is a wonderful description of an odd set of characters. 4-stars.
December 24, 2021
The Woods In Winter by Stella Gibbons
I think I chose the perfect time of year to read The Woods In Winter - December and everything in the novel feels so crisp and glittering and with the snapping delicious bite of the cold.
Ivy Gover is the central character, she's quite bewitching. Middle aged and very happy being on her own after 3 marriages. She doesn't suffer fools gladly and isn't really interested in making friends.
When she inherits a cottage in the woods, it seems it gives her the freedom to be more wild, more feral. It is as though the cottage and Ivy become part of the Woods, almost innately part of it. If you feel an affinity with Nature and animals, you will find a home here. Ivy's companions are animals, her pet pigeon, her rescue dog, the wild birds and mice and even the cockroaches. She has a kindred relationship with them and respects them all.
The people surrounding her, frown upon her and her unconventional ways but she is always quick to have an acerbic response and bat away criticism. She heals the Lord's dog, confirming what the blurb of the book says about her 'slightly witchy ways'. There is an air of liberation that surrounds Ivy and she really is such a character.
Whilst she's the central character, we still spend a good deal of time with the other characters in the book. And one of the reasons I chose to read this was the mention of a spinster, as I am still on my quest for unconventional spinsters in fiction. However, Angela, fits the stereotypical mould.
Ivy does allow a runaway boy into her house and her heart and aside from her animal companions, this is the only other meaningfully relationship she makes.
She's, proud, misbehaved, mischievous and Stella Gibbons creates a winter world that is so inviting to step crisply into.
Her descriptions make our senses grow sharper and make us feel closer to nature, through glittering descriptions of the woods in winter to the brilliance found in nature on wayward walks. Gibbons really makes the pages shimmer with the enchantment of winter.
Whilst it is set in a world so bitingly cold, it glows like a warm fireplace for us to draw ourselves up to and warm our hands upon.
It has a very delicious way of feeling like home.
I think I chose the perfect time of year to read The Woods In Winter - December and everything in the novel feels so crisp and glittering and with the snapping delicious bite of the cold.
Ivy Gover is the central character, she's quite bewitching. Middle aged and very happy being on her own after 3 marriages. She doesn't suffer fools gladly and isn't really interested in making friends.
When she inherits a cottage in the woods, it seems it gives her the freedom to be more wild, more feral. It is as though the cottage and Ivy become part of the Woods, almost innately part of it. If you feel an affinity with Nature and animals, you will find a home here. Ivy's companions are animals, her pet pigeon, her rescue dog, the wild birds and mice and even the cockroaches. She has a kindred relationship with them and respects them all.
The people surrounding her, frown upon her and her unconventional ways but she is always quick to have an acerbic response and bat away criticism. She heals the Lord's dog, confirming what the blurb of the book says about her 'slightly witchy ways'. There is an air of liberation that surrounds Ivy and she really is such a character.
Whilst she's the central character, we still spend a good deal of time with the other characters in the book. And one of the reasons I chose to read this was the mention of a spinster, as I am still on my quest for unconventional spinsters in fiction. However, Angela, fits the stereotypical mould.
Ivy does allow a runaway boy into her house and her heart and aside from her animal companions, this is the only other meaningfully relationship she makes.
She's, proud, misbehaved, mischievous and Stella Gibbons creates a winter world that is so inviting to step crisply into.
Her descriptions make our senses grow sharper and make us feel closer to nature, through glittering descriptions of the woods in winter to the brilliance found in nature on wayward walks. Gibbons really makes the pages shimmer with the enchantment of winter.
Whilst it is set in a world so bitingly cold, it glows like a warm fireplace for us to draw ourselves up to and warm our hands upon.
It has a very delicious way of feeling like home.
March 18, 2021
Ivy is a middle aged widow living in London who inherits a cottage in the country and goes to live there with her rescued dog and a variety of other wildlife. Various other characters come and go, but it is another of these books where there are too many characters so you don’t really get to know enough about them. Some of them I was interested in, but then other less interesting ones intruded. Also it all starts to get rather too sweet when suddenly a cute lovable child turns up and the hitherto unsentimental Ivy goes all soppy over him. And at the end it suddenly leaps forward forty years which is even more unsatisfactory, I hate it when books do that, I prefer that the future of the characters be left to my imagination.
Read
March 13, 2021An odd and somewhat scattered narrative, but I did love Ivy Gower and I have yet to meet a Stella Gibbons book I didn't like. Ivy is quite a character, and I especially admired her love of solitude and her fondness for animals, but I have to agree with another reviewer who said "I do rather draw the line at cockroaches and mice." (That said, my mom used to feed the little mice that peeped out from time to time in our old house, so I suppose she and Ivy would have been kindred spirits.)
April 6, 2021
Jane Austen would have approved of Stella Gibbons' work. Her novels, like Austen's, strike a balance between engagingly awful characters and finely-drawn portraits of down-to-earth people. Add to that brilliant descriptions of English landscapes and a delightfully barbed sense of humor, and you have one of Britain's great 20th century comic novelists. This, a late one, is as charming as her first, the famous Cold Comfort Farm.
December 16, 2023
I enjoyed this book SO much. Published originally in 1970 this is a wonderful depiction of life in the country with a little bit of magic thrown in together with quite a revolutionary dose of feminism and socialism! Great stuff.
February 13, 2021
Sweet little read
Lovely characters, sweet story simply told, without an extravagance of explanation or internal monologue. A nice relaxing read, with some unexpected twists.
Lovely characters, sweet story simply told, without an extravagance of explanation or internal monologue. A nice relaxing read, with some unexpected twists.
February 21, 2021
I loved this: nature, eccentricity, beauty, acceptance. If you love Stella Gibbons you really ought to read this.
June 1, 2021
Quick read, confusing cast
A few too many people, some more entertaining than others... disliked the round up sort of thing at the end.
A few too many people, some more entertaining than others... disliked the round up sort of thing at the end.
January 28, 2022
Let's say, 3 1/2? It isn't my favorite Gibbons, but I think she's created quite the dynamic character in Ivy, whom I won't soon forget.
March 12, 2025
At first I wasn’t sure about this one, and then all at once I loved it. It doesn’t have a strong plot, more of a loose sequence of events strung together, but it’s utterly charming, with enough of a bite to keep it from getting cloying. It now sits beside Lolly Willowes on my mental shelf.
The characters are the real reason for reading this, providing such delights—so deftly drawn, with real insight (hence the bite). My favourites are the country vicar who just can’t give up his bohemian Bloomsbury connections and the solitary. dreamy young woman poet who loves to go for walks… But then there’s also the young lady who lost her first love (and, she thinks, her chance at happiness) to the war, whose stumbling new romance with a farmhand and the questions of oughts versus wants that it confronts her with, which touched some very tender part of me:
“It occurred to her that all her life she had been taught to be truthful, but never to be truthful to herself about what she felt and wanted.”
Then too, is Ivy, the closest thing the book has to a protagonist, and a character quite unlike most that I’ve encountered, and the young runaway that she takes in. All of these and more in their little country town, described with such a knack, make a cosy, vibrant picture of the rapidly changing interwar world in which they’re living.
The characters are the real reason for reading this, providing such delights—so deftly drawn, with real insight (hence the bite). My favourites are the country vicar who just can’t give up his bohemian Bloomsbury connections and the solitary. dreamy young woman poet who loves to go for walks… But then there’s also the young lady who lost her first love (and, she thinks, her chance at happiness) to the war, whose stumbling new romance with a farmhand and the questions of oughts versus wants that it confronts her with, which touched some very tender part of me:
“It occurred to her that all her life she had been taught to be truthful, but never to be truthful to herself about what she felt and wanted.”
Then too, is Ivy, the closest thing the book has to a protagonist, and a character quite unlike most that I’ve encountered, and the young runaway that she takes in. All of these and more in their little country town, described with such a knack, make a cosy, vibrant picture of the rapidly changing interwar world in which they’re living.
December 27, 2025
This novel reminded me why I've always had a soft spot for English women's "middle brow" novels of the early-mid 20th century. They're guaranteed to be deeper and darker than my initial impression, delving further into societal expectations and restrictions imposed on women than I expect every, single time. From Stella Gibbons there's a blend of occasionally poetic writing and a bit of grim humor I find irresistible.
I have so much to read I can't get to it all, and it never fails I read a few of these wonderful books then get sidetracked by other projects. I enjoyed the time I spent with Ivy, an often-exasperating but always eccentric and interesting gypsy spinster. Not high literature, sure, but absolutely worth the couple days I spent with this charming novel.
I have so much to read I can't get to it all, and it never fails I read a few of these wonderful books then get sidetracked by other projects. I enjoyed the time I spent with Ivy, an often-exasperating but always eccentric and interesting gypsy spinster. Not high literature, sure, but absolutely worth the couple days I spent with this charming novel.
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