Shadow of a Sorcerer

by Stella Gibbons

285 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

Stella 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.

Reviews

[Louise Culmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meg Lambert and her widowed mother are spending the summer at a guesthouse on the shore of a lake in Austria, where Meg is learning German and her mother is helping Hansi, the owner of the guesthouse, with the domestic work. Hansi had lived with the Lamberts as a refugee during the war and is fond of Mrs Lambert though somewhat disapproving of pretty, lighthearted Meg. Meg enjoys herself with the other young people staying at the guesthouse, but then begins to be fascinated by Esme Scarron, a wealthy middle aged man who spends his summers in a beautiful house on the other side of the lake. Mrs Lambert dislikes Scarron intensely, and so does Hansi, though she won’t say why. Things get more complicated as Meg gets more involved with Scarron. This is an enjoyable story with some interesting characters and wonderful descriptions of Austria and Venice, where the climax of the story takes place. Esme Scarron is a sinister and rather melodramatic figure, perhaps a bit overdone. There are touches of humour, I particularly liked the remark made by one of the students that another character had ‘seen something nasty in the gondola shed’ (a reference to the author’s most famous book Cold Comfort Farm). The climax, for me, fell a little flat, but on the whole I found it a very entertaining book.

[Amy Street · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and enjoyable though some problematic dated bits.
She references Cold Comfort Farm - one of the characters makes a joke about the woodshed, and it says he’s always going on about that book he’s read!