Cold Comfort Farm

When the refined and financially unencumbered Flora Poste finds herself orphaned at twenty, possessed of 'every art and grace save that of earning her own living,' she decides her moral duty is to impose upon her relatives. She chooses the distant Starkadder family, residing at the bleak and aptly named Cold Comfort Farm in the remote Sussex village of Howling. Flora arrives to find a household steeped in misery, archaic traditions, and an almost gleeful embrace of squalor. The farm is presided over by the formidable and perpetually bedridden Aunt Ada Doom, who once 'saw something nasty in the woodshed,' and populated by a cast of eccentric, melodramatic characters: the brooding, lustful Seth, the religious fanatic Reuben, the bovine Elfine, and the long-suffering Amos. With her modern sensibilities and unwavering common sense, Flora embarks on a mission to bring order, sanity, and a good dose of happiness to the Starkadders, determined to reshape their lives whether they like it or not, all while maintaining her delightful detachment and penchant for planning.