- Hardcover: 272 pages
- Publisher: Clear Press Ltd (1 Nov 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1904555128
- ISBN-13: 978-1904555124
- Product Dimensions: 25 x 19.5 x 2.7 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 787,870 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Book Description
To celebrate its 50 years in print, Clear Books has published a special edition of this classic and much loved work.
Gwen Raverat, the granddaughter of Charles Darwin, described this memoir of her late Victorian Cambridge childhood as a drawing of the world when she was young.
The observations of the small incidents in her life and of her eccentric Darwin family, recorded here both in her inimitably charming prose and her line drawings, reveal an artist's careful eye. Vividly evoking a bygone era, it is a shrewd, touching and comic portrait of her childhood, her eccentric relations, and of Cambridge academic society.
The book’s wit and charm have endeared it to several generations of avid readers and have ensured it is still in print some 51 years after it was first published.
About the Author
Gwen Raverat, née Darwin, was the leading wood engraving artist of the 20th century.
She married the French painter, Jacques Raverat, who died aged just 40 from MS. Her friends numbered Rupert Brooke, Virginia Woolf, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Eric Gill and Stanley Spencer. She did not start writing Period Piece until well into her 60s.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Has Cambridge ever really been this much fun?,
By A Customer
This review is from: Period Piece - A Cambridge Childhood (Paperback)
Charles Darwin's grand-daughter tells of her eccentric upbringing and her large, talented and idiosyncratic family. A good window onto the life of the upper-class Victorian intelligentsia, her account is consistently affectionate, humorous and light of touch. Whimsical, sane and very funny. Deserves to be better-known.
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If only there were 10 stars to give...,
This review is from: Period Piece - A Cambridge Childhood (Paperback)
This remarkable memoir holds a secure place in my heart. I first read it when I was doing research in Cambridge, but have returned to it many times since. There is no other book that I know of in English quite like it. If only more people knew of it. The depth of Gwen Ravert's memory, and the ease with which she moves among her individual memories. Everything about the world she inhabits is made delightful, especially the family of Charles Darwin. It seems to have been an idyllic age. For the middle classes at least, childhood in late Victorian England seems to have been enviable Ñ especially when we think of modern children, their loss of innocence, and the dangers they are exposed to. Raverat brings to life a lost world through wit and intelligence, with animated and sometimes preposterous characters. This is better than Dickens, Michel Faber, Jerome K Jerome, and all the rest. it has a real claim to be the most amiable, amusing, and perceptive memoir in the English language. Buy it, read it, and keep it with you for the rest of your life.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A circular book,
By
This review is from: Period Piece - A Cambridge Childhood (Paperback)
Gwen Raverat's memories of a childhood and adolescence in Cambridge at the turn of the last century is written by theme, rather than chronologically. So, we are delighted and entertained by chapters covering everything from "Propriety" to "Ghosts and Horrors".
Along with recounting episodes and incidents from the time, Gwen Raverat then peppers these with her own insight and commentary into the situation, which is by turns highly amusing and deeply poignant. Together with the line illustrations, we are presented with a picture of time and place that we can almost experience for ourselves. This is a masterpiece.
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