Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood is an autobiographical work by
Gwendoline Mary "Gwen" RaveratGwendolen Mary "Gwen" Raverat née Darwin was a celebrated English wood engraving artist who co-founded the Society of Wood Engravers in England.- Biography :...
.
Gwen RaveratGwendolen Mary "Gwen" Raverat née Darwin was a celebrated English wood engraving artist who co-founded the Society of Wood Engravers in England.- Biography :...
(née Darwin) (1885–1957) was the daughter of George Howard Darwin and was an artist. She married the French artist
Jacques RaveratJacques Pierre Raverat was a French painter.He married the English painter Gwen Darwin, in 1911, the daughter of George Darwin and granddaughter of Charles Darwin. They had two daughters, Elisabeth , who married the Norwegian politician Edvard Hambro and Sophie who married the Cambridge scholar...
in 1911 and had daughters Elizabeth Hambro and Sophie Pryor. Her dryly amusing childhood memoir
Period Piece, includes illustrations of, and anecdotes about, many of the
Darwin–Wedgwood familyThe Darwin–Wedgwood family is actually two interrelated English families, descended from the prominent 18th century doctor, Erasmus Darwin, and Josiah Wedgwood, founder of the pottery firm, Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, the most notable member of which was Charles Darwin...
.
As the author explains in the preface it is "a circular book" and although it begins with the meeting of her parents and ends with Gwen as a student at Slade it is not written chronologically, but rather arranged in a series of fifteen themed chapters, each dealing with a particular aspects of life such as "Education", "Sport", "Ghosts and Horrors". The book is illustrated throughout with line drawings by the author.
It was originally published by
Faber & FaberFaber and Faber Limited, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in the UK, notable in particular for publishing a great deal of poetry and for its former editor T. S. Eliot. Faber has a rich tradition of publishing a wide range of fiction, non fiction, drama, film and music...
in 1952 in hardback (ISBN 1-904555-12-8) and as a paperback (ISBN 0-571-06742-5) in 1960.