Period Piece (Ann Arbor Paperbacks) [Paperback]

Gwen Raverat (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1991 | Series: Ann Arbor Paperbacks

Memories of a turn-of-the-century childhood by the granddaughter of Charles Darwin

Product Details

• Paperback: 290 pages
• Publisher: University of Michigan Press (December 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0472064754
• ISBN-13: 978-0472064755
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #868,498 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific, funny stuff with the flavor of another society., September 11, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Period Piece (Ann Arbor Paperbacks) (Paperback)

Wood-cut artist Gwen Raverat was associated with the Bloomsbury group, and grew up with the Keynes children in nineteenth-century Cambridge. Here, she tells the story of growing up amid the fads and fetishes not only of academic and Victorian England, but of her extremely individual family, children and grandchildren of Charles Darwin. Raverat's wood-cut illustrations are as illuminating and funny as her text.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a wonderful window into an amazing family, December 19, 2002

By 

John Anderson (Bar Harbor, ME USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Period Piece (Ann Arbor Paperbacks) (Paperback)

Darwin fanatics and Jane Austen fans will gobble up this delicious dessert. Written by Darwin's grandaughter (Raverat was George's daughter born too late to know her illustrious grandfather personally)PERIOD PIECE contains both a wealth of Family Stories that helps humanize the usual image of the Great Victorian Sage and some real (although often tongue-in-cheek) insights into Late-Victorian/Edwardian Society. As Raverat says in the Preface, the book doesn't really have a beginning or an end, it is easily dipped-in-to at any point & you will have to be totally lacking in a sense of humor not to come away both charmed & informed.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All this and the Darwins too, October 22, 2000

By 

Catharine Perry (London, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Period Piece (Ann Arbor Paperbacks) (Paperback)

This is a really lovely book, perfect for reading at bedtime or in the garden under the apple tree on a summer's afternoon. Gwen Raverat writes vividly with chapters by theme rather than chronologically and and gives a rounded view of her childhood experiences and the Darwin family of uncles and aunts.