Virginia Woolf & The Raverats: A Different Sort of Friendship [Hardcover]

William Pryor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 31, 2004

Jacques Raverat was a French painter who died of MS aged 40 in 1925. In 1911, he had married Gwen Darwin, granddaughter of the evolutionist and also an artist. They knew Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury well and when they moved to the south of France for his health, their friendship blossomed in a series of long and poignant letters. The crucial bond was that between Jacques and Virginia. Their correspondence ranged far and wide. Informed by the depressions and uncertainties, the speculation and passion of their bohemian lives, these letters display a complex affinity between three artists facing their own mortality, their weaknesses and the price of their creativity. It is a friendship whose later substance and passion was entirely expressed by letter. Virginia Woolf & the Raverats is not only a complete record of their correspondence, but includes much previously unpublished material. None of the Raverat letters, the extracts from Gwen Raverat s other writings, her powerful sketches of her husband on his deathbed, nor Jacques paintings have been published before. There are facsimile reproductions of crucial letters, diary and journal entries.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

William Pryor has been a serial entrepreneur, co-founding Airlift Book Company, founding The Green Catalogue and pioneering music distribution on the Internet. He grew up in Cambridge very aware of being a member of the Darwin family. He is the great-great grandson of Charles Darwin and the grandson of Gwen Raverat.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 212 pages
• Publisher: Clear Books (March 31, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1904555020
• ISBN-13: 978-1904555025
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,333,366 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

VIRGINIA WOOLF (1882-1941) was one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century. An admired literary critic, she authored many essays, letters, journals, and short stories in addition to her groundbreaking novels.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Especially recommended to students and admirers, October 10, 2004

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Virginia Woolf & The Raverats: A Different Sort of Friendship (Hardcover)

Writer and critic Virginia Woolf was a close and personal friend of the painter Jacques Raverat and his wife Gwen. Jacques died from multiple sclerosis at the age of 40. In Virginia Woolf & The Raverats: A Different Sort Of Friendship, William Pryor has collected correspondences between Virginia, Jacque and Gwen. These letters embodied gossip, thoughts on the nature of friendship, religion, the endurance of pain, Jacques' anti-Semitism, Virginia's Sapphism, the differences between painting and writing, and other elements of their bohemian life styles. Of special note are the illustrations which include some of Jacques paintings. Unique, informative, compelling reading, Virginia Woolf & The Raverats is especially recommended to students and admirers of Virginia Woolf's literary writings, and offers a very special set of "windows in time" through which we can perceive glimpses of greatness amid the ordinary concerns of specially gifted (and troubled) friends.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful little book, June 17, 2010

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sweet beluga (spain) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Virginia Woolf & The Raverats: A Different Sort of Friendship (Hardcover)

Beautiful little book, very well edited and printed, with pictures and photographs. The only thing that I can say againts it is that is too short, if one has read Virgina Woolf letters this book is just a bit more of that, not too many letters from the Raverats to Virginia so one get the impression that one is not not getting much from it, much new I mean... but the outlook of the book and the editing is so nice that at the end its a good purchuase.