Gwen Raverat

"A granddaughter of Charles Darwin, Gwen Raverat was born into one of the leading intellectual families of late nineteenth century England. She was a talented wood-engraver and illustrator who studied at the Slade School of Art where she met the painter Stanley Spencer and married his friend Jacques Raverat. (Raverat was later to die tragically young from multiple sclerosis.) She was a close friend of such figures as Rupert Brooke, Andre Gide, and members of the Bloomsbury set,...
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"A granddaughter of Charles Darwin, Gwen Raverat was born into one of the leading intellectual families of late nineteenth century England. She was a talented wood-engraver and illustrator who studied at the Slade School of Art where she met the painter Stanley Spencer and married his friend Jacques Raverat. (Raverat was later to die tragically young from multiple sclerosis.) She was a close friend of such figures as Rupert Brooke, Andre Gide, and members of the Bloomsbury set, especially Virginia woolf. A larger than life character with a complete lack of vanity, she charmed all who knew her. Her much-loved book Period Piece- A Cambridge Childhood has remained in print for nearly fifty years. In this authorised account of a life rich in creativity and friendship, Frances Spalding has drawn on a mass of unpublished family papers to create a fascinating portrait of Gwen Raverat. "