Period Piece (book)
Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood is an autobiographical memoir by Gwen Raverat covering her childhood in late 19th Century Cambridge society. The book includes anecdotes about illustrations of, many of her extended family (see Darwin–Wedgwood family).
As the author explains in the preface it is "a circular book" and although it begins with the meeting of her parents (Sir George Darwin and Maud du Puy) 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. The book is illustrated throughout with line drawings by the author.
The book is dedicated to her cousin Frances Cornford.
It was originally published by Faber & Faber in 1952 in hardback (ISBN 1-904555-12-8) and as a paperback (ISBN 0-571-06742-5) in 1960. It was reviewed in The Times and by David Daiches in The Manchester Guardian
Read more about Period Piece (book): Family Trees, Chapter Synopses
Famous quotes containing the words period and/or piece:
“The easiest period in a crisis situation is actually the battle itself. The most difficult is the period of indecision—whether to fight or run away. And the most dangerous period is the aftermath. It is then, with all his resources spent and his guard down, that an individual must watch out for dulled reactions and faulty judgment.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)
“The machine is impersonal, it takes the pride away from a piece of work, the individual merits and defects that go along with all work that is not done by a machine—which is to say, its little bit of humanity.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)