Austen Citing Index

Jane Austen Society of Australia

Austen citing: Gwen Raverat

Gwen Raverat (1885-1957) was one of the grandchildren of Charles Darwin. As a young woman, she was a member of Rupert Brooke’s circle, sometimes described as the Neo-Pagans, which had some overlaps with the Bloomsbury group. She was a distinguished artist, best known for her wood engravings and drawings: Gwen’s drawing of John Maynard Keynes (a Cambridge/Bloomsbury connection – Gwen’s sister Margaret married his brother Geoffrey Keynes) is the best-known portrait of him. The following comes from her delightful memoir, Period Piece, A Cambridge Childhood (1952).

Every time I re-read Emma I see more clearly that we must be somehow related to the Knightleys of Donwell Abbey; both dear Mr Knightley and Mr John Knightley seem so familiar and cousinly. Surely no one who had not Darwin or Wedgwood blood in their veins could be as cross as Mr John Knightley was when he had to turn out to dine at the Weston’s. ‘The folly of not allowing people to be comfortable at home! And the folly of people’s not staying comfortably at home when they can!’ – it might be Uncle Frank [Darwin] himself speaking. But it is obvious, too, that there is some strain of the Woodhouses of Hartfield in us, of Mr Woodhouse in particular. There was a kind of sympathetic gloating in the Darwin voices when they said, for instance, to one of us children: ‘And have you got a bad sore throat, my poor cat?’ which filled me with horror and shame. It was exactly the voice in which Mr Woodhouse must have spoken of ‘Poor Miss Taylor’. But it had one good effect: it quite cured us of enjoying ill health. I denied having a sore throat at all if I possibly could.

Judy Stove

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09 June 2002

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