Quick book rec...

[telophase]

Period Piece by Gwen Raverat. Raverat was a granddaughter of Charles Darwin, her father was a fellow at Cambridge, and her mother was an irrepressible American. Her book is about growing up in Cambridge at the very end of the 19th century, and it's amazing how many characters the Darwin family produced. :D

I'm about halfway through and enjoying every minute of it. Mom liked it, too - I wasn't intending to let ehr read it until I finished, but when I rodered it from Amazon.com it automatically filled in the last address I'd used, which was when I sent Mom Christmas presents, so she got it first and didn't send it on to me until she'd read it.

Comments

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

ooh, sounds interesting. [clicky...clicky...clicky] I have requested it from the library. Thanks for the recommendation.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

It's really interesting to see how the Victorian upbringing was - things were starting to change a bit, but Raverat and her fellow kids were brought up pretty strictly, since her mother was that odd combination of social crusader but puritanical in practice that America seems to specialize in.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Oooh, that DOES sound interesting.

But then I think there were bits and pieces of Victorian upbringing in my life. I know there are other holdouts - I remember reading about Victorian party games, and thinking "but Mom had us playing this at my birthday party as a young teen!" and I'd never heard of it anywhere else.