Speaker: Dr Emma Darwin
Books about Emma’s great-great-grandparents, Charles and Emma Darwin, are legion, but when she agreed to write a novel about her family, she looked for the stories less often told: as well as polymath Erasmus Darwin, there was Thomas Wedgwood, pioneer of photographic processes; novelist and historian, Julia Wedgwood; composer Ralph Vaughan Williams; engraver Gwen Raverat; poet Frances Cornford; and her son, the radical poet, John Cornford, the first Briton killed in the Spanish Civil War. Join Emma on this illustrated journey through the Darwin-Wedgwood-Galton clan, as seen through the lens of her creative struggle to write fiction about them.
Dr Emma Darwin is a writer and teacher. Her first novel, The Mathematics of Love, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ award while her best-selling A Secret Alchemy earned her a PhD. Her latest book is This is Not a Book About Charles Darwin.
29 Nov 2023
2:15 pm
Zoom and Bridge St (booking required)