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 The Slade, it is not written chronologically, but rather arranged in a series of fifteen themed chapters, each dealing with a particular aspects of life.

It was reviewed in The Times[2] and by David Daiches in The Manchester Guardian[3] Period Piece has been translated into Danish (Min forunderlige barndom, 1980), Swedish (Så var det då : min barndom i Cambridge, 1985) and German (Eine Kindheit in Cambridge, 1991).

At the very beginning of the book, two family trees are given, one for the author's mother and one for her father.

The family trees are reproduced here with minor modification: The author's father was Sir George Darwin.

Charles and Emma had seven children who survived to adulthood - four uncles and two aunts to Gwen.