11-05-2025
Catherine Peters obituary: Somerville English professor
Suavely dressed and with a cut-glass accent and a hint of glamorous intrigue, Catherine Peters stood out among her bluestocking colleagues at Somerville College, Oxford. There was the general impression among students that she had more than one life going on. Two rumours circulated, neither of which was true: that she had written a series of wildly successful children's books — that was the first wife of her second husband, also called Catherine — and, second, that she had been the muse behind the illustrations for The Joy of Sex, published in 1972.
That she was an award-winning biographer of 19th-century writers seemed to fit the image that she perhaps took pains to polish — that of a well-connected cosmopolitan. During tutorials she was
