His death following a stroke at age 73 was described in his "Guardian" obituary as "proof that the Devil looks after his own", his obituary-writer (Michael Barber) claiming that he should, by rights, have "died of drink at 30, or else shame at 50".
Kenneth Tynan famously said that he read Raven's novels with a sense of "pleasurable loathing".
His marriage to Susan Kilner was simply a marriage of convenience, as she was pregnant by him. After the child was born, he had little to do with her, although they were not officially divorced until 1957.