Robert Graves

Robert Graves was a British poet, novelist, critic and classicist best known for the novel I, Claudius (1934) and his memoir Good-bye to All That (1929). He gained early attention as a war poet and later became one of the most widely read historical novelists of the 20th century. Graves received lasting literary recognition for his contributions to poetry, biography and the study of myth, publishing over 140 works during his lifetime.

Robert Graves was born in Wimbledon on 24 July 1895. He was educated at King’s College School, Copthorne Prep School, Charterhouse School, and later won a scholarship to St John’s College, Oxford. In 1912, while still at Charterhouse, he formed a romantic attachment to G. H. Johnstone, a younger student. When challenged by school authorities, he defended himself by invoking Plato and Shakespeare, “who had felt as I did”.

At the outbreak of the First World War, Graves enlisted and was commissioned into the Royal Welch Fusiliers. His first book of poems, Over the Brazier (1916), reflected the reality of trench life. Fairies and Fusiliers (1917) further explored wartime friendships, especially his bond with Siegfried Sassoon. The Battle of the Somme left Graves severely wounded and briefly declared dead. He recovered in England and spent most of the war’s remainder there.

Graves returned to Oxford after the war. In 1918, he married Nancy Nicholson; Wilfred Owen attended the wedding. Graves attempted to earn a living through bookselling, but this failed. In 1926, he accepted a teaching position at Cairo University. He travelled with Nicholson, their children and the poet Laura Riding. By the following year, he had left his wife and settled with Riding in Deià, Majorca.

In Majorca, Graves and Riding founded the Seizin Press and edited Epilogue, a literary journal. Together they wrote A Survey of Modernist Poetry (1927) and A Pamphlet Against Anthologies (1928). In 1927, Graves published Lawrence and the Arabs, a biography of T. E. Lawrence. His autobiography Good-bye to All That (1929) caused controversy and distanced him from former comrades, including Sassoon.

His most successful novels followed in the 1930s: I, Claudius (1934) and Claudius the God (1935) presented a fictionalised Roman history drawn from classical sources. Count Belisarius (1938) extended his interest in ancient military figures.

In later decades, Graves wrote poetry and critical works on myth and ancient religion. His productivity declined after the early 1970s due to memory loss.

Robert Graves died in 1985 from heart failure, ten years after completing his last work