Best Selling Books by Robert Graves

A collection of essays by the author of "The White Goddess," linked together by some common assumptions regarding the nature of poetry. The title of the book, according to the writer, "is shorthand for saying that the popular view of what poetry is, or ought to be, has for centuries been based on sentimental misapprehensions."

This “vigorous tale” by the acclaimed author of I, Claudius captures the sixth century fall of the Byzantine Empire as seen through the eyes of a servant (Kirkus Reviews). Threatened by invaders on all sides, the Eastern Roman Empire of the sixth century fought to maintain its borders. Leading its defense was the Byzantine general Belisarius, a man who earned the grudging respect of his enemies, and who rose to become Emperor Justinian’s greatest military leader. Loosely based on Procopius’s History of the Justinian Wars and Secret History, this novel tells the Belisarius’s story through the eyes of Eugenius, a eunuch and servant to the general’s wife. It presents a compelling portrait of a man bound by a strict code of honor and unrelenting loyalty to an emperor who is intelligent but flawed, and whose decisions bring him to a tragic end. Eminent historical novelist and classicist Robert Graves presents a vivid account of a time in history both dissolute and violent, and demonstrates one again his mastery of this historical period. “A brilliant piece of scholarship.” —Kirkus Reviews “The scope of the book is massive—encompassing religious controversy and cultural developments as well as military history—yet, throughout, Graves succeeds in blending historical details with the development of his main characters.” —Historical Novel Society

Religion, history, and poetry unite in these mythological tales about the dawn of the Christian era that vividly bring the sights, sounds, and smells of Jesus' world to life.

Edward Venn-Thomas lives in the twentieth century but has been mysteriously transported to the future, and the apparently idyllic society of New Create, where there is no hunger, no war and no dissatisfaction. However Venn-Thomas is starting to find life among the New Cretans rather dull. He comes to realize that their perfect existence, inspired by the poets and magicians of their strange occultic religion, lacks one fundamental thing - evil. So Venn-Thomas sees it as nothing less than his duty to introduce them to the darker side of life. First published in 1949 and also known as Watch the North Wind Rise, Graves's novel is a thrilling blend of utopian fantasy, science fiction and mythology.

Robert Graves, classicist, poet and unorthodox critic, retells the Greek legends of gods and heroes for a modern audience. He demonstrates with a dazzling display of relevant knowledge that Greek mythology is ‘no more mysterious in content than are modern election cartoons’. All the scattered elements of each myth are assembled into a harmonious narrative, and many variants are recorded which may help to determine its ritual or historical meaning. Full indexes and references to the classical sources make the book as valuable to the scholar as the general reader. And a full commentary on each myth interprets the classical version in the light of contemporary archaeological and anthropological knowledge.

A sanctioned biography of T. E. Lawrence, known popularly as "Lawrence of Arabia," this work by the eminent Robert Graves attempts to provide a fair and balanced treatment of the man. Based on interviews with Lawrence and his close associates, this account clearly displays its authenticity.

Antigua, Penny, Puce is a tale of sibling rivalry in which Jane and Oliver fight for posession of a never-issued one-penny stamp from Antigua. They Hanged my Saintly Billy tells of Dr William Palmer, a notorious surgeon, racehorse owner and confessed forger who was also a thief.

An autobiographical work that describes firsthand the great tectonic shifts in English society following the First World War, Robert Graves's Goodbye to All That is a matchless evocation of the Great War's haunting legacy, published in Penguin Modern Classics. In 1929 Robert Graves went to live abroad permanently, vowing 'never to make England my home again'. This is his superb account of his life up until that 'bitter leave-taking': from his childhood and desperately unhappy school days at Charterhouse, to his time serving as a young officer in the First World War that was to haunt him throughout his life. It also contains memorable encounters with fellow writers and poets, including Siegfried Sassoon and Thomas Hardy, and covers his increasingly unhappy marriage to Nancy Nicholson. Goodbye to All That, with its vivid, harrowing descriptions of the Western Front, is a classic war document, and also has immense value as one of the most candid self-portraits of an artist ever written. Robert Ranke Graves (1895-1985) was a British poet, novelist, and critic. He is best known for the historical novel I, Claudius and the critical study of myth and poetry The White Goddess. His autobiography, Goodbye to All That, was published in 1929, quickly establishing itself as a modern classic. Graves also translated Apuleius, Lucan and Suetonius for the Penguin Classics, and compiled the first modern dictionary of Greek Mythology, The Greek Myths. His translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (with Omar Ali-Shah) is also published in Penguin Classics. If you enjoyed Goodbye to All That, you might like Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'His wonderful autobiography' Jeremy Paxman, Daily Mail

In these true stories, the acclaimed writer Robert Graves explores the worlds of two men intent on success. Wife to Mr. Milton is an exploration into the marriage of a man the author considered one of the heinous monsters in the English poetic pantheon--John Milton--and how his wife was ill-used by him. Milton's first wife was 16 when they married, and Milton was after her dowry. When it did not follow he proved domineering and dishonest, unresponsive to her sensuousness and her down-to-earth wit. It was a spiritual misalliance, too: her Catholicism sorted ill with his beliefs. The dramatic political and military events of the English civil war touched her life at every point, including the execution of Charles I. The Isles of Unwisdom visits a different, very Catholic world, that of the expeditions of the Spanish explorers and discoverers, near contemporaries of Milton but not emancipated by the Reformation, who come unstuck in the New World. Reconstructed is the ill-fated voyage of Alvaro de Mendana y Neya to find the Solomon Islands, popularly believed to constitute the fabled Land of Ophir, where King Solomon amassed his legendary wealth.

Nausicaa, a Sicilian princess of the eighth century B.C., looks back on the events of her life and tells how she came to write the epic poem known as the Odyssey.

A little boy finds a big green book in the attic, learns many handy magic spells, and changes his unpleasant aunt and uncle into likable guardians.

A comprehensive and renowned guide to world mythology, this classic work stands as the monumental achievement of years of scholarship. The sources of human civilization are explored in depth with the inclusion of not only the classic Greek and Roman myths of antiquity, but also the strange and unfamiliar mythologies of cultures other than our own: from Peru to Persia; from Tahiti to Togoland. The Gods and legends of every part of the world are revealed in all their splendor with an imaginative and highly readable text accompanied by authentic paintings, sculpture, symbols, idols, and ritual objects. -- The first and most famous complete encyclopedia of world mythology -- Nearly 600 illustrations, many in full color, of ancient, primitive and exotic art

This exhaustive exploration of the Hebrew myths and the book of Genesis resulted from a remarkable collaboration between one scholar raised as a strict Protestant and one raised as a strict Jew. It goes beyond Christian biblical and Judaic myth and incorporates midrashes, folk tales, apocryphal texts, and other obscure sources to extend and complete the stories. An intriguing view of the suppressed and censored pre-biblical accounts is the result, along with a rich sense of a culture consisting of oral and literary traditions, where the spiritual is deeply rooted in landscape and history.

Retells the Greek myth of the adventures of Jason, Hercules, Orpheus, and the other Argonauts on their quest for the Golden Fleece