One of the most remarkable writers of the twentieth century, Robert Graves published more than a thousand poems over some seventy years. Primarily known for his love poetry, Graves combined irony with passion, the intensely personal with the universal, inspired by his Muses – the White and Black Goddesses. But there are also works of harsh realism, written after his traumatic experience in the First World War and the aftermath of shell shock and religious crisis. Melancholy and fear run through many poems, but balanced by humour and moments of pure lyrical beauty. Bringing together those that appeared in his lifetime, along with posthumously published poems, this volume represents the most comprehensive collection ever of Graves’s poetic work.
Edited by Beryl Graves and Dunstan Ward.
‘A monumental basis for looking at the poems afresh … No one else offers his precise combination of eroticism, nightmare and epigram’
Sean O’Brien, Guardian
‘A Renaissance figure, among the most generous, self-willed, unseemly and brilliant writers of our century’
D. M. Thomas, The New York Times
