One of the classic accounts of the Western Front - The Times Wonderful - Jeremy Paxman Daily Mail From the moment of its first appearance an established classic - Observer One of the most candid self-portraits of a poet, warts and all, ever painted - The Times Literary Supplement

Robert Graves was born in Wimbledon in 1895. He went from school to the First World War, where he became a captain in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. After this, apart from a year as Professor of English Literature at Cairo University in 1926, he earned his living by writing, mostly historical novels, including: I, Claudius; Claudius the God; Count Belisarius; Wife of Mr Milton; Sergeant Lamb of the Ninth; Proceed, Sergeant Lamb; The Golden Fleece; They Hanged My Saintly Billy; and The Isles of Unwisdom. He wrote his autobiography, Goodbye to All That, in 1929 and it was soon established as a modern classic. He also translated widely and compiled the first modern dictionary of Greek Mythology, The Greek Myths. He was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 1961 and made an Honorary Fellow of St John's College, Oxford, in 1971. Robert Graves died in 1985.