Robert Graves Books In Order

Claudius Books In Publication Order

  1. I, Claudius (1934)
  2. Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina (1934)

Sergeant Lamb Books In Publication Order

  1. Sergeant Lamb’s America (1940)
  2. Proceed, Sergeant Lamb (1941)

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. No Decency Left (1932)
  2. Antigua, Penny, Puce (1936)
  3. Count Belisarius (1938)
  4. Wife to Mr. Milton (1943)
  5. The Golden Fleece / Hercules My Shipmate (1944)
  6. King Jesus (1946)
  7. Isles of Unwisdom (1949)
  8. Seven Days in New Crete / Watch the North Wind Rise (1949)
  9. Homer’s Daughter (1955)
  10. They Hanged My Saintly Billy (1957)
  11. Greek Gods and Heroes (1960)
  12. Selected Poetry and Prose (1961)
  13. The Siege and Fall of Troy (1962)
  14. Two Wise Children (1967)
  15. Laius, Iocaste and Oedipus (1972)
  16. An Ancient Castle (1980)
  17. Mrs. Fisher or The Future of Humour (1982)
  18. Eleven songs (1983)
  19. Cobalt 60 (1986)
  20. So You Want to Get Married? (1994)
  21. The Anger of Achilles (2002)

Chapbooks In Publication Order

  1. The Big Green Book (1962)
  2. The Poor Boy Who Followed his Star (1968)

Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. The Meaning of Dreams (1924)
  2. My Head! My Head! (1925)
  3. Poetic Unreason And Other Studies (1925)
  4. Good-bye to all that (1927)
  5. Lawrence and the Arabs (1927)
  6. The Reader Over Your Shoulder (With: ) (1947)
  7. The White Goddess (1948)
  8. Occupation (1950)
  9. The Nazarene Gospel Restored (With: ) (1953)
  10. Adam’s Rib (1955)
  11. The Greek Myths: Volume 1 (1955)
  12. The Crowning Privilege (1955)
  13. Steps (1958)
  14. The Greek Myths (1960)
  15. The Long Week-End (1961)
  16. Myths of Ancient Greece (1961)
  17. Oxford Addresses on Poetry (1962)
  18. Hebrew Myths (1963)
  19. Majorca Observed (With: Paul Hogarth) (1965)
  20. Mammon and the Black Goddess (1965)
  21. The Greek Myths and Legends (1967)
  22. Poetic Craft and Principle (1967)
  23. The Greek Myths: Volume 2 (1968)
  24. Lars Porsena (1972)
  25. Difficult questions, easy answers (1972)
  26. The Song Of Songs (1973)
  27. In Broken Images (1974)
  28. On English Poetry (1975)
  29. Life of Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1975)
  30. The Common Asphodel (1982)
  31. The English Ballad (1982)
  32. A Survey of Modernist Poetry (With: ) (1982)
  33. Selected Letters: Between Moon and Moon, 1946-72 v. 2 (1984)
  34. Conversations with Robert Graves (1989)
  35. The Use and Abuse of the English Language (1990)
  36. Dear Robert, Dear Spike (With: Spike Milligan) (1991)
  37. Winter in Majorca (With: George Sand) (1992)
  38. Collected Writings on Poetry (1995)
  39. Some Speculations on Literature, History and Religion (2001)
  40. On Poetry: Collected Talks and Essays (2004)
  41. Translating Rome (2010)

Claudius Book Covers

Sergeant Lamb Book Covers

Standalone Novels Book Covers

ChapBook Covers

Non-Fiction Book Covers

Robert Graves Books Overview

I, Claudius

I, Claudius‘ is a historical novel with a human focus. Written in the style of a secret autobiography, it concerns the thoughts and feelings of a historical figure who was largely isolated for much of his life until middle age. Fusing historical fact with speculative fiction, Robert Graves uses a tried and tested formula to create an original and moving work, which brings the human aspect to a listener’s understanding of the life of the Roman Emperor Claudius. A political as well as historical work, the story mainly discusses the relationships between the ideas of liberty and stability within society, and which of them is best. Claudius is the perfect vehicle to use for examining such an argument, as, in his younger life, he was committed to all the ideals of liberty, whereas, in later life, he came to see the advantages, societal and personal, of stability. Claudius realises, in the tale, that although the most favourable state for a human being to live in should be free and liberated, the reality of such a situation means the onslaught of numerous civil wars and the de stabilising of the fabric of society. Like Grave’s other works, such as Goodbye to all that also published by CSA Word, ‘I, Claudius‘ is a success because it is intelligent, historical and insightful, whilst retaining the charm of a plot and a narrative style that are joys to listen to.

Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina

Following the popularity of CSA Word’s 4CD set of ‘I Claudius’, ‘Claudius the God’ arrives in 2009 by popular customer demand. ‘Claudius the God’ continues the story of Emperor Claudius, read in the style of a secret diary which relates his experiences of being in power and his musings on philosophical issues regarding ruling Rome and the nature of managing a general populous. Raising intelligent and thought provoking issues, the likeable yet formidable Claudius reflects upon whether his society would benefit from ideas and practices such as free rule and the possibilities of reviving the Republic. Also involving historical characters such as his wife, The Empress Messalina, Herod Agrippa and the scheming though savvy Empress Livia, ‘Claudius the God’ is a fascinating insight into the mind of a great historical figure, whilst also being a captivating discussion of the benefits and stability of centralised rule versus the concept of freedom and its virtues. An incredibly important sequel, ‘Claudius the God’ is also a compelling and sympathetic self contained semi factual biography of one of history’s most unlikely and intriguing rulers.

Sergeant Lamb’s America

The life of Sergeant Roger Lamb, a young Dubliner who had served the Royal Welsh Fusiliers during the American War of Independence was the subject of a novelistic enterprise originally published in two parts because of war time paper shortages. The final result is a pair of picaresque novels concerned with the passions and frustrations of a distant war which mirrored many of Graves’ own feelings for World War II which was happening around him. As an account of the struggle for independence, the horrors and excitements of war, the two novels were well reviewed and popular when published in the early 1940s. This chance to have both parts of what Graves considered to be a single project in one volume offers the opportunity of access to a literary and historical creation which both opens up the world of the American War of Independence, and the creative life and mind of a great writer of the 20th century.

Count Belisarius

The sixth century was not a peaceful time for the Roman empire. Invaders threatened on all fronties, but they grew to respect and fear the name of Belisarius, the Emperor Justinian’s greatest general. With this book Robert Graves again demonstrates his command of a vast historical subject, creating a startling and vivid picture of a decadent era.

King Jesus

King Jesus, long out of print, is one of the most controversial historical novels of all time. In it, Robert Graves has summoned his superb narrative powers, his painstaking scholarship, his wit and unsurpassed ability to recreate the past, to produce a magnificant portrayal of the life of Christ on earth.

Seven Days in New Crete / Watch the North Wind Rise

WATCH THE NORTH WIND RISE tells of a poet who imagines the world a thousand years from now. Clocks, money and machinery have disappeared. Magicians are important and so are rituals, handicrafts and love. Everyone worships a Mother Goddess, and as in the Middle Ages, life is local and personal. Villages war against each other in dramatic fashion but only on Tuesdays, and no one gets hurt. Graves’ future world, as explored by a young poet from our time, has history, reality and stunning inner logic. ‘WATCH THE NORTH WIND RISE is a book so rich in style and plot, so profoundly mythic and at the same time so lightly comic, that there is simply no way to communicate its full flavor.’ The Washington Post

Greek Gods and Heroes

Recounts the glorious days when gods and godesses who dwelt on Mount Olympus ruled over the world of mortals below, and fabled heroes performed mighty deeds of valor.

An Ancient Castle

When, through the efforts of an unscrupulous war profiteer, his father is threatened with dismissal from his job as keeper of An Ancient Castle, a young boy helps thwart the conspiracy and discovers an unexpected treasure.

Mrs. Fisher or The Future of Humour

The well known English poet and essayist here ventures his interpretations of the humouristic element in literature.

The Anger of Achilles

In 2002, the University of Michigan Press published Rodney Merrill’s translation of Homer’s Odyssey, an interpretation of the classic that was unique in employing the meter of Homer’s original. Praising Merrill’s translation of the Odyssey, Gregory Nagy of Harvard wrote, ‘Merrill’s fine ear for the sound of ancient Greek makes the experience of reading his Homer the nearest thing in English to actually hearing Homer. The translator’s English renders most faithfully the poet’s ancient Greek not only the words and meaning but even the voice.’Merrill has now produced an edition of Homer’s Iliad, following the same approach. This form of rendering is particularly relevant to the Iliad, producing a strong musical setting that many elements of the narrative require to come truly to life. Most notable are the many battle scenes, to which the strong meter gives an impetus embodying and making credible the ‘war lust’ in the deeds of the combatants. For many years, until his retirement, Rodney Merrill taught English composition and comparative literature at Stanford and Berkeley. In addition to his translation of Homer’s Odyssey, he is the author of ‘Chaucer’s Broche of Thebes.’Jacket photograph 2007 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston’Other competent translations of Homer exist, but none accomplish what Merrill aims for: to convey to the reader listener in translation the meaning and the sounds of Homer, coming as close as possible to the poetry of the original. Merrill accomplishes this virtuosic achievement by translating Homer’s Greek into English hexameters, a process requiring not only a full understanding of the original Greek, but also an unusual mastery of the sounds, rhythms, and nuances of English.’ Stephen G. Daitz, Professor Emeritus of Classics, City University of New York’This is a faithful and powerful rendition of the original Greek. With his deep understanding of the language, Merrill has succeeded in capturing the heroic essence of the Homeric Iliad.’ Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature, Harvard University, and author of Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond

The Big Green Book

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.

My Head! My Head!

Essays on art, life and literature by the author of ‘The Nazarene Gospel Restored’ and ‘I Claudius.’

Lawrence and the Arabs

The unique leader and warrior immortalized as ”Lawrence of Arabia” is remembered in this official biography written by his friend, Robert Graves. T. E. Lawrence began his lifelong affair with the Middle East as a student at Oxford, taking a four month walking tour of Syria to study the Crusaders castles. He later returned to the area as an archaeologist and was attached to British Army Intelligence in Egypt at the outbreak of World War I. In 1916, he set out on his greatest adventure: with no backing, Lawrence joined Arab forces facing almost insurmountable odds in a rebellion against Turkish domination. His brilliance as a desert war strategist made him a hero among the Arabs and a legend throughout the world, earning him the moniker Lawrence of Arabia. But his near pathological dislike of publicity led him to a life of self imposed obscurity as T. E. Shaw, anonymous RAF soldier. This is the official biography of a unique leader of men whose larger than life presence still echoes.

The Reader Over Your Shoulder (With: )

For those with a nose for poetry.

The White Goddess

The White Goddess is perhaps the finest of Robert Graves’s works on the psychological and mythological sources of poetry. In this tapestry of poetic and religious scholarship, Graves explores the stories behind the earliest of European deities The White Goddess of Birth, Love, and Death who was worshipped under countless titles. He also uncovers the obscure and mysterious power of ‘pure poetry’ and its peculiar and mythic language.
/Content /EditorialReview EditorialReview Source Amazon. com Review /Source Content Robert Graves, the late British poet and novelist, was also known for his studies of the mythological and psychological sources of poetry. With The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth, Graves was able to combine many of his passions into one work. While the book is so poetically written that many of the passages amount to prose poems, it is also frequently plot driven enough to feel like a novel, and it is rich with scholarly insight into the deep wells of poetry. Especially fascinating is the chapter in which Graves explores the ancient and ongoing practice of poets’ invoking the muse. Graves details the practice in both the Eastern and Western literary traditions, and shows specific similarities and differences among Greek, British, and Irish tales and myths about the muse. Graves has much to offer students of history and myth, but poetry lovers will also be fascinated with The White Goddess.

The Nazarene Gospel Restored (With: )

Drawing upon Jewish scholarship and a vast knowledge of the ancient world, this extraordinary account attempts to reconstruct the historical Jesus by placing emphasis on the narrative of his life. Similar to The Da Vinci Code in mood, this revised edition untangles the distortions and age old problems of the original texts to uncover the truth behind Jesus’s words and actions. It also includes a detailed account of the composition and reception of the book when it first published, it was deemed controversial, its reviews were hostile, and its author was twice sued for libel.

The Greek Myths: Volume 1

The heroes and villains, gods and goddesses of ancient Greece have long inspired artists and, more recently, filmmakers to recreate their images. But how did the Greeks see them? And what stories lay behind the familiar names from Aphrodite to Zeus that so pervade our culture? Robert Graves’ masterful yet accessible, ‘Greek Myths’ vividly retells the adventures of the important gods and heroes and has become a classic reference book for both the serious scholar and the casual inquirer. This edition features lavish photographs and illustrations of the art of ancient Greece.

The Long Week-End

A classic social history by two distinguished writers who lived through the time. ‘The long week end’ is the authors’ evocative phrase for the period in Great Britain’s social history between the twin devastations of the Great War and World War II. From a postwar period of prosperity and frivolity through the ever darkening decade of the thirties, The Long Week End deftly and movingly preserves the details and captures the spirit of the time.

Hebrew Myths

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.

The Greek Myths and Legends

The Greek Myths has long been among Graves’s most popular works, compendious in scope and lively in the telling. No poet of the twentieth century, not even Ezra Pound, was so compendiously learned as Graves in the origins of our Mediterranean cultures. While his approach to myth is original and sometimes contentious, his narrative is always compelling. Graves tells the myths of creation, the origins of the Gods and their lives, the exploits of the heroes and the Trojan War. The retelling is modern but the matter is not modernised: Graves is alive to the vivid otherness of the world he evokes. The Greek Myths are more than cultural archaeology: it recovers the coherence of the ancient world. Graves’s organisation and comparisons of sources infer connections, common themes, synergies and tropes; his riskiest conclusions are persuasive because of the energy and penetration of his mind. He sees history, not psychology, through the myths and suggests that they have actual occasions which, in the telling and retelling, became charged spiritually, maturing into the coherence of religion. The Greek Myths, a reference book or as an exploration of our common roots is corrected in a limited edition as part of the Millennium Graves Programme.

Lars Porsena

Equal parts history and absurdity, this tongue in cheek treatise laments the decline of swearing and foul language in England and looks back with nostalgia at the glory days of oaths and blasphemies. Written when censorship in England was still in full sway, this was an impassionate defense of the foul mouthed in literature and a resounding attack of hypocrisy and Puritanism.

On English Poetry

A collection of notes, rather than essays, not intended as a philosophy of poetry but rather as a formulation of rules suggested by his own poetical writings. THIS TITLE IS CITED AND RECOMMENDED BY: Books for College Libraries.

The Common Asphodel

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 vierw of what poetry is, or ought to be, has for centuries been based on sentimental misapprehensions.’THIS TITLE IS CITED AND RECOMMENDED BY: Books for College Libraries; Catalogue of the Lamont Library, Harvard College.

The English Ballad

The well known British poet here traces the development of the ballad from its earliest times down to the 20th century. Included are examples of romantic ballads, sea chanties and street ballads, as well as a long introductory essay. An invaluable addition to collections in folk literature and music. THIS TITLE IS CITED AND RECOMMENDED BY: Books for College Libraries; Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature.

A Survey of Modernist Poetry (With: )

The books paired here make up the first collaborative study of ‘Modernist’ poetry by two of the twentieth century’s most important and original poets. In ‘A Survey of Modernist Poetry’, Laura Riding and Robert Graves produce a contemporary reaction to the early experimentation of writers such as Eliot, Pound and E.E. Cummings. Their close critical readings are deployed, along the way, in an engagement with Shakespeare’s punctuation, issues of populism and elitism and an attempt to define perhaps to invent that elusive creature known as ‘the common reader’. The Survey contains groundbreaking readings of modern poems and movements and is an illuminating and polemical account of the beginnings of modernism. It is an important resource but also a valuable critical text in the reception and development of modernist poetry in English. ‘A Pamphlet Against Anthologies’ is an entertaining tirade against the perceived iniquities of the trade anthology. A statement of poetic integrity, it poses awkward questions about the production and consumption of art in the mass markets of twentieth and twenty first centuries.

Conversations with Robert Graves

Though he lived most of his life in the remote village of Deya on the island of Mallorca, Robert Graves 1895 1985 was conversant with the most important issues of this century and was acquainted with many of the most powerful people. Jorge Luis Borges called him ‘a soul above.’ Graves wrote almost restlessly on subjects of great diversity: myths of the Greeks, Romans, Hebrews, and Celts; modern science and economics; contemporary society and culture as well as of ancient Greece and Rome, of Celtic Wales and Ireland, of the time of Milton, and of the American Revolution. He was a poet of great fame, a celebrated writer of historical novels, and the man who imprinted the name and identity of the White Goddess upon the cultural language. His translations of Latin classics have been applauded; his recastings of Biblical and Persian texts attracted irascible attention from scholars. Throughout his long and productive life, whether he was talking with Virginia Woolf, Peter Quenell, Jorge Luis Borges, Alan Sillitoe, Edwin Newman, or Gina Lollobrigida, the voice of Graves remained clear and distinct attracting and repelling a variety of interviewers with its surety. His Books Goodbye to All That; The White Goddess; I, Claudius; and King Jesus preserve his literary art. The conversations in this collection keep alive his presence and passion.

Collected Writings on Poetry

This text is part of the ‘Robert Graves Programme’ in which his work is re edited and re published. In 1918, Robert Graves began his writing career in earnest. The phases of his critical writing are distinct. From his 1925 volume ‘Poetic Unreason and Other Studies’ to his collaborative works with Laura Riding, to ‘The Common Asphodel’ 1949 and other work, Graves concerns and discoveries are controversial. Through the anti Romantic years and into the decades of irony, he maintained and defended the lyric tradition. As advocate, polemicist and mythographer, his writing can serve as an example for those seeking the traditional and classical writing.

Some Speculations on Literature, History and Religion

This is a collection of Robert Graves’ essays, written between 1922 and 1972, on areas of culture which engaged him. They are organized around the thematic categories of literature, history and religion. The collection chronicles Graves’ intellectual development by presenting the essays chronologically to show how ideas begin and evolve over half a century. At the same time, the essays demonstrate his eclectic knowledge over a vast range of topics and confirm not only his insights, but also his humour and famous ‘leaps of logic’.

Translating Rome

Featuring translations of three classical Roman works Apuleius’s The Golden Ass, Lucan s Pharsalia, and Suetonius s The Twelve Ceasars this collection is vital to the understanding of Roman culture and history. The Golden Ass tells the story of a young man who, through his own stupidity, is turned into a donkey, thus beginning his rollicking quest to regain his human form through worship of the gods Isis and Osiris. Pharsalia is an epic poem that chronicles the conflict between Julius Caesar and the senator Pompey in northern Greece around 48 BC. The Twelve Ceasars is a biography of the Roman rulers from Julius Caesar to Domitian, a vivid and racy account of the sex, politics, and violence that constituted their experiences as Rome s most powerful men. Rife with the delights and excesses of Roman culture, these three works are a portal into the world of one of history s largest empires.

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