His Last Bow: Some Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan DoyleĪshenden or, the British Agent by W. Tom Swift and His Aerial Warship by Victor Appleton The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs Read more of Bernard Norcott-Mahany's 2015 reviews of books about the First World War:Īll Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque In the 1920s, though, Graves was primarily a poet, one of many poets who served Britain during WWI, surviving like his compatriot, Siegfried Sassoon, to be a strong critic of the war, and of war itself though the British didn’t invent the term FUBAR, ineptitude and poor communication led to all sorts of disasters in the war. To many readers, Graves is best known as the author of I, Claudius and Claudius the God, two historical novels written in the guise of newly unearthed memoirs of the 4th Roman Emperor, Claudius, and 'translated' by Graves into English (Graves actually did pen several exemplary translations of Greek and Roman works for Penguin.) Those two novels are witty, well-written, and meticulously researched - Graves got his facts right. As he put it, that experience left him with a nose that “no longer serve as a vertical line of demarcation” between the two sides of his face. When he returned to England to recuperate from the war, he was operated on by an army surgeon he was glad to have the free service, but had no choice in the surgeon, and the one who operated on him botched the job somewhat, so that throughout the remainder of his life, he had trouble breathing through one nostril.

Part of his breathing problems came from a battered nose, which he got while at Charterhouse, a British prep school by “playing rugger with soccer players.” Boxing in the army worsened the condition of his nose.

His war experiences exacerbated lung problems he had all his life despite these problems Graves lived for ninety years. In that war, he was severely wounded and taken for dead.

Like many of his generation, he served in the British Army (Royal Welch Fusilliers, to be exact) during World War I. A poet and novelist of some note, he was also a respected classical scholar and translator.

Goodbye to all that graves