Robert Graves: Complete Poems in One Volume (Revolution and Romanticism, 1789-1834) [Deluxe Edition] [Hardcover]

Robert Graves (Author), Beryl Graves (Editor), Dunstan Ward (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2001 | ISBN-10: 1857545249 | ISBN-13: 978-1857545241 | Edition: Limited

Carcanet's Millenium Graves programme culminates in the publication of a limited hardcover edition of "The Complete Poems of Robert Graves". The three volume edition was completed in 1999, and with its full scholarly apparatus it ran to in excess of 1,500 pages. This edition of the poems, intended for the general poetry lover and the collector rather than the scholar, provides definitive texts of all the poetry. The volume represents in its purest form the achievement of Graves's 70 productive years.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 942 pages
• Publisher: Carcanet Press Ltd.; Limited edition (January 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1857545249
• ISBN-13: 978-1857545241
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,295,592 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

ROBERT GRAVES (1895-1985) was an English poet, translator, and novelist, one of the leading English men of letters in the twentieth century. He fought in World War I and won international acclaim in 1929 with the publication of his memoir of the First World War, Good-bye to All That. After the war, he was granted a classical scholarship at Oxford and subsequently went to Egypt as the first professor of English at the University of Cairo. He is most noted for his series of novels about the Roman emperor Claudius and his works on mythology, such as The White Goddess.

Customer Reviews

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1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Competent- but not great, January 17, 2006

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Robert Graves: Complete Poems in One Volume (Revolution and Romanticism, 1789-1834) (Hardcover)

Graves wrote much poetry for a long time. I do not know how much of it is read. If to judge by the reviews, or absence of them on Amazon he does not seem to be much in demand, in America, anyway.
Reading through some of his poems I have a sense of his strength, clearness, surehanded managing of the poetry. Of the poems I read the most moving for me was the following:

Robert Graves

Near Martinpuich that night of hell
Two men were struck by the same shell,
Together tumbling in one heap
Senseless and limp like slaughtered sheep.

One was a pale eighteen-year-old,
Blue-eyed and thin and not too bold,
Pressed for the war not ten years too soon,
The shame and pity of his platoon.

The other came from far-off lands
With brisling chin and whiskered hands,
He had known death and hell before
In Mexico and Ecuador.

Yet in his death this cut-throat wild
Groaned 'Mother! Mother!' like a child,
While the poor innocent in man's clothes
Died cursing God with brutal oaths.

Old Sergeant Smith, kindest of men,
Wrote out two copies and then
Of his accustomed funeral speech
To cheer the womanfolk of each:-

"He died a hero's death: and we
His comrades of 'A' Company
Deeply regret his death: we shall
All deeply miss so true a pal."

My sense is his best poetry as much of his best- writing in general comes out of his World War One experience. But to tell the truth in reading what I did , I felt that the poetry clear, strong and good but lacking the higher spark of inspiration which makes us so much love a few poets.