Goodbye to All That - Hardcover

Graves, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1571810218 ISBN 13: 9781571810212

Publisher: Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 1995

Synopsis

"The objects of this autobiography, written at the age of thirty-three, are simple enough: an opportunity for a formal good-bye to you and to you and to you and to me and to all that; forgetfulness, because once all this has been settled in my mind and written down and published it need never be thought about again; money." Thus begins Robert Graves' classic 1929 autobiography with its searing account of life in the trenches of World War One; and yet this opening passage, together with much significant material, has been unavailable since 1957, when a middle-aged Graves totally revised his text, robbing it of the painfully raw edge that had helped to make it an international bestseller. By 1957 major changes in his private life had taken place. Graves was no longer living with Laura Riding, under whose influence and in whose honor the original had been written. By cutting out all references to Riding, by deleting passages which revealed the mental strains under which he had labored, and by meticulously editing the entire text, Graves destroyed most of what he had made so powerful but also removed from it the only context in which it could be fully understood. We are pleased to offer the original 1929 edition, edited and annotated by Robert Graves's nephew and biographer, whose lucid introduction greatly enhances its value.

About this title

Review:

"The best memoir of the First World War."
--Paul Fussell

"One of the classic accounts of the Western Front."
--THE TIMES (London)

"From the moment of its first appearance an established classic."
--THE OBSERVER (London)

"One of the most candid self-portraits of a poet . . . ever painted."
--THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT (London)

About the Author:

Robert Graves (1895-1985) was a poet, novelist, and critic. His first volume of poems, Over the Brazier (1916), reflects his experiences in the trenches, and was followed by many works of poetry, nonfiction, and fiction. He is best known for his novel, I, Claudius (1934), which won the Hawthornden and James Tait Black Memorial prizes, and for his influential The White Goddess (1948).

Paul Fussell is the author of 15 books, including Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War and The Great War and Modern Memory, which won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and was named by the Modern Library as one of the twentieth century's 100 best nonfiction books. He taught literature for many years at the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers University. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife.

About this edition

• Publisher: Berghahn Books, Incorporated
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 1571810218
• ISBN 13: 9781571810212
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 407
• Editor: Graves Richard Perceval