Robert Graves first came across the name of Roger Lamb in 1914, when he was an English officer instructing his platoon in regimental history. Lamb was a British soldier who had served his king during the American War of Independent, and whose claim to a footnote in history is that he managed to escape twice from American prison camps. When Graves went to American in the 1930s, he remembered Sergeant Lamb, investigated his story and created this fictionalized memoir stretching from Lamb’s Irish childhood to war and revolution, weaving a mesmerizing tale of courage and adventure.
Good-Bye to All That, and his speculative study of poetic inspiration,
The White Goddes, have never been out of print. Graves earned his living by writing popular historical novels, including
I, Clauius (for which he was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize),
King Jesus,
The Golden Fleece and
Count Belisarus. He was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 1961 and made an honorary fellow of St John’s College, Oxford, in 1971.
