This biography of the author of I, Claudius and Goodbye To All That, written by his nephew covers the years 1895 - 1926. Regarded as a major assessment of one of the finest British poets of the 20th century, it gives all the intimacies of Graves' early life: an idyllic Edwardian childhood in which he and his siblings composed poems and songs for each other; his schooldays at Charterhouse where poetry became his escape from bullying; his service in the Great War, which left him ill with shell-shock; his first marriage to Nancy, daughter of artist William Nicholson and his temperamental friendship with Siegfried Sasson. Illustrated with black and white photographs. Jacket design by Wendy Taylor, and shows Graves aged 29.