The Life and Work of Richard Perceval Graves

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Education and Career Outline

N.B. Click here to reach a short version of this CV for easy printing.

I was born in Brighton on 21 December 1945. After brief periods at a village school in Tollard Royal, Dorset, at The White House, Wokingham and at Holme Grange School, Wokingham; I was educated at Copthorne School (1954-1959), Charterhouse (pictured below) (1959-1964) and St. John's College Oxford (1964-1968). [A more detailed account of these early years will appear on the web-page entitled: 'My Own Story'.]

While at St. John's I read Modern History for three years, and then stayed on for a year to read for a Diploma in Education.

I then went into teaching, and taught at Arnold Lodge Preparatory School (1968); Harrow School (1969); Holme Grange School (1969-1971); and Ellesmere College (1971-1973).

     In the summer of 1973 I became a full-time author, and during the next 27 years I authored or co-authored some 19 titles.

    In the autumn of 2000 I went into partnership, jointly setting up a Web Site Services business called Grave Web Services (GWS for short) in which I am the Marketing Director.

   From the spring of 2001 I continued my Literary life with lectures and chaired the Powys society from 2001-2005.

Bibliography

My first publication was:

1. Lawrence of Arabia and his World. (Thames & Hudson 1976); (Charles Scribner's Sons 1976); tr. into Swedish (Wiken 1984) and Spanish (Salvat 1984). In October 1917 Great Britain had been at war with Germany for three years; as part of that war she had encouraged and supported an Arab Revolt against Germany's ally Turkey. A young Englishman, Thomas Edward Lawrence, was blowing up Turkish trains on the Damascus-Medina railway line, and rumours of his success were spreading rapidly through the scattered Arabian tribes. 'Send us a lurens', wrote the Beni Atiyeh tribe to the Emir Feisal, one of the leaders of the Revolt, 'and we will blow up trains with it.' 'Lurens' became a legend not only in Arabia, but in the west, and the story of his life has fascinated readers and writers ever since.

You can also read some reviews of Lawrence of Arabia and his World

This was followed by:

       2. A.E.Housman: The Scholar-Poet. (Routledge & Kegan Paul 1979; Charles Scribner's Sons 1980; Oxford University Press paperback 1981) - a mildly controversial volume which was a considerable critical success. John Carey said that it was 'bound to become the standard life.'
   This biography is the definitive portrait of the poet and classical scholar A.E.Housman (1859-1936), a man who was something of a mystery even to his closest friends.
   There are memorable descriptions of Housman as a child whose happiness was shattered when his mother died;of Housman as an arrogant undergraduate; as an ill-paid clerk suffering from unrequited homosexual love; as a devoted member of a demanding and possessive family; as a traveller on the Continent in search of illicit pleasures; as a formidable classical scholar and Professor of Latin at London and Cambridge; and as a fine poet who numbered among his acquaintances Thomas Hardy, John Masefield, M.R. James and Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch.

Then came:

      3. The Brothers Powys (Routledge and Kegan Paul 1983; Charles Scribner's Sons 1983; Oxford University Press paperback 1984) which had the most extraordinarily mixed reviews.
      Some, notably Philip Larkin, gave The Brothers Powys a warm welcome; others thought it was a waste of time writing about the Powyses - indeed, the reviewer in The Times headed his piece 'A Bunch of Nutters', which drew a stern rebuke some days later from the Powysian scholar Wilson Knight.
   Charles Powys's eleven children form one of the most remarkable literary families of modern times. Three of the family have won enduring fame: John Cowper Powys, author of A Glastonbury Romance; Theodore Francis Powys, author of Mr. Weston's Good Wine; and Llewelyn Powys, author of Dorset Essays.
   There are memorable descriptions of the melancholic and reclusive Theodore in his Dorset retreat; of the tubercular but irrepressible Llewleyn, with his advocacy of sexual freedom and his marriage complicated by a succession of mistresses; and of John, who survived an unhappy marriage and long periods of near-madness to find contentment at last with his chosen companion in a remote village in North Wales.

While working on The Brothers Powys I found the time to write a number of introductory guides to home computers, and therefore published (with Kingfisher Books) the following titles.

4 and 5. [with David Graves] A Beginner's Guide to the BBC Micro [1984], and A Beginner's Guide to the ZX Spectrum [1984].

6 and 7. [the first with David Graves, and the second with Philip Graves] A Beginner's Guide to the Acorn Electron [1984], and A Beginner's Guide to the Commodore 64 [1985]

8. [with Andrew Thomson] The Family Computer Book [Century 1985]

The home computing bubble burst in 1985, and this series of books came to an end.

I then embarked upon an epic task of nineteenth-century proportions - a three-volume life of my late uncle Robert Graves. First to appear was

9. Robert Graves: The Assault Heroic (1895-1940) (Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1986; Viking Penguin 1986; Papermac 1987; Penguin paperback in the USA and Canada 1990; Weidenfeld & Nicolson paperback 1995)

10. How To get Published (Severn Publications 1988)

Robert Graves: the Years with Laura Riding 1926-1940

Then came:

11. Robert Graves: the Years with Laura (1926-1940) (Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1990; Viking Penguin 1990; Papermac 1991; Penguin paperback in the USA and Canada 1992; also translated into Spanish. In print as a Weidenfeld & Nicolson paperback until recently, but I am told it's no longer available.)

I added to the body of work on the history of Shrewsbury:

12. The Story of Shrewsbury (Hardwick House 1993) Still in print in the UK, and available from Hardwick House, Hardwick, Ellesmere, Shropshire, UK, this illustrated 20-page history can be yours for only 1.99 plus postage.

I also substantially redrafted the late H. Montgomery Hyde's final biography

13. Walter Monckton (Sinclair Stevenson 1991)

My next major publication was:

14. Richard Hughes ( Andre Deutsch 1994) Autographed copies of this book are available for £30 including post and packing. Richard Hughes(1900-1976) combined in one lifetime the roles of dashing adventurer, famous popular author, reclusive sage, and even for a time that of a single cog in a vast bureaucratic machine. His first play appeared on the London stage while he was still an undergraduate at Oxford , where he was befriended by such men as John Masefield, Robert Graves, T.E.Lawrence and A.E.Coppard. In his twenties he was variously poet, playwright (he wrote the first radio play), reviewer and actor-manager before he turned novelist and wrote his classic account of childhood, A High Wind in Jamaica(1929). By then he had sought adventure in Canada, Morocco, on the high seas, and in the Balkans (where he made speeches on behalf of the Croat nationalists); and his private life had been complicated by a terrifyingly possessive mother, a predilection for pre-pubescent girls, and a failed love-affair which had led in 1926 to a severe nervous breakdown. Later came marriage to the eccentric Frances Bazley, family life at Laugharne Castle (and the friendship of Dylan Thomas), wartime servce in the Admiralty, work on the Ealing comedies, and his best-selling novel The Fox in the Attic (1961), in part a chilling account of the rise of Nazi Germany

Finally returning to the life of Robert Graves:

15. Robert Graves and the White Goddess (1940-1985) (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1995); (Phoenix Giant paperback 1998). Still in print in the UK and available in the USA.

I also edited, with a biographical essay and annotations, the original 1929 edition of

16. Good-bye to All That by Robert Graves (Berghahn 1995) Still in print in the USA and the UK.

It was in 1957 that a middle-aged Robert Graves totally revised the text of his classic autobiography, robbing it of the painfully raw edge that had helped to make it an international bestseller. By cutting out all references to Riding, by deleting passages which revealed the mental strains under which he had laboured, and by meticulously editing the entire text. Graves not only destroyed most of what had made it so powerful, but also removed it from the only context in which it could be fully understood.

Here, with a biographical essay, is an annotated edition of Robert Graves's original work.

I then undertook some work for Castrol International in the light of their 1999 centenary. I was asked to work on two books, the first was a company history:

17. The Castrol Story (Bloomsbury 1998, but not for general circulation.)

Secondly I collaborated on a related history of achievements by land, air, sea and space from 1899-1999:

18. Achievements (Bloomsbury, 1998). This is still in print in the UK.

I then substantially redrafted Bob Freeman's autobiography:

19. Half a Millionaire (A.J. Manson Ltd. Shrewsbury SY4 4SD, 1999)

During the spring and summer of 2005, after an approach from a Publisher Cecil Woolf, I worked up one of my most successful lectures into a very thin volume (really a 25-page pamphlet) entitled:

20. Changing Perceptions: The Poets of the Great War (Cecil Woolf, London 2005). This is still in print in the UK.

Enquiries

Updated 20/10/06