Educated at St. John's College, Oxford, Graves left school and enlisted in the army at the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. Commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, Graves took part in the battle of the Somme where he was seriously wounded. He had become close friends with Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen and became one of the first poets to write war experience poems, publishing his first book, Over the Brazier, in 1916. In 1917, he published Fairies and Fusiliers, many poems of which celebrated his friendship with Sassoon. Graves married Nancy Nicholson in 1918 and after the war he returned to school to finish his interrupted education. In 1926, he met the American poet Laura Riding and the two became romantically involved. He left his wife in 1927 and subsequently moved to Majorca in Spain with Riding. In 1929, he published Goodbye to All That, an autobiographical work that angered some of his friends, not least of which was Sassoon. Together with Riding, he founded the publishing house Selzin Press and Epilogue magazine. In 1934, he published the work that would bring him international fame and fortune, I, Claudius. He fled Spain during the Civil War and settled in America. Riding left him in 1939 and he returned to Majorca after the war with his new lover, Beryl Hodge. Graves was a prolific author and published over 140 books. From 1961 to 1966, he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford and in 1968 was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. Beginning in the 1970's, Graves was suffering from senility and became more of a recluse and his output declined. His works include Goliath and David (1917), Treasure Box (1920), Whipperginny (1923), Poems (1925), To Whom Else? (1931), No More Ghosts (1940), The Penny Fiddle (1961), Man Does, Woman Is (1964), One Hard Look (1965), Beyond Giving (1969), The Green-Sailed Vessel (1971), At the Gate (1974) and New Collected Poems (1977).
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