Folio Archives 179: Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves 1981

Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves 1981

Robert Graves (1895 1985) was an Englishman of German and Irish heritage, known as a novelist, poet and critic. Graves's poems and this book, an autobiography of his early life, have never been out of print. He wrote over 140 books during his life, and was a translator of Latin and Ancient Greek texts. He wrote “Goodbye to All That” after returning from Cairo (where he had been Professor of English) and had split with his wife under highly emotional circumstances (at one point attempting suicide) before leaving to live in Majorca for the rest of his life.

The detailed narrative is strangely compelling and difficult to put down. It covers his life from earliest memories, through numerous schools and on to the Great War as a junior officer where he was involved in numerous conflicts and was very lucky to survive. The almost minute-by-minute account of a disastrously mismanaged attack on German lines is gut-wrenching in its waste of life.

During the war and later in life, he met, and spent time discussing literature, with other poet/writers who later became famous including Siegfried Sassoon, Thomas Hardy and T.E.Lawrence.

Graves has been involved with many Folio Society books as translator, author or introducer.

The 296 page book is introduced by Raleigh Trevelyan and contains 26 contemporary monochrome photographs. It is bound in pale grey cloth cover lithographed on all sides in black with a photograph and the page tops are stained yellow. There are map endleaves of northeast France printed black on olive (that are confusingly aligned with East at the top of the page). The pale grey slipcase is 22.7x14.7cm.

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An index of the other illustrated reviews in the "Folio Archives" series can be viewed here.

Very nice. I have always loved Graves' writing. Whilst known by many mainly as a poet during his lifetime, he was a master of prose, and the Folio Society has published most of his important works, including Goodbye To All That, I Claudius, Claudius the God, Count Belisarius, The Golden Fleece, The Greek Myths, The Long Weekend (with Alan Hodge), The Siege and Fall of Troy, and his translation of The Twelve Caesars (all of which I am fortunate enough to own). He was "beaten" to the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962 by John Steinbeck.

>2 Conte_Mosca:
Golden Fleece and Greek Myths are also reviewed in the FS Archives series.
Full list at http://www.librarything.com/topic/266300

>3 wcarter:

I always knew you were a man of impeccable taste :-)

You do an incredible job with your Folio Archive series.

>1 wcarter:

Another excellent review, thank you, Warwick. The book was re-issued in 1996, with the colour of the binding changed to khaki, approximately toning with the Society's other first world war books issued around that time, including Anthem for doomed youth, Ordeal by fire, Sagittarius rising, and later Tommy. It proved very popular - my copy is the eighth printing. I don't think you're right about the orientation of the map on the endpapers - north is securely at the top.

I first read this book many years ago (before there was an FS edition), and enjoyed Graves's brief account of his time in Islip, just outside Oxford, and of his membership of the Islip branch of the Labour Party. At the time of this first reading I lived in the next village to Islip, and was a member of that same branch of the Labour Party.

>1 wcarter: As >5 affle: says, another excellent review and as you say, the narrative is compelling and difficult to put down. One of my favourite autobiographies.
I wish FS would do the Regeneration trilogy by Pat Barker, which complements this and Sassoon’s Sherston trilogy (which FS have published).

This thread reminded me that the only copy of Goodbye to All That I had was a pocket edition by Collector's Library. So naturally, I had to expand my Folio WWI shelf. Just received a fine copy of a later printing (2001) with the slightly changed khaki-green binding. Now to fully close the Goodbye to All That gaps I have to look for the Carcanet Press volume of the original 1929 edition (FS, like most other publishers issued the later, modified 1957 edition).

>1 wcarter: The detailed narrative is strangely compelling and difficult to put down

Yes, interesting you got the same vibe! When I read the book several years ago, I also thought that while you could list various reasons the book is interesting, it seems to have that extra allure that I couln't quite put my finger on.