Robert von Ranke Graves was born on July 24, 1895, in Wimbledon, England. His father, Alfred Perceval Graves, was both a poet and inspector of schools; his mother, Amalie, a descendant of the German historian Leopold von Ranke, cared for a family of ten children (five from Alfred's previous marriage). Graves's mother was forty and his father forty-seven when he was born.

In 1901, at the age of six, Graves was sent to Charterhouse, the first in a series of preparatory schools he would attend.

He enlisted in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in 1914 and was severely wounded in the trench warfare of France. He wrote and published several collections of poetry before the end of the war, including Over the Brazier (1916), Goliath and David (1916), and Fairies and Fusiliers (1917).

In 1918 he married Nancy Nicholson, a painter and ardent feminist, with whom he had four children before they separated...