Dec 28, 2009

I, Claudius | Biography

Robert von Ranke Graves was a noted English poet, classical scholar, translator and novelist. Born July 24, 1895, in Wimbeldon, England, Graves was one of five children born to Alfred Perceval Graves, a poet and Gaelic scholar, and Amalie von Ranke Graves. (Graves’s father also had five children from a previous marriage.)

After attending Charterhouse, a private English preparatory school, Graves in 1913 received a scholarship to St. John’s College at Oxford. But with the outbreak of World War I, he enlisted and was seriously injured in 1916. This was clearly a crucial event...