Books

First edition, first impression, first state, with the Sassoon poem intact on pages 341-3. Sassoon was horrified to learn that the book contained a poem he had written to Graves in letter form and demanded the excision of the offending pages from the edition. Higginson notes that less than 100 copies of this early state exist. Centred on the author's experiences in the First World War, the book was published more than ten years after the end of the conflict, when Graves was still suffering from the trauma of fighting in the trenches. It was written in less than four months and under the influence of the young American poet Laura Riding, his lover and muse. "She also acted as intellectual and spiritual midwife both to a kind of personal rebirth, and to Graves's writing Good-bye to All that (1929), the war-period autobiography which made him famous. In its original form, this is a searing work of genius in which Graves offers up a heavily rewritten version of his past life upon the altar of his present love" (ODNB). In all subsequent states, the infamous Sassoon poem and a passage on page 290 were excised and replaced with cancels and asterisks. Octavo. Original orange cloth, spine lettered in gilt, publisher's blind device on rear cover, bottom edge untrimmed. With dust jacket. Portrait frontispiece and 7 plates (1 double-page), including trench maps. Bookplate with monogram "EHK" on front pastedown. Spine ends worn, small mark at head of front cover, gauze visible at a couple of gutters, book block remaining firm, contents generally clean; jacket spine panel toned and chipped at ends, folds rubbed, old tape repair on verso of front panel, unclipped: a very good copy in like jacket. Higginson A32a.

Good-Bye to All That is an autobiographical work by Robert Graves which captures the cataclysmic events of World War I and its impact on his life.