GRAVES, Robert von Ranke (1895-1985)

Seventy one manuscript and typescript letters from Capt Basil Henry Liddell Hart to Robert Graves, 1939-1961, with typescript articles, extracts and notes by Liddell Hart including 'A reflection on the sustenance of morale', 1942; 'Notes on the Dieppe 'reconnaissance in force', from a Canadian soldier', 1942; 'Age-old truths of war', 1942; 'Reprisals on prisoners', 1942; 'Historical note on the defence plan that foiled Rommel's invasion of Egypt in 1942 - by the officer who designed it (E E Dorman Smith)' (Maj Gen Eric Edward Dorman Smith), 1943; 'Three civilisations', 1944; 'Inconsistencies of historical judgment', 1961; 'Notes on the BBC's centenary programme on Haig' (FM Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig), 1961.

Born 1895; educated at Rokeby, Charterhouse and St John's College, Oxford; served in World War One, 1914-1918; commissioned into 3 (Reserve) Bn, Royal Welch Fusiliers, 1914; attached to 2 Bn, Welch Regt, 1 Div, Western Front, 1915; Lt, 1915; served with 2 Bn, Royal Welch Fusiliers, 19 Bde, 2 Div, Battle of Loos, France, 1915; Capt, 1915; service with 1 Bn, Royal Welch Fusiliers, 1915-1916; wounded serving with 2 Bn, Royal Welch Fusiliers, 19 Bde, 33 Div, High Wood, Battle of the Somme, Picardy, France, 1916; poet and writer, 1917-1985; posted to 2 Bn, Royal Welch Fusiliers, Western Front, 1918; served with Wadham College Company, 4 Officer Cadet Bn, Oxford, 1918; service with 3 (Reserve) Garrison Bn, Royal Welch Fusiliers, 1918-1919; demobilised, 1919; graduated from St John's College, Oxford as a Bachelor of Letters, 1925; Professor of English Literature, Royal Egyptian University, Cairo, Egypt, 1926; moved permanently to Majorca, 1929; Clarke Lecturer at Trinity College, Cambridge, 1954; awarded Gold Medal of the National Poetry Society of America, 1960; Arthur Dehon Little Memorial Lecturer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, 1963; Professor of Poetry, University of Oxford, 1961-1966; awarded Gold Medal for Poetry, Cultural Olympics, Mexico, 1968; awarded Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, 1968; elected Honorary Fellow, St John's College, Oxford, 1971; died 1985. Publications: Refer to A bibliography of the writings of Robert Graves by Fred Hall Higginson, Second Edition revised by William Proctor Williams (St Paul's Bibliographies, Winchester, 1987).

1 file

Open, subject to signature of reader's undertaking form.

Presented to the Centre by the family in 1995.

Summary guide entry on-line at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/iss/archives/cats/, and detailed catalogue available in hard copy in the Centre's reading room.

Eleven letters to C K Scott Moncrieff, 1915-1918, eighteen letters from Ruthven Todd, [1955-1965] and eleven letters to William Stuart Henry, 1965-1972, are held in the Department of Manuscripts, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. Twelve letters to Alexander Pugh, 1927-1930, and letters to Edward John Thompson, are held in the Department of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford University. Eleven letters to Alun and Gweno Lewis, 1941-1945, are held in the Department of Manuscripts and Records, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, Dyfed. A collection of Graves papers are held by the Royal Welch Fusiliers Regimental Museum, Caernarfon Castle, Caernarfon, Gwynedd. Correspondence, diaries and literary manuscripts, 1935-1970, are held by the Mc Pherson Library, University of Victoria, Canada. Correspondence with Edmund (Charles) Blunden is located at the Special Collections of the University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa, USA. Seventy three letters from Thomas Edward Lawrence, 1920-1933, are held in the Houghton Library, Harvard University, USA. Letters and manuscripts to Edward Marsh are held in the Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library, USA. Correspondence and papers, 1916-1962, are in the Morris Library Special Collections, Southern Illinois University Library, Illinois, USA. Correspondence, literary manuscripts and papers (440 items), 1918-1969, are in the Richard A Gleeson Library Special Collections Department, University of San Francisco Library, California, USA. Nineteen letters to James Reeves and literary papers, 1952-1963, are held in the University of San Francisco Library, California, USA. A collection of literary papers is held at the Humanities Research Center Library, University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA. Please refer to the Robert Graves Archive Website at http://homes.ukoln.ac.uk/~lispjh/graves/special-collections/ganz.html, for a comprehensive checklist of institutional and private holders of Robert Graves manuscripts and correspondence worldwide.

Copies, subject to the condition of the original, may be supplied for research use only. Requests to publish original material should be submitted to the Trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, attention of the Director of Archive Services.

Papers of Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart contain correspondence between Graves and Liddell Hart, 1939-1966. Also correspondence between Robert and Beryl Graves and Kathleen Liddell Hart, 1942-1975; Sam Graves and Liddell Hart, 1942; Jenny Nicholson (daughter of Robert Graves) and Kathleen Liddell Hart (1 letter), 1956, with newspaper cuttings, 1964 and 1975 (Ref: LH 1/327). See also LH 9/13/14, T E Lawrence to his biographers: Robert Graves and Liddell Hart (Faber and Faber, London, 1938); LH 9/18/3 for comments on Dynamic defence (Faber and Faber, London, 1940); LH 9/20/3 for comments on This expanding war (Faber and Faber, London, 1942); and LH 9/22/2 for comments on Thoughts on war (Faber and Faber, London, 1944).

Published biographies include: Robert Graves by Martin Seymour-Smith (Longmans, London, 1956); Under the influence, recollections of Robert Graves, Laura Riding, and friends by Thomas Stanley Matthews (Cassell, London, 1979); Robert Graves, the assault heroic by Richard Perceval Graves (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1986); Robert Graves, the years with Laura, 1926-1940 by Richard Perceval Graves (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1990); Robert Graves and the white goddess by Richard Perceval Graves (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1995); Wild olives, life in Majorca with Robert Graves by William Graves (Hutchinson, London, 1995); Robert Graves, life on the edge by Miranda Seymour (Doubleday, London, 1995); Robert Graves, his life and work by Martin Seymour-Smith (Bloomsbury, London, 1995).