Robert Graves was an English poet, translator, and novelist. During his long life, he produced more than 140 works. He was the son of the Anglo-Irish writer Alfred Perceval Graves and Amalie von Ranke, a niece of the famous German historian Leopold von Ranke. He was the brother of the author Charles Patrick Graves and half-brother of Philip Graves.

Graves considered himself a poet first and foremost. His poems, together with his translations and innovative interpretations of the Greek Myths, his memoir of the First World war, Good-bye to All That, and his historical study of poetic inspiration, The White Goddess, have never been out of print.