Modern Classics Complete Short Stories (Penguin Modern Classics) - Softcover

Graves, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141189452 ISBN 13: 9780141189451

Publisher: Penguin Classic, 2008

Synopsis

The ever-popular novelist and story-teller Robert Graves wrote fascinating and durable stories, here collected together in a single volume for the first time by the poet's daughter Lucia Graves.

About this title

About the Author

Robert Graves was born in 1895 in Wimbledon. He went from school to the First World War, where he became a captain in the Royal Welch Fusiliers and was seriously wounded at the Battle of the Somme. He wrote his autobiography, Goodbye to All That, in 1929, and it was soon established as a modern classic. He died on 7 December 1985 in Majorca, his home since 1929.

From Publishers Weekly

There is already a Collected Stories, as brought together by the author himself, available in Penguin at less than a third the price of this volume (which is presumably aimed at the academic market). His daughter Lucia, who includes here a number of stories Graves omitted from his 1964 collection, presumes he left them out for lack of space. If so, it was an odd choice; for, as she points out, at least a couple of them, "Esta en su Casa" and "Bins K to T," are among his better efforts, the first a Majorcan tale of rivalry and revenge, the second an extended Edwardian anecdote about a wine-lover's will. On the whole, however, the story is not an area where Graves shines. He once confessed that "pure fiction is beyond my imaginative range," and most of the examples here are accounts, only slightly fictionalized, of things that either happened to him or to his friends and acquaintances. A rather pawky British humor is often in evidence, and the most cherishable tales are generally anecdotes that reflect his affection for Majorca and its people: "A Bicycle in Majorca" and "God Grant Your Honor Many Years" are good examples. But most of the stories are old-fashioned in the worst sense, and this collection will likely be of interest only to devoted Graves admirers.

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Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Classic
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0141189452
• ISBN 13: 9780141189451
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 336