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Goodbye to all That: An Autobiography
“A remarkable book… Essential reading for the centenary of the First World War.” —Guardian
“The best memoir of the First World War.” —Paul Fussell
“One of the classic accounts of the Western Front.” —The Times, London
“From the moment of its first appearance an established classic.” —The Observer, London
“One of the most candid self-portraits of a poet . . . ever painted.” —The Times Literary Supplement, London
'Goodbye to All That' by Robert Graves, first published in 1929, is a landmark autobiography that captures the loss of innocence brought by World War I. With vivid prose and unflinching honesty, Graves recounts his early life in England, his schooling at Charterhouse, and his brutal experiences as a young officer on the Western Front.
Through harrowing accounts of trench warfare, injuries, and the psychological scars of battle, Graves offers a deeply personal yet universally resonant narrative. He writes candidly about his friendships with fellow poets like Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, and about the disillusionment that gripped an entire generation in the war’s aftermath.
The memoir also reflects on the rigid class system, shifting social values, and postwar confusion that marked early 20th-century Britain. With its blend of poetic detail, sharp observation, and emotional restraint, Goodbye to All That is not only a war memoir but also a cultural farewell to a world that no longer existed.
Graves’s work remains a powerful, enduring portrait of youth, conflict, and the irreversible transformation brought by war—making it a cornerstone of 20th-century autobiographical literature.
“The best memoir of the First World War.” —Paul Fussell
“One of the classic accounts of the Western Front.” —The Times, London
“From the moment of its first appearance an established classic.” —The Observer, London
“One of the most candid self-portraits of a poet . . . ever painted.” —The Times Literary Supplement, London
'Goodbye to All That' by Robert Graves, first published in 1929, is a landmark autobiography that captures the loss of innocence brought by World War I. With vivid prose and unflinching honesty, Graves recounts his early life in England, his schooling at Charterhouse, and his brutal experiences as a young officer on the Western Front.
Through harrowing accounts of trench warfare, injuries, and the psychological scars of battle, Graves offers a deeply personal yet universally resonant narrative. He writes candidly about his friendships with fellow poets like Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, and about the disillusionment that gripped an entire generation in the war’s aftermath.
The memoir also reflects on the rigid class system, shifting social values, and postwar confusion that marked early 20th-century Britain. With its blend of poetic detail, sharp observation, and emotional restraint, Goodbye to All That is not only a war memoir but also a cultural farewell to a world that no longer existed.
Graves’s work remains a powerful, enduring portrait of youth, conflict, and the irreversible transformation brought by war—making it a cornerstone of 20th-century autobiographical literature.
419 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 21, 2025
About the author
Robert Graves
664 books2,171 followersRobert von Ranke Graves was an English poet, soldier, historical novelist and critic. Born in Wimbledon, he received his early education at King's College School and Copthorne Prep School, Wimbledon & Charterhouse School and won a scholarship to St John's College, Oxford. While at Charterhouse in 1912, he fell in love with G.H. Johnstone, a boy of fourteen ("Dick" in Goodbye to All That) When challenged by the headmaster he defended himself by citing Plato, Greek poets, Michelangelo & Shakespeare, "who had felt as I did".
At the outbreak of WWI, Graves enlisted almost immediately, taking a commission in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. He published his first volume of poems, Over the Brazier, in 1916. He developed an early reputation as a war poet and was one of the first to write realistic poems about his experience of front line conflict. In later years he omitted war poems from his collections, on the grounds that they were too obviously "part of the war poetry boom". At the Battle of the Somme he was so badly wounded by a shell-fragment through the lung that he was expected to die, and indeed was officially reported as 'died of wounds'. He gradually recovered. Apart from a brief spell back in France, he spent the rest of the war in England.
One of Graves's closest friends at this time was the poet Siegfried Sassoon, who was also an officer in the RWF. In 1917 Sassoon tried to rebel against the war by making a public anti-war statement. Graves, who feared Sassoon could face a court martial, intervened with the military authorities and persuaded them that he was suffering from shell shock, and to treat him accordingly. Graves also suffered from shell shock, or neurasthenia as it is sometimes called, although he was never hospitalised for it.
Biographers document the story well. It is fictionalised in Pat Barker's novel Regeneration. The intensity of their early relationship is nowhere demonstrated more clearly than in Graves's collection Fairies & Fusiliers (1917), which contains a plethora of poems celebrating their friendship. Through Sassoon, he also became friends with Wilfred Owen, whose talent he recognised. Owen attended Graves's wedding to Nancy Nicholson in 1918, presenting him with, as Graves recalled, "a set of 12 Apostle spoons".
Following his marriage and the end of the war, Graves belatedly took up his place at St John's College, Oxford. He later attempted to make a living by running a small shop, but the business failed. In 1926 he took up a post at Cairo University, accompanied by his wife, their children and the poet Laura Riding. He returned to London briefly, where he split with his wife under highly emotional circumstances before leaving to live with Riding in Deià, Majorca. There they continued to publish letterpress books under the rubric of the Seizin Press, founded and edited the literary journal Epilogue, and wrote two successful academic books together: A Survey of Modernist Poetry (1927) and A Pamphlet Against Anthologies (1928).
In 1927, he published Lawrence and the Arabs, a commercially successful biography of T.E. Lawrence. Good-bye to All That (1929, revised and republished in 1957) proved a success but cost him many of his friends, notably Sassoon. In 1934 he published his most commercially successful work, I, Claudius. Using classical sources he constructed a complexly compelling tale of the life of the Roman emperor Claudius, a tale extended in Claudius the God (1935). Another historical novel by Graves, Count Belisarius (1938), recounts the career of the Byzantine general Belisarius.
During the early 1970s Graves began to suffer from increasingly severe memory loss, and by his eightieth birthday in 1975 he had come to the end of his working life. By 1975 he had published more than 140 works. He survived for ten more years in an increasingly dependent condition until he died from heart
At the outbreak of WWI, Graves enlisted almost immediately, taking a commission in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. He published his first volume of poems, Over the Brazier, in 1916. He developed an early reputation as a war poet and was one of the first to write realistic poems about his experience of front line conflict. In later years he omitted war poems from his collections, on the grounds that they were too obviously "part of the war poetry boom". At the Battle of the Somme he was so badly wounded by a shell-fragment through the lung that he was expected to die, and indeed was officially reported as 'died of wounds'. He gradually recovered. Apart from a brief spell back in France, he spent the rest of the war in England.
One of Graves's closest friends at this time was the poet Siegfried Sassoon, who was also an officer in the RWF. In 1917 Sassoon tried to rebel against the war by making a public anti-war statement. Graves, who feared Sassoon could face a court martial, intervened with the military authorities and persuaded them that he was suffering from shell shock, and to treat him accordingly. Graves also suffered from shell shock, or neurasthenia as it is sometimes called, although he was never hospitalised for it.
Biographers document the story well. It is fictionalised in Pat Barker's novel Regeneration. The intensity of their early relationship is nowhere demonstrated more clearly than in Graves's collection Fairies & Fusiliers (1917), which contains a plethora of poems celebrating their friendship. Through Sassoon, he also became friends with Wilfred Owen, whose talent he recognised. Owen attended Graves's wedding to Nancy Nicholson in 1918, presenting him with, as Graves recalled, "a set of 12 Apostle spoons".
Following his marriage and the end of the war, Graves belatedly took up his place at St John's College, Oxford. He later attempted to make a living by running a small shop, but the business failed. In 1926 he took up a post at Cairo University, accompanied by his wife, their children and the poet Laura Riding. He returned to London briefly, where he split with his wife under highly emotional circumstances before leaving to live with Riding in Deià, Majorca. There they continued to publish letterpress books under the rubric of the Seizin Press, founded and edited the literary journal Epilogue, and wrote two successful academic books together: A Survey of Modernist Poetry (1927) and A Pamphlet Against Anthologies (1928).
In 1927, he published Lawrence and the Arabs, a commercially successful biography of T.E. Lawrence. Good-bye to All That (1929, revised and republished in 1957) proved a success but cost him many of his friends, notably Sassoon. In 1934 he published his most commercially successful work, I, Claudius. Using classical sources he constructed a complexly compelling tale of the life of the Roman emperor Claudius, a tale extended in Claudius the God (1935). Another historical novel by Graves, Count Belisarius (1938), recounts the career of the Byzantine general Belisarius.
During the early 1970s Graves began to suffer from increasingly severe memory loss, and by his eightieth birthday in 1975 he had come to the end of his working life. By 1975 he had published more than 140 works. He survived for ten more years in an increasingly dependent condition until he died from heart
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