Some Speculations on Literature, History and Religion

Mycology, psycho-analysis, music, mythology, linguistics, Christianity, occultism, Majorca, esoterica...This book for the first time selects the best from the more than five hundred essays which Robert Graves wrote about areas of culture which engaged him. His critical diversity illustrates his eclectic interests and his dazzling genius in making connections. He engages every kind of reader; whether we agree or disagree, and he sharpens our own critical skills even as he informs and entertains us. His first journal article was written in 1913. He was seventeen. It was a critique of popular music entitled 'Ragtime', published in the Charterhouse school magazine The Greyfriar. A lifetime later, his final published essay was fittingly called 'All Things to All Men' and published in 1977 in Malahat Review. For sixty-four years of a turbulent century Graves trained a wary eye, passionately and wryly, on social and political change, popular culture, religion and economics. His range and creative originality set him in a class of his own. Many of these essays evolved out of Graves' literary pursuits and cast light on his poetry and fiction.