Graphical version

Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King's College London

GRAVES, Robert von Ranke (1895-1985)


IDENTITY STATEMENT

Reference code(s): GB 0099 KCLMA Graves

Held at: Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King's College London

Title: GRAVES, Robert von Ranke (1895-1985)

Date(s): Created 1939-1961

Level of description: Collection (fonds)

Extent: 1 file

Name of creator(s):

CONTEXT

Administrative/Biographical history:

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).

CONTENT

Scope and content/abstract:

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.

ACCESS AND USE

Language/scripts of material: English

System of arrangement:

1 file

Conditions governing access:

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

Conditions governing reproduction:

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.

Physical characteristics:

Finding aids:

Summary guide entry available on-line at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/lhcma/top.htm,and in hard copy in the Centre's reading room.

ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:

Accruals:

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Presented to the Centre by the family in 1995.

ALLIED MATERIALS

Existence and location of originals:

Existence and location of copies:

Related material:

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). 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 bythe 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 ArchivesDivision, 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 athttp://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.

Publication note:

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 lifeand work by Martin Seymour-Smith (Bloomsbury, London, 1995).

DESCRIPTION NOTES

Note:

Date(s) of descriptions: Dec 1999


INDEX ENTRIES
Subjects
Armed forces | State security
Communication personnel | Personnel | People by occupation | People
Prose | Literary forms and genres | Literature
War | International conflicts
War prisoners | War victims | International conflicts
World War Two (1939-1945) | World wars (events) | Wars (events)
Authors
International relations
Military organizations

Personal names
Graves | Robert Ranke | 1895-1985 | poet
Haig | Douglas | 1861-1928 | 1st Earl Haig | Field Marshal x Haig | 1st Earl
Hart | Sir | Basil Henry | Liddell | 1895-1970 | Knight | Captain | military historian x Liddell Hart | Sir | Basil
O'Gowan | Eric Edward | 1895-1969 | Major General x Smith | Eric Edward | Dorman- x Dorman-Smith | Eric Edward
Rommel | Erwin Johannes Eugen | 1891-1944 | German Field Marshal

Corporate names
Canadian Army

Places
Dieppe | France | Western Europe | Europe
Egypt | North Africa