The immense literary production of this writer, scarcely examined by academic scholarship, constitutes one of the great treasures of our time.
Graves is probably best known as the author of historical novels.
The continuing commercial success of these novels and the popularity of their BBC television adaptation is anything but coincidental. Both novels, beneath Graves' skillful and erudite creation of quotidian Rome, delve into the central moral, psychological, and political problems of the twentieth century. Graves' Ancient Rome resembles our own century in its moral disorientation. Previous values seem to have no relevance and nothing has come along to replace them. Without the stabilizing effect of clear and coherent values, the world seems to oscillate between anxiety and aggression.