Special Collections is fortunate to own first and second issues of the first edition of Graves’s anti-war treatise Good-bye to All That.
Published by Jonathan Cape on 18 November 1929, the first issue contained (among other things) one of Sassoon’s poems, printed without his permission. Cape was forced to print cancel pages for what was the second issue and put asterisks in place of the text.
Sassoon and others like Edmund Blunden were angry with Graves for mis-representations and falsifications within the text. Despite these hiccups, the book was a success, selling 20,000 copies in five days at half a guinea (10s 6d) each. It remains a classic read.
Robert Graves, Good-bye to All That: An Autobiography. 2nd issue, 1st ed. London: Jonathan Cape, 1929.
Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That. London: Cassell, 1957.