Fairies and Fusiliers

By Robert Graves

Narrated by Denis Daly

Poet, soldier, novelist, translator and critic Robert Graves (1895 - 1985) was deeply familiar with both war and death. Three times during his life Graves was considered to be on the point of death due to serious illness. One of these was after his participation in the Battle of the Somme, after which he had been actually pronounced dead due to severe wounding.

Graves enlisted as soon as the First World War was declared, and was rapidly promoted to lieutenant and later to captain. Among his fellow soldiers was another poet, Siegfried Sassoon. Together with Wilfred Owen, who did not survive, Graves and Sassoon represented the new generation of war poets - perceptive critical surveyors of the horrific and wasteful futility of modern warfare, drawing their judgements from bitter personal experience.

Fairies and Fusiliers is a collection of 47 short poems and was dedicated to Graves' former regiment, the Royal Fusiliers.

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