Goodbye to All That

A searing farewell to innocence, Goodbye to All That is Robert Graves’s unflinching, unforgettable memoir of youth, war, and disillusionment. Written in the aftermath of World War I, this literary classic begins with Graves’s idyllic childhood in Victorian England and follows him through the brutal trenches of the Western Front, where he served as a young officer. With clarity and biting wit, Graves exposes the absurdities of military life, the horrors of modern warfare, and the cultural collapse that followed in its wake.

But this is more than just a war memoir. It’s a generational reckoning. A portrait of a world coming apart—and a man walking away from it. With disarming honesty, Graves dissects his friendships (including with fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon), his shattered ideals, and his permanent break from the England he once called home. Goodbye to All That is one of the most powerful, candid, and beautifully written accounts of the First World War—and the end of an era.