The White Goddess: An Encounter is a mesmerising tale of sex, lies and divided loyalties. Set between the magic of a bohemian Majorca and the horror of Franco's Madrid, it is a haunting evocation of a lost time and place, dominated by the extraordinary power of Robert Graves, one of the 20th century's greatest writers. When 10-year-old Simon Gough went to Majorca in 1953 he thought he had landed in paradise. Far from the misery of his English boarding school and his parents' divorce, he fell in love - with the tiny village of Deya, with his wild cousin Juan and most of all with his beloved "Grand-Uncle" Robert Graves. When he returned in 1960, paradise had been overrun by beatniks and marijuana - and Simon liked it all the more. But soon he fell for the enchanting Margot Callas, Robert Graves' muse. He found himself entangled in a web of lies and deceit and playing a game whose rules he didn't understand. The repercussions would haunt him for the rest of his life. The Observer says: "Impassioned, with all the intensive drama a youthful affair entails, this "autobifantasy" (as Gough calls it) is as much about a love of a place - the freedom and beauty of Dei? contrasts with the brutality of Franco's Madrid - as of a person. In fact, some of the finest parts of the book are not about Callas but the touching portrait of Graves and his wife Beryl; a tender, observant record both of their relationship and their real selves in their later years."

Gravess text has been fully corrected and revised in this volume as part of the "Robert Graves Programme". The book describes the dynamic of Gravess creative imagination. Grevel Lindop restores to the text its proper order and adds introductory material, as well as notes. This edition should lead to a re-evaluation of Gravess entire oeuvre.

The White Goddess is perhaps the finest of Robert Graves's works on the psychological and mythological sources of poetry. In this tapestry of poetic and religious scholarship, Graves explores the stories behind the earliest of European deities—the White Goddess of Birth, Love, and Death—who was worshipped under countless titles. He also uncovers the obscure and mysterious power of "pure poetry" and its peculiar and mythic language.

"When 10 year old Simon Gough visited Majorca in 1953 he though he had landed in paradise. Far from the misery of his English boarding school and his parents' divorce, he fell in love - with the tiny village of Deya, with his wild cousin Juan and most of all with his beloved 'Grand-Uncle' Robert Graves. When he returned in 1960, paradise had been overrun by beatniks and marijuana - and Simon liked it all the more. But soon he fell for the enchanting Margot Callas, Robert Graves' muse. He found himself entangled in a web of lies and deceit and playing a game whose rules he didn't understand. The repercussions would haunt him for the rest of his life."--Publisher description.

The Newbery Medal–winning author of Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! gives readers a virtuoso performance in verse in this profoundly original epic pitched just right for fans of poetry, history, mythology, and fantasy. Welcome to ancient Greece as only genius storyteller Laura Amy Schlitz can conjure it. In a warlike land of wind and sunlight, “ringed by a restless sea,” live Rhaskos and Melisto, spiritual twins with little in common beyond the violent and mysterious forces that dictate their lives. A Thracian slave in a Greek household, Rhaskos is as common as clay, a stable boy worth less than a donkey, much less a horse. Wrenched from his mother at a tender age, he nurtures in secret, aided by Socrates, his passions for art and philosophy. Melisto is a spoiled aristocrat, a girl as precious as amber but willful and wild. She’ll marry and be tamed—the curse of all highborn girls—but risk her life for a season first to serve Artemis, goddess of the hunt. Bound by destiny, Melisto and Rhaskos—Amber and Clay—never meet in the flesh. By the time they do, one of them is a ghost. But the thin line between life and death is just one boundary their unlikely friendship crosses. It takes an army of snarky gods and fearsome goddesses, slaves and masters, mothers and philosophers to help shape their story into a gorgeously distilled, symphonic tour de force. Blending verse, prose, and illustrated archeological “artifacts,” this is a tale that vividly transcends time, an indelible reminder of the power of language to illuminate the over- and underworlds of human history.

Islanders and visitors to the Islands describe spooky and awe-inspiring meetings with the goddess Pele."

Describes the origins of the most important Greek myths along with the personalities and special powers of the major Greek gods and goddesses.