Richard Perceval Graves (born 21 December 1945) is an English biographer, poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 and lecturer

Lecturer

Lecturer is an academic rank. In the United Kingdom, lecturer is a position at a university or similar institution, often held by academics in their early career stages, who lead research groups and supervise research students, as well as teach...

.

Early career

Richard Graves was born in Brighton, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 and educated at Tollard Royal

Tollard Royal

Tollard Royal is a village and civil parish on Cranborne Chase, Wiltshire, England. The parish is on Wiltshire's southern boundary with Dorset and the village is southeast of the Dorset town of Shaftesbury....

, Dorset, The White House, Wokingham and at Holme Grange School, Wokingham. He went on to Copthorne School (1954-1959), Charterhouse

Charterhouse School

Charterhouse School, originally The Hospital of King James and Thomas Sutton in Charterhouse, or more simply Charterhouse or House, is an English collegiate independent boarding school situated at Godalming in Surrey.Founded by Thomas Sutton in London in 1611 on the site of the old Carthusian...

 (1959-1964) and St. John's College, Oxford (1964-1968). At Oxford, Graves read Modern History

Modern history

Modern history, or the modern era, describes the historical timeline after the Middle Ages. Modern history can be further broken down into the early modern period and the late modern period after the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution...

 and then completed a Diploma in Education. He then taught at several different schools until 1973, the year in which he became a full-time writer.

Writing career

Richard Graves is the author of some nineteen books, including biographies of T. E. Lawrence

T. E. Lawrence

Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, CB, DSO , known professionally as T. E. Lawrence, was a British Army officer renowned especially for his liaison role during the Arab Revolt against Ottoman Turkish rule of 1916–18...

, A. E. Housman

A. E. Housman

Alfred Edward Housman , usually known as A. E. Housman, was an English classical scholar and poet, best known to the general public for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad. Lyrical and almost epigrammatic in form, the poems were mostly written before 1900...

, the Powys brothers (John Cowper Powys

John Cowper Powys

-Biography:Powys was born in Shirley, Derbyshire, in 1872, the son of the Reverend Charles Francis Powys , who was vicar of Montacute, Somerset for thirty-two years, and Mary Cowper Johnson, a descendent of the poet William Cowper. He came from a family of eleven children, many of whom were also...

, Theodore Francis Powys and Llewelyn Powys

Llewelyn Powys

Llewelyn Powys was a British writer and younger brother of John Cowper Powys and T. F. Powys.-Life:Powys was born in Dorchester, the son of a clergyman, and was educated at Sherborne School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. While lecturing in the United States he contracted tuberculosis...

), Richard Hughes

Richard Hughes (writer)

Richard Arthur Warren Hughes OBE was a British writer of poems, short stories, novels and plays.He was born in Weybridge, Surrey. His father was a civil servant Arthur Hughes, and his mother Louisa Grace Warren who had been brought up in Jamaica...

 and his uncle Robert Graves

Robert Graves

Robert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...

 (a biography in three volumes). He has written a number of other books on a variety of subjects, and collaborated on several other publishing projects.

Further career

Richard Graves continues to write and is also in demand as a lecturer. He lectures on the subjects and people about whom he has written. He is married with three children and lives in Shrewsbury, Shropshire.