All saints revile her, and all sober men
Ruled by the God Apollo's golden mean --
In scorn of which we sailed to find her
In distant regions likeliest to hold her
Whom we desired above all things to know,
Sister of the mirage and echo . . .

from 'The White Goddess' (1951)

First published in 1948, The White Goddess is one of the century's most extraordinary books. A poet's impassioned introduction to the world of poetry, it is also a great scholar's quest for the meaning of European mythology, a polemic about the relations between man and woman, and an intensely personal document. In it Robert Graves explored the sources of his inspiration and, as he believed, of all true poetry. He also came to terms with memories of his painful but formative relationship with Laura Riding, and made peace with his family's Irish inheritance as poets, scholars, and contributors to the Irish Literary Revival. It stands beside Yeats' A Vision as a major work of modern myth-making, and the clarifications it wrought in Graves' own mind made possible the writing of some of his finest poems. Certainly no one can fully understand Graves, or his poetry, without reading The White Goddess.

This new edition incorporates major corrections to the text, including for the first time all Robert Graves' final revisions, as well as his replies to the book's reviewers and his own account of the months of inspiration in which The White Goddess was written.

The poet GREVEL LINDOP is also the editor of Thomas de Quincey, a biographer and essayist. He is currently Professor of Romantic and Early Victorian Studies at the University of Manchester.