Born July 24, 1895, Robert Graves, a young middle-class Englishman, joins the officer training of the Royal Welch Fusiliers eight days after England enters World War I. Self-described as tall, with black hair and gray eyes, Graves also has a wry sense of humor, little verbal filter, and a "rebellious nature" (347). His father has Irish roots while his mother's family is German; Graves inherits his mother's family name, von Ranke, as his middle name. This name causes Graves trouble from the time he starts high school until the middle of World War II, as suspicion about Germans begins and increases. Graves’s family has a "persistent literary tradition" (8) and Graves is, himself, a writer—mostly of poetry, but later of novels and works of nonfiction.

After a fraught period at Charterhouse, the well-regarded though chaotic boarding school Graves attends, Graves joins the British army, partly to avoid going to college at Oxford. Graves had dropped out of Officers' Training College due to his "revolt against the theory of obedience to implicit orders" (58) and his horror at being shown "the latest military fortifications" (58). Though Graves enters the service knowing "nothing of Army tradition" (70) and receives frequent chastisement for improper dress, he attains the initial rank of second lieutenant.