Graves returned to Majorca in May, 1946, after an enforced absence of ten years. His departure, from an island turned Falangist, had been precipitate; his return, with Beryl and their children, was more ceremonious. He was at the height of his career in terms of achievement, if not yet of recognition: his best book of verse, Poems 1938–1945, had been recently published, and The White Goddess was with Eliot at Faber. The present volume – successor to In Broken Images (1982), which covered the years 1914–46 – opens at this point, with Graves writing happily about Deyá to old friends like James Reeves and Alan Hodge.

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