SECTION A: Books written, co-written or translated by Robert Graves

A133 DIFFICULT QUESTIONS, EASY ANSWERS [1972]

a. First edition:

DIFFICULT QUESTIONS, | EASY ANSWERS | ROBERT GRAVES | CASSELL ∙ LONDON

Collation: [A]8B–O8, 112 leaves.

p.[i] DIFFICULT QUESTIONS, EASY ANSWERS; p.[ii] blank; p.[iii] title-page; p.[iv] publisher’s, copyright, rights reservation, ISBN and printer’s notices; p.[v] Foreword; p.[vi] blank; p.vii Contents; p.[viii] blank; pp.1–213 text; pp.[214] –[216] blank.

Price: £3.00. Number of copies unknown. Published 16 November 1972 in white dust-jacket printed in tan, brown and black. Jacket design by Tony Geddes.

Contents: Foreword – Address to the Poets of Hungary – Genius – Arts and Crafts – The Bible in Europe – Poetry and Obscenity – Goddesses and Obosoms – The Universal Paradise – Mushrooms and Religion – The Two Births of Dionysus –What Has Gone Wrong? – Rationality – The Greek Tradition – Ovid and the Libertines – Birds and Men – The Kaiser’s War – Fighting Courage – A Soldier’s Honour – The Absentee Fusilier – The Inner Ear – The Pentagram of Isis – Solomon’s Seal – The Heart Shape – The Sufic Chequer-board – The Nine of Diamonds – Speaking Freely.

Notes: Evidence confirms that A133a was published after A134a. The dates of publication listed here are correct.

Extracts from ‘Speaking Freely’ were published in Rolling Stone, 21 December 1972, pp. 20-21.

This book has been translated into Spanish by Lucía Graves and Maya Flakoll as El paraíso universal. Published 1980, revised edition 2019.

A133b. First American edition (1973):

[one line in shaded type:] Difficult Questions | Easy Answers | By Robert Graves Doubleday & Company, Inc. | Garden City, New York | 1973

Collation: [1] – [7]16, 112 leaves.

p.[i] [in shaded type:] Difficult Questions | Easy Answers; p.[ii] blank; p.[iii] title-page; p.[iv] ISBN, LC card, copyright, rights reservation, printing and edition notices; p.v Foreword; p.[vi] blank; p.vii Contents; pp.[viii]–[x] blank; pp. 1–213 text; p.[214] blank.

20.9 × 13.7 cm. Bulk: 1.4/1.9 cm. White wove paper; all edges trimmed. Reddish-brown wove endpapers, inner sides white. Bound in dark maroon cloth; front and back blank; spine printed in orange, top to bottom: [two lines upright:] Robert Graves | [down spine, in shaded type:] Difficult Questions Easy Answers [upright:] Doubleday

Price: $6.95. Number of copies undetermined. Published 24 September 1973 in white pictorial dust-jacket printed in black and golden brown. The jacket typography is by Jonathan Field.

Contents: As A133a.

Notes: Impression: 2nd. In the second impression, the date ‘1973’ is not present on the title-page; on the verso of the title-page the words ‘FIRST EDITION IN THE UNITED STATES’, have been replaced by the number-series ‘9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2; the book has plain white wove endpapers.

The sketch of Graves reproduced on the back panel of the dust-jacket is by Aemilia Laraçuen.

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