2014 is, as everyone must be aware by now, the anniversary of the start of the First World War, and so it seemed fitting that when I was in Mallorca early this month I made a pilgrimage to the home of Robert Graves. Robert von Ranke Graves (1895–1985) was one of the First World War Poets, who included, for the men, Graves’s friend Siegfried Sassoon, and Wilfred Owen. Amongst the women First World War Poets were Vera Brittain, Rose Macaulay and Charlotte Mew. Graves separated from his wife and moved to Mallorca with his lover, American poet Laura Riding (1901–1991), in 1929. They built a house, which they called Ca n’Alluny, in the mountain village of Deià on the north west coast, at that time a fishing village. It’s an artist’s dream home, and indeed the area had earlier attracted other artists including Chopin and George Sand. Graves’s house is in a beautiful setting, high above the Mediterranean with views down to the glinting ocean. In the olive groves goat...