Home icon. The Works of Robert Graves. Exhibition: 1 April to 17 June 2011.

Cabinet 14: Jesus & The White Goddess


Seven Days in New Crete.

Robert Graves, Seven Days in New Crete. London: Cassell, 1949.

After the complex mythologizing inherent in his The White Goddess, Graves turned his attention to a somewhat lighter task, writing a future-world novel set in an area reminiscent of Southern France, which he called New Crete.

First published in America under the title Watch the North Wind Rise, and issued for British readers as Seven Days in New Crete, it features Edward Venn-Thomas, his wife Antonia, and Erica Turner, who are thin disguises of Graves, Beryl, and Laura Riding.

Graves really could not escape his notion of the ‘Triple Muse’, as this Utopian work, as Miranda Seymour suggests, is a

‘blue-print for life under the rule of the Goddess’.