In the summer of 1958, Graves met for the first time Cindy Lee, whose real name was Emile Laraçuen (later adding an A to her first name). Aemilia would become another of Graves’s ‘Muse-Goddesses’, inspiring his poetic outputs.
That same summer, Graves also met Edward Ardizzone, the artist. In November 1959, back at Deyá after a visit to London, Graves collated poems together that formed The Penny Fiddle, which to him were
‘mostly romantic 1820-ish pieces, with more salt than honey in them.’
Illustrated by Ardizzone, it was nominated as a children’s book of the month, selling some 20,000 copies.
More success was realised when Ardizzone also illustrated Graves’s later Ann at Highwood Hall: Poems for Children (1964).
Robert Graves, Ann at Highwood Hall: Poems for Children. London: Cassell, 1964.