Graves begins his autobiography with his earliest memories. Born on July 24, 1895, Graves remembers being held up to a window to watch a procession for "Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897" (1), and seeing his father's "octavo volumes of Shakespeare" (1) in the family's drawing-room cupboards. Graves also recalls many visitors to his family's home, including the English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne. Graves’s father, Alfred Perceval Graves, also a poet, held a "Shakespeare reading circle" (2) frequented by writers and politicians.

Next, Graves gives a description of himself, physically. He says he is tall with "thick and curly" (3) black hair. He lists his occupation on his passport as "University Professor" or "Army Captain (pensioned list)" to avoid the "complicated reactions" passport officials have to the occupation of "writer" (3). Graves also explains that he walks with one shoulder lower than the other because of a "lung wound" (3).

Graves, a self-described "British subject" (3), explains that his mother's family, the von Rankes, are German. With the exclusion of his great-uncle, Leopold von Ranke, a noted modern historian, most von Ranke men were "Saxon country pastors" (3) and "devoutly Lutheran" (4). Graves’s mother, Amalie von Ranke, moved to England at age 18 to care for an elderly woman who later bequeathed her estate to Amalie.