Robert Graves (also known as Robert Ranke Graves) was born in 1895 in London and served in World War I. Goodbye to All That: an Autobiography (1929), was published at age thirty three, and gave a gritty portrait of his experiences in the trenches. Graves edited out much of the stark reality of the book when he revised it in 1957. Although his most popular works, I, Claudius (1934) and its sequel, Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina (1935), were produced for television by the BBC in 1976 and seen in America on Masterpiece Theater, he was also famous as a poet, producing more than 50 volumes of poetry. Graves was awarded the 1934 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for both I, Claudius and… Claudius the God. Also a distinguished academic, Graves was a professor of English in Cairo, Egypt, in 1926, a poetry professor at Oxford in the 1960s, and a visiting lecturer at universities in England and the U.S. He wrote translations of Greek and Latin works, literary criticism, and nonfiction works on many other topics, including mythology and poetry. He lived most of his life in Majorca, Spain, and died after a protracted illness in 1985.
Rick Riordan was born on June 5, 1964, in San Antonio, Texas. After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin with a double major in English and history, he taught in public and private middle schools for many years. He writes several children's series including Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Kane Chronicles, and The Heroes of Olympus. He also writes the Tres Navarre mystery series for adults. His short fiction has been featured in Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. He has won Edgar, Anthony, and Shamus Awards for his mystery novels. His title's, The Son of Sobek, The House of Hades, The Mark of Athena and Percy Jackson's Greek Gods made… The New York Times Best Seller List.