Ida Florence Affleck Graves (March 1902 – 14 November 1999) was a British artist, poet, novelist, and children's writer, and member of the Bloomsbury Group.
[4] From Surrey, she went to the University of London to study English literature, also attending an evening course in sculpture at Chelsea College of Arts.
[2] In 1929, Leonard and Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press published Graves's first poetry collection, The China Cupboard and Other Poems (as Ida Graves), with a cover by Vanessa Bell, as No.5 of their Living Poets series.
[2] Graves and artist Blair Hughes-Stanton, who were in a relationship, started the Gemini Press.
[2] In 1933, they published their first book together: Epithalamion: a poem, a "sequence of sexual imagery and symbolism" by Graves celebrating their relationship and illustrated by Hughes-Stanton.
[5] In 1935 they published their second volume: a book of "sardonic verse" Pastoral, or Virtue Requited.
[2] During World War II Graves worked on scenery and costumes for The Royal Ballet.
[2] Graves then entered one of the most productive periods of her life, producing not only the experimental Elarna Cane and the equally personal Willa, You're Wanted (1952), but the children's books Ostrobogulous Pigs (1952), Mouse Tash (1953), and Little Thumbamonk (1956), all published by Faber under "Affleck Graves" on their suggestion of adopting a genderless nom de plume.
In 1990,[6] teacher Peter Wallis came across some of Graves' work in East Anglian literary magazine Rialto, and searched her out.
Her new poetry was well received, and in an interview with poet and author Blake Morrison, she relished her refound fame, noting "I'd love to be a cult.
In 1953, Graves began a relationship with jazz pianist Don Nevard, whom she married in 1995 and who was with her until the end of her life.