GRAVES, Robert.
I, Claudius.
London: Arthur Barker, 1934.
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“I, Tiberius Claudius… am now about to write this strange history of my life”: First Edition of Robert Graves’s I, Claudius
First edition of Graves’s classic work. Octavo, original cloth. Near fine in a very good dust jacket. With the bookplate of the Book Society, designed by Edmund Dulac and dated May 1934 in manuscript, to the front pastedown. The Book Society, the British subscription book club started by Alan Bott, chose I, Claudius as one of its selections, and some copies of the first edition were issued with a paper band reading “Chosen by the Book Society.” A nice example. Fine in a very good dust jacket. Jacket design by John Aldridge.
Drawing from such ancient sources as Tacitus and Suetonius, Graves created the secret “autobiography” of Claudius, narrated “in the imaginatively and idiosyncratically conceived persona of the emperor” (Drabble, 412). “In I, Claudius and its successor, Claudius the God, Robert Graves wrote two of the most resonant historical novels of the century… In impersonating Claudius, Graves displays a scholarly and imaginative understanding of the mores and ethos of the Roman world, and sensationalizes his material only as much as must be expected from a novelist with a living to earn… Graves’ people are real Romans, and Claudius’ autobiography is credible as the product of a Roman mind” (Parker, 175). I, Claudius was dramatized by the BBC in 1976 starring Derek Jacobi.
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