"I, TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS… AM NOW ABOUT TO WRITE THIS STRANGE HISTORY OF MY LIFE": I, CLAUDIUS, SCARCE FIRST EDITION

GRAVES, Robert. I, Claudius. London: Arthur Barker, 1934. Octavo, original blue cloth, original dust jacket. $4200.

First edition of Graves' most famous novel, a very nice copy in the original dust jacket.

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). Graves was a gifted classicist at Charterhouse and later Oxford, but decided to pursue literature and poetry after he completed his degree. Graves translated Apuleius' The Golden Ass and Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars; he also published a controversial encyclopedia of Greek Myths containing some of his own original theories. I, Claudius was dramatized by the BBC in 1976 starring Derek Jacobi. With folding genealogical table tipped in at rear. Bookplate, contemporary owner signature.

Book fine, price-clipped dust jacket very good with a few shallow chips and short creases, faint toning to spine, a bit of soiling to rear panel. A near-fine copy.