1941 I, Claudius

Description

Rebound, Signed, Very Scarce

The 1941 two volume Penguin edition of Robert Graves's enormously popular 1934 novel. Originally published in two volumes in Penguin's iconic orange and white paper wraps, this copy has been rebound in cloth, with endpapers renewed.

Both volumes are flat signed by the author to the Tacitus quotation leaf that appears following the title pages. In volume I, the inscription reads 'I, Robert Graves, 1942, Good Luck!', and in volume II it reads 'I, Robert Graves, 1942, Goodbye!'.

Signed copies of Graves's enormously popular novel are very scarce.

Written in the form of the autobiography of the Roman Emperor Claudius, 'I, Claudius' tells the history of the early years of the Roman Empire, from Julius Caesar's assassination to the assassination of Caligula.

Though the narrative is largely fictionalized, most of the events depicted are drawn from historical accounts of the same time period by the Roman historians Suetonius and Tacitus.