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        I, Claudius


        setting

        Ancient Rome

        time

        200 AD

        language

        English

        region

        Western Europe

        year published

        1934

        page count

        468

        difficulty

        Intermediate

        main characters

        Claudius and other good/bad Claudians

        Rip's impressions

        Engrossing and entertaining––learning the history of Rome was never this fun. Graves set the modern standard for how historical novels are written, and by which their quality are measured.

        first line

        I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus This-that-and-the-other (for I shall not trouble you yet with all my titles) who was once, and not so long ago either, known to my friends and relatives and associates as “Claudius the Idiot,” or “That Claudius,” or “Claudius the Stammerer,” or “Clau-Clau-Claudius” or at best as “Poor Uncle Claudius,” am now about to write this strange history of my life; starting from my earliest childhood and continuing year by year until I reach the fateful point of change where, some eight years ago, at the age of fifty-one, I suddenly found myself caught in what I may call the “golden predicament” from which I have never since become disentangled.

        literary tidbits

        The difficulty in writing historical fiction is that the history must serve the story, not the other way around.