I, Claudius; Claudius the God

In a hardcover omnibus for the first time: the beloved novels about the unlikely, overlooked man who survived the turbulent reigns of Augustus, Tiberius, and Caligula and became Emperor of Rome in spite of himself

A grandson of Mark Antony, young Claudius is mistaken for a weakling and an idiot because of his stutter and his physical infirmities, dismissed as insignificant by his ambitious relatives as they compete for power. He grows up learning to use his reputation for harmlessness as a shield and spends his time writing a secret history of the first three emperors of Rome as observed from his remarkable ringside vantage point--a dramatic tale that makes up the pages of I, Claudius.

Claudius's impersonation of a fool protects him from the intrigues and poisonings that mark his predecessors' reigns, including the machinations of his murderous grandmother Livia and his dangerously mad nephew Caligula. When he is unexpectedly handed power, he accepts only to avoid civil war, and Claudius the God traces his attempts to strengthen Rome and restore the Republic.

Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.