Books like “I, Claudius”

What to read after “I, Claudius” by Robert Graves: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
The Wolf Den
Elodie Harper · 2021
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
Sold into slavery after her father's death, Amara works in a brothel in Pompeii, owned by a man she hates. She hides her education and waits, building ties with the other women and looking for a way out, in a city where even a slave can sometimes buy back her freedom.
2
A Thousand Ships
Natalie Haynes · 2019
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- Ancient World
The Trojan War told through its women: queens, captives, mothers and goddesses who wait, grieve and endure while the men fight and die. From the Greek camp to the burning city, their voices answer the old story that left them out.
3
Lavinia
Ursula K. Le Guin · 2008
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- Ancient World
Lavinia grows up in Latium, a king's daughter who has no voice in her own story. A prophecy names a stranger from Troy as her husband, and when Aeneas arrives their union sets off a war. Years later she tells her own version of the life the epic left unspoken.
4
The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne · 1850
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- Outcast Hero
- Betrayal
In a Puritan town, a young woman is publicly shamed for having a child out of wedlock and refuses to name the father. As she builds a quiet life with her daughter, the man's secret guilt and her wronged husband's quest for revenge eat away at the community. A novel about sin and hypocrisy.
5
Pachinko
Min Jin Lee · 2017
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- Outcast Hero
- Survival
A young woman in colonial Korea, Sunja, leaves home for Japan with a husband she barely knows and raises a family that lives as outsiders for generations. Through war and poverty, the household holds on to its dignity and its secrets.
6
The Sunne in Splendour
Sharon Kay Penman · 1982
Same genre: “Historical fiction” and “Biographical fiction”
- Betrayal
A retelling of the life of Richard III, from his boyhood in a divided England to his brief reign. Set against the Wars of the Roses, it follows the Yorkist claim to the throne, the loyalties that bind Richard, and the rumour and betrayal that surround his name.
7
Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe · 1958
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- Betrayal
Okonkwo, a respected wrestler and farmer in a Nigerian village, builds his standing on a fear of appearing weak. When he is exiled and, years later, British missionaries and officials arrive, the customs that shaped him begin to collapse around him and his people.
8
Schindler's Ark
Thomas Keneally · 1982
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- Survival
In German-occupied Poland, Oskar Schindler, a Czech businessman and opportunist, employs Jewish workers in his factory. As the war turns and deportations intensify, he uses his wealth and connections to shield them, at growing personal risk.
9
Bridge of Birds
Barry Hughart · 1984
Similar setting: “Ancient World”
- Ancient World
In an ancient China that never was, a plague falls on the children of a village. Number Ten Ox seeks the sage Master Li, a scholar with 'a slight flaw in his character', and the two set off through ghosts, gods and bandits to find the one cure that can save the children.
10
Lord of the Flies
William Golding · 1954
Similar plot moves: “Outcast Hero” and “Betrayal”
A group of schoolboys survives a plane crash on a deserted island and tries to govern themselves. Order slips first into fear and then into savagery as the boys turn on one another. An allegory about civilisation, violence and what people become without rules.
11
Ariadne
Jennifer Saint · 2021
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- Outcast Hero
- Betrayal
Princess Ariadne helps Theseus escape the labyrinth, then is abandoned on a shore where Dionysus finds her. She must decide how much of her story to give away to a god, and what freedom is worth.
12
The Remains of the Day
Kazuo Ishiguro · 1989
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
Stevens, a butler at an English country house, sets out on a motoring trip in 1956 and looks back over decades of service. Recalling his employer's political misjudgements and his own missed chances with the housekeeper, he begins to see what a life given to duty has cost him.