A work of superbly detailed research and sustained empathy, Memoirs of Hadrian captures the living spirit of the Emperor and of Ancient Rome. The Emperor meditates on his past, describing his accession, military triumphs, love of poetry and music, and the philosophy that informed his powerful and far-flung rule. The Emperor Hadrian, aware his demise is imminent, writes a long valedictory letter to Marcus Aurelius, his future successor. In her magnificent novel, Marguerite Yourcenor recreates the life and death of one of the great rulers of the ancient world. She is that most extraordinary thing: a sensual thinker’ Independent on Sundayįramed as a letter from the Roman Emperor Hadrian to his successor, Marcus Aurelius, Marguerite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian is translated from the French by Grace Frick with an introduction by Paul Bailey in Penguin Modern Classics. She can make us share passion – for beauty, bodies, ideas, even power – and consider it closely at the same time. ‘A timeless masterpiece … every page is informed by her profound scholarship’ Paul Bailey, author of Gabriel’s Lament ‘Yourcenar conjures worlds.
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If you enjoyed Memoirs of Hadrian, you might like Robert Graves’s I, Claudius, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. When Memoires d’Hadrien was first published in 1951, it was an immediate success and met with great critical acclaim. Her first novel Alexis was published in 1929 in 1939 she was invited to America by her lover Grace Frick, where she lectured in comparative literature at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Marguerite de Crayencour (1903-88), who went by the inexact anagrammatic pen name ‘Marguarite Yourcenar’, was a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist, the first woman to be elected to the Academie francaise. Framed as a letter from the Roman Emperor Hadrian to his successor, Marcus Aurelius, Marguerite Yourcenar’s Memoirs of Hadrian is translated from the French by Grace Frick with an introduction by Paul Bailey in Penguin Modern Classics.