King Jesus: A Novel

by Robert Graves

Overview

King Jesus, long out of print, is one of the most controversial historical novels of all time. In it, Robert Graves has summoned his superb narrative powers, his painstaking scholarship, his wit and unsurpassed ability to recreate the past, to produce a magnificant portrayal of the life of Christ on earth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374516642
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	10/01/1981
Series:	FSG Classics
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	633,740
Product dimensions:	5.35(w) x 8.09(h) x 1.16(d)

About the Author

Robert Graves (1895-1985) was a British poet, novelist, translator, and critic. His many books include the historical novels I, Claudius and Claudius the God, the autobiography Good-bye to All That, and the mythic/literary studies The White Goddess and The Greek Myths.

Editorial Reviews

My solution to the problem of Jesus's nativity implies a rejection of tke mystical Virgin Birth doctrine, which no longer has the same force in religious polemics as it had in Justin's day; to the mass of people nowadays the choice is between a Jesus bom in the ordinary course ofnature and one as mythical as Perseus and Prometheus.” —From the Author's Commentary

“This is not reading for the easily shocked; it definitely presents Jesus as a sage and a poet, if not divine. It moves, as does all Mr. Graves' writing, at a brilliant fast pace, and with a tremendous style.” —Kikus Reviews

“Mr. Graves is a poet; both the knowledge of a scholar and the imagination of a poet are brought to bear upon Jesus as child, boy, and man. The book is a bold speculative adventure.” —Harold Brighouse, Manchester Guardian

From the Publisher

''King Jesus'' was first published in 1946. If you are as late getting around to it as I am, be assured that we are in excellent company....Mr. Graves is slow. His characters are too full of longwinded historical updates, like a bunch of Greeks looking for a chorus....I wish Mr. Graves had stuck to Claudius. -- New York Times

John Leonard