The Image of Classics and Classicists in Modern Fiction: Seducers, Slayers and Survivors

This book explores the portrayal of the discipline of Classics and its practitioners as it emerges from fiction written in the United Kingdom and the United States from the 19th century to the present day.

This is the first book-length treatment of Classics and its practitioners in the popular imagination. It begins with a discussion of the unique role of Classics in British and North American education, before examining selected earlier fictional representations of classicists from the 19th century to c.1960. The third chapter explores the topic thematically, showing certain tendencies in the portrayal of the discipline and its practitioners in fiction, offering readers copious examples of fictional classicists of varying degrees of fame. The final chapter explores the image of Classics since Donna Tartt’s famous portrayal of Classics majors in The Secret History (1992), focusing on the paradoxical growth of novels about classicists in the context of the discipline’s increasingly tenuous position in educational curricula, followed by a brief appendix on Classics and Dark Academia.

The Image of Classics and Classicists in Modern Fiction is not only suitable for students and scholars of classical reception but also offers a fascinating insight into the perceptions in modern culture of Classics more broadly, and is of interest to anyone working or studying within the discipline.

Sophie Mills is Professor of Ancient Mediterranean Studies and English at the University of North Carolina at Asheville (USA). She has taught there for 30 years and is the author of monographs and many articles on Euripides, Greek tragedy and Athenian imperialism.