author
Randolph Faries
1890–1938
A University of Pennsylvania scholar who turned a love of classics into a focused study of how English-language novelists imagined ancient Rome. His surviving work offers a window into early 20th-century literary criticism and the long afterlife of Roman history in fiction.
1 Audiobook
Ancient Rome in the English novel: a study in English historical fiction
by Randolph Faries
About the author
Best known for Ancient Rome in the English Novel: A Study in English Historical Fiction, Randolph Faries was an American scholar connected with the University of Pennsylvania. The work was presented there in 1923 as a doctoral thesis, and later circulated through library collections and public-domain editions.
In that study, he examined how novelists writing in English portrayed Roman life, tracing patterns in historical fiction and asking what made these books feel convincing as pictures of the ancient world. Rather than writing for casual travel-in-time romance, he approached Rome through careful literary analysis, bringing together classical interest and close reading.
Reliable biographical details about his wider life are limited in the sources I found, so it is safest to remember him chiefly through this substantial academic work. Even so, that single book makes him a distinctive voice for listeners interested in classics, historical fiction, and the history of literary scholarship.