WILDER, Thornton

Ides of March, The

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948. Item #06534

Rome Re-imagined
Thornton Wilder’s The Ides of March - A Classical Meditation on Power and Fate

WILDER, Thornton. The Ides of March. New York: Harper & Brothers, [1948].

First edition. Octavo (8 x 5 1/2 inches; 203 x 140 mm.). viii, [1–2], 3–146, [1], [1, blank] pp.

Publisher’s dark blue cloth over boards, front cover with publisher’s device stamped in blind, spine lettered in silver, top edge trimmed, others uncut. In the original pictorial dust jacket printed in red and blue, a little browned at folds with small tears, light chipping at the head of the spine. An excellent copy in a good dust jacket.

A sophisticated and highly original work by Thornton Wilder, The Ides of March departs from conventional narrative structure, unfolding instead as a series of letters, diary entries, official documents, and fragmentary texts. Through this mosaic form, Wilder reconstructs the final days of Julius Caesar, presenting not a linear history but a layered meditation on power, personality, and the elusive nature of truth.

Drawing deeply on classical sources - particularly Suetonius and other Roman historians - Wilder transforms historical material into a modern psychological and philosophical inquiry. Caesar emerges not merely as a political figure, but as a man confronting: the burdens of authority, the instability of reputation and the inevitability of fate.

The novel’s fragmented structure anticipates later twentieth-century experimentation, while remaining anchored in Wilder’s characteristic clarity and humanism.

Published a decade after Our Town, this novel reflects Wilder’s continued engagement with time, history, and the universality of human experience. Where Our Town renders the ordinary sublime, The Ides of March elevates the historical into the intimate - revealing the private anxieties behind public greatness.

Price: $150.00