In the Library
Quo Vadis
Henryk Sienkiewicz, 1895
- Form
- Form Novel
- Difficulty
- Difficulty Moderate
- Reading time
- Reading time 15 hours
- Translated by
- Translated by Jeremiah Curtin
- Chapters
- Chapters 74
- Length
- Length 208k words
£1.99
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If thou desert my people, I am going to Rome to be crucified a second time.
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About the book
A Roman patrician falls in love with a Christian hostage in the household of Nero, and the gulf between his sophistication and her faith becomes the moral center of the novel. Henryk Sienkiewicz published this historical novel in installments through 1895 and 1896, rendering the imperial city in vivid period detail, and the work helped bring him the Nobel a decade later. Marcus Vinicius pursues Lygia through palaces, gardens, and finally the catacombs, while his uncle Petronius, the arbiter of taste at Nero's court, watches the empire from a distance with refined contempt. Then Rome burns, and the emperor needs someone to blame. The Christians are driven into the arena, and the novel's title question, asked by Peter on the Appian Way, receives its answer.