Augustus by John Williams

About Augustus by John Williams

Augustus (1972) by John Williams is his fourth and last novel, winner of the National Book Award — an epistolary historical novel about Caesar Augustus told entirely through letters, diaries, and documents from Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Julia, Livia, and dozens of others. Williams's most formally ambitious work and the culmination of his artistic development: spare, precise prose applied to an enormous historical canvas.