The Life of Herod the Great By Zora Neale Hurston

the historical Herod the Great, a religious and philosophical man who lived a life of adventure.

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From the peaks of triumph to the depths of human misery, the historical Herod "seemed to have been singled out by some deity and especially endowed to attract the zigzag lightning of fate." The intimate friend of both Marc Antony and Julius Caesar, Herod lived in times of war and expansion, where political assassinations and bribery were commonplace as the old world gave way to the new. Breaking his legacy out of a single paragraph in the Bible and into the vivid, breathing world he lived in, Hurston's unfinished manuscript brings a full person with an adventurous life into view for the first time.

Scholar and literary critic Deborah Plant brings this bold, spirited novel to readers for the first time with a new introduction and editorial additions that demonstrate Hurston's point about how reimagining figures from the past addresses the troubles we experience today.