Assassinations have formed a major plot element in various works of fiction. This article provides a list of fictional stories in which assassination features as an important plot element. Passing mentions are omitted. Assassination can be regarded as the murder of a prominent person for a motive which is broadly public and political rather than merely personal or financial. Assassinations in fiction have attracted scholarly attention. In Assassinations and Murder in Modern Italy: Transformations in Society and Culture, as well as analyzing Italian assassinations in their historical and cultural contexts, Stephen Gundle and Lucia Rinaldi explore the films, plays, other works of fiction, and art that the act of assassination has inspired. Nick Cullather has discussed "The Movie Version" of John F. Kennedy's assassination. This list prefers to highlight less familiar cultural artifacts, while trying not to itemize every Ian Fleming or Agatha Christie title, or every Mafia film. The historical–historically based or historically inspired–takes precedence over the purely fictional and sensational. Novels Judith (c. 800) – Old English poem based on the Book of Judith (c. 100 B.C.) Edward Grim, Vita S. Thomae a.k.a. Life of Thomas Becket (1180) – eyewitness account of Thomas Becket Das Nibelungenlied (c. 1200) – German epic poem Marko Marulić, Judita (1521) – Croatian epic poem Alexandre Dumas, père, The Black Tulip (1850) – historical novel which features the assassination of Johan and Cornelis de Witt Bolesław Prus, Pharaoh (1895) Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis: A Tale of the Time of Nero (1895) – historical novel about SS. Peter and Paul, Pisonian conspirators and Empress Poppaea, Emperor Nero Anthony Hope, Rupert of Hentzau (1898) – adventure novel and sombre finale to The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) J. M. Barrie, Better Dead (18??) – novella about a plot against Lord Randolph Churchill Jack London, The Iron Heel (1908) – violent dystopian novel Jack London, The Assassination Bureau, Ltd (c. 1910, published 1963) – novel half-written by London, completed by Robert L. Fish, possibly influenced by the J. M. Barrie novella, Better Dead. Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes (1911) Baroness Orczy, The Laughing Cavalier (1913) – historical novel about Maurice of Nassau John Buchan, The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) – suspense novel; just the 1978 movie version features the attempted assassination of a fictional Greek Prime Minister André Malraux, Man's Fate (1933) – existential political novel Robert Graves, I, Claudius (1934), Claudius the God (1935) – historical novels