So you're going through the bookstore reading titles, browsing for something to read. You see lots of random things, incoherent titles, boring titles, one-word titles that could mean anything or nothing. What to read? And then you see it. A book that sounds like it will focus on one subject just because of the title. A book that purports to speak from authority, just because of the title. It is a book that reads "I, Noun" possibly with an obscenely long subtitle.

This is a subtrope of The Joy of X. Related to Enter Eponymous.

Examples of I, Noun include:


Audio Plays

  • "I, Davros" A Doctor Who spinoff series of audio dramas.

Comic Books

Film

  • I, Madman, 1989 horror film.
  • I, the Jury a noir featuring Mike Hammer. Based on the book by Mickey Spillane.

Literature

  • I, Claudius, possibly the Ur Example.
  • I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, definitely the Trope Codifier.
    • "I, Robot", an unrelated short story by Eando Binder (which actually predates the Asimov by about a decade, and may have inspired its title).
    • I, Robot, an arcade game released in the 80s.
  • I, Vampire: The Confessions of a Vampire -- His Life, His Loves, His Strangest Desires ... by Michael Romkey - You get the feeling they just couldn't bring themselves to use such an undescriptive title and trust it to stand on its own merits.
  • I, Strahd by P. Elrod, memoirs of titular vampire, set in Ravenloft.
  • I, Sniper: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel by Stephen Hunter
  • I, the Jury a noir by Mickey Spillane featuring Mike Hammer. Also became a movie.
  • I, Monster: Serial Killers in Their Own Chilling Words by Tom Philbin
  • I, Q, a Star Trek: The Next Generation novel featuring Q (and riffing off the intelligence test of the same name).
  • I, Tyrant -- AD&D2 Sourcebook about beholders (a pun on "eye tyrant").
  • I, Weapon, a 70s sci-fi novel about the breeding of the ultimate living weapon from several human subspecies to fight an alien threat.
  • I, Jedi, the only Star Wars Expanded Universe novel to be written entirely in the first person.
  • Isaac Asimov parodied himself with a late autobiography called I. Asimov: A Memoir, where the different punctuation transforms the pronoun into an initial.
  • Cory Doctorow has short stories called both "I, Robot" and "I, Rowboat".
  • "I Cthulhu or, What's A Tentacle-Faced Thing Like Me Doing In A Sunken City Like This (Latitude 47° 9' S, Longitude 126° 43' W)?", by Neil Gaiman.
  • I, Lucifer by Glenn Duncan.
  • I, Ba'al, a short story set in the Stargate Verse.
  • Week Ending: Cabinet Leaks had a parody autobiography of Carol Thatcher called I, Carol. And every time she refers to herself in the first person it's "I, Carol", to the editor's despair.

Live-Action TV

Theatre

  • Musical about Roy Keane: I, Keano

Web Original

Western Animation