"NONE BUT ALEXANDER COULD PERFORM WHAT ALEXANDER HATH DONE": 1674 EDITION IN ENGLISH OF QUINTUS CURTIUS RUFUS' LIFE AND DEATH OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT

(ALEXANDER THE GREAT) CURTIUS RUFUS, Quintus. (CODRINGTON, Robert, translator). The Life and Death of Alexander the Great, King of Macedon. In Ten Books. London: Printed for S.S…. sold by Nich. Cox, 1674. Small octavo (4-1/2 by 7 inches), contemporary full mottled brown calf, elaborately gilt-decorated spine, raised bands, all edge gilt; pp. [xii] 486.

1674 edition of Robert Codrington's esteemed translation into English of this life of Alexander the Great, with engraved frontispiece of Alexander, handsome in contemporary calf.

Curtius Rufus flourished in the first century C.E.; no particulars of his life are known. His Historiarum Alexandri Magni "introduces a number of picturesque details which are grouped effectively; and the career of the great Macedonian is regarded as a series of brilliant and romantic adventures. There are a number of carefully finished speeches worked into the narrative and much sententious reflection. The style is evidently formed on that of Livy" (Peck, 449). Preceded by John Brende's 1553 first translation into English, which ran through a number of printings in the intervening century before Codrington undertook his new translation, "exactly conferred with the Original, and purged from many gross errors and absurdities, with which it before abounded." Codrington's translation first appeared in 1652 under a slightly different title (see Wing C7699). With engraved frontispiece after F.H. van Houe; engraved head- and tailpieces. Occasional mispagination as issued without loss of text. ESTC R29693. Wing C7697B. Harris, First English Translations, 45. Brueggemann, 668. Lowndes, 573. With contemporary owner signatures of Bennet Sherard dated 1687, possibly belonging to the British peer, First Earl of Harborough, or a member of his family. Small private library inkstamps to title page verso and margin of page 51. Preliminary blank partially excised as if to remove a signature.

Interior fresh with title page and frontispiece trimmed at one edge not affecting image or text, proximate leaves suggesting they are present as issued or originally bound as such, tiny bit of early restoration to spine ends and corners, rear joint starting but sound. A desirable very good copy in contemporary calf.