"NONE BUT ALEXANDER COULD PERFORM WHAT ALEXANDER HATH DONE": SCARCE 1661 EDITION IN ENGLISH OF QUINTUS CURTIUS RUFUS' LIFE AND DEATH OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT (CODRINGTON, Robert, translator). The Life and Death of Alexander the Great. In X. Books. London: E. Alsop and Robert Wood, 1661. 

Small quarto (6” x 7-1/2”), modern full brown calf, elaborately gilt-decorated spine, raised bands, black morocco spine label. Housed in a custom black linen slipcase.    

1661 edition, the scarce second edition, of Robert Codrington's esteemed translation into English of this life of Alexander the Great, a splendid volume attractively bound in full 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). Title page with wood-cut engraved vignette, engraved headpieces and ornamental initials. Occasional mispagination as issued without loss of text. 

A superlative example, handsomely bound.