ISBN10: 1800348622, ISBN13: 9781800348622, [publisher: Liverpool University Press, Liverpool] Hardcover Hardcover. This book offers the first critical edition with an English translation and commentary on some of the letters attributed to Alexander and transmitted by mainly Plutarch and Arrian. The vast majority of the texts examined here are constituted by Alexanders 'private' letters, but the book also includes some letters regarded as official. Thirty-four letters are included, although there are many more letters allegedly written by Alexander, which are definitely forgeries. The doubts about the letters mostly come from the fact that the Romance of Alexander is considered a sort of epistolary novel, thus it has been argued that at some point a collection of Alexanders letters was put together, containing a nucleus of genuine letters, but also expandedwith forgeries. This volume attempts to isolate the letters which are regarded as authentic by the majority of modern scholars, with each letter followed by an outline of previous scholarly discussion of its authenticity.The book brings to wider attention a much-neglected corpus by employing an innovative approach. The traditional study of epistolography tends to focus on literary rather than historical aspects of the genre, whereas this book, by exploring the culture behind the action of writing at Alexanders court and the diverse approaches in relation to the letters, suggests that different criteria ...