Author: CROMWELL (Oliver). PERRINCHIEF (Richard):
Title: The Sicilian Tyrant: or, The Life of Agathocles.
Description: London, Printed by J. Grover for R. Royston..., 1676. 8vo, 172 x 106 mms., pp. [xvi], 278, engraved portrait frontispiece, large engraved vignette of a vessel on fire on the title page, folding engraved plate, contemporary calf, later reback, with morocco label; frontispiece and last leaf with neat marginal restorations, but a good copy. This is effectively the second edition, as the work was previously issued under the title 'The Syracusian Tyrant in 1661, a thinly disguised fictionalised life of Cromwell. Jason Mc Elligottin the Oxford DNB notes, "Perrinchief dedicated The Syracusan Tyrant … with some Reflexions on the Practices of our Modern Usurpers (1661) to Thomas Wriothesley, earl of Southampton; this book was republished in 1676 as The Sicilian Tyrant. In both editions an engraving showed 'Tyrannus', in the form of Oliver Cromwell dressed in dubious antique armour, being crowned with a laurel wreath by 'Perfidia' and 'Crudelitas'." John K. Davies, "Tyrants Ancient and Modern: Richard Perrinchief's 'The Sicilian Tyrantor, or, The Life of Agathocles. (1661)" in Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. Supplement No. 128, CLASSICS "IN PRACTICE": STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF SCHOLARSHIP (2015), pp. 17-32.

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