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[ SOLD OUT ] HÖISTAD, R., Cynic Hero and Cynic King. Studies in the Cynic Conception of Man. Private Presses, Uppsala, 1948. (Carl Bloms Boktryckerei, Lund). 233p. Sewn. Front cover a bit rust stained and a bit loosening to lower part spine. Signature from J. Mansfeld to title page. A few small red pen markings. (Rare). ‘Höisted is chiefly concerned to show how the Cynics idealised Heracles as a hero who won moral kingship by his toils, which were done for the sake of men in spite of their scorn. His evidence for ‘service in face of scorn’ is in Dio Chrysostom (…). His book would have been easier to read if he had made it a direct study of the relevant orations of Dio and had written to introductory essays, on on their debt to Antisthenes and the other on Lucian’s treatment of Heracles and the cynics. As it is, we have a learned but ‘episodic’ work. Höistad discusses many important questions and is alert and critical, but he leaps rather disconcertingly from one problem to another. The bibliography, full and useful as it is, emphasises this discursiveness. (…) The pages on Lucian (pp.64-73) are excellent. He is shown as a Cynic at heart in spite of his gibes and the ‘De Mirte Peregrini’. He criticises vulgar ‘imitatio Herculis’ but admires the Cynic ideal. The longer treatment of Dio shows in detail the further refinement of the Heracles ideal and argues that the Cynics contrasted Diogenes as the true king with Alexander as the apparent. Onesicriticus failed to canonise Alexander among the Cynics.’ (J.B. SKEMP in The Classical Review (New Series) 1952, pp.80-81). (Antiquarian) (approx. delivery time: undeliverable)