Fables de La Fontaine avec un nouveau commentaire, Tome Premier
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Authors
de La Fontaine, Jean
Nodier, Charles
Issue Date
1828
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Type
Book, Whole
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Abstract
I made a mistake when I bought this pair of volumes, since I already had copies but thought that I did not. My error, however, turns out to be a lucky one. This two-volume set involves surprising placement of the same twelve illustrations reported on in the first copy I have. If we count each frontispiece as the beginning of the volume's first book, we find this surprising order of the twelve illustrations numbered by their order in my first copy: 1, 4, 7, 11, 9, 8, 5, 12, 6, 2, 3, 10. What a change! I had heard that bookbinders exercised the right to place illustration pages where they thought best, but this is quite a switch! The extra illustration in that earlier copy, The Two Servants, seems not to be here at all. Following the order of appearance here, the scenes in this Volume I include first a frontispiece showing a bust of La Fontaine with a halo over a tombstone on which there is an image of a man (La Fontaine?) apparently standing before a shut door. Book II is introduced by The Miser Who Lost His Treasure within The Monkey Throwing Away His Master's Coins (89), Book III gets the illustration that had been a frontispiece in the earlier copy, Le Curé et le Mort within TB and MM (132). Book IV has The Old Man and the Three Young Men within The Lion and the Gnat, The Bees and the Drones, and The Eagle and the Magpie (173). The Oyster and the Litigants within FC and The Rat and the Oyster (227) opens Book V, and Democritus and the Abderites within The Two Cocks and DW (265) Book VI. As Bassy and Bodemann note, each illustration offers a medallion or a quadrangle resting on something in a scene, with one to four fable scenes playing around the medallion or quadrangle. I had to pay much more for this copy than the first, but I am glad to have this pair of volumes in the collection.
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Publisher
Emler Frères, Libraires
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Identifier
9060 (Access ID)