Fables by John Gay

Abstract

Can one get too many different editions of Gay's fables? I start to have that feeling. This edition will give some researcher a good time. The book is inscribed in 1857. Elements include a beginning T of C, listing all fifty fables of the first book and seventeen of the second book. Next is Gay's life by Johnson. Then follow the fables, each with a headpiece, almost half a page in size in this small (3¼ x 5¼) book. Many fables also feature tailpieces. Maybe the most informative comparison would be with the Gay edition I have from 1834 from Longman, Rees, Orme et al, only four years prior. These illustrations seem to follow in the tradition before Harvey. I presumed that I was finding a rerun of something I already had, but I think I was wrong.