Aesopische Fabeln für die Jugend
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Authors
Aesop
Meissner, A.G.
Issue Date
1840? , 1840
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Type
Book, Whole
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Abstract
I was on my way to another bookstore when I happened across this fascinating shop full of old toys and books. Among them was this little treasure. This 352-page paperback book's binding has become bowed, and its paper wraps are disintegrating. Otherwise it seems thoroughly intact. I could not get the dealer to come down from his high price! Bodemann lists fifteen different editions in which Meissner is somehow involved, but this is not one of them. Subsequent research suggests that the book was first published in Leipzig in 1791, but I still cannot find a date for this edition. As the opening T of C makes clear, there are five books, each with thirty fables. There is also an appendix with three unillustrated fables. The T of C alone gives the source of each fable; very few seem unattributed. The framed rectangular woodcuts take close to half a page. They are quite simple. An example is Der Igel und der Maulwurf on 11. Among the liveliest is Die Knaben und die Frösche (43). A few woodcuts are signed C.F. Rudiger fecit. Most fables take two pages. Die beiden Krebse is a one-page exception (120). Die Eiche und die Weide (191) receives an unusual comment, since Meissner takes the willow and not the reed as a contrast to the oak. For Meissner, the point is not about hypocrisy and weakness but about humility and a proper sense of oneself. No fable starts on the same page as another fable. The title-page bears an illegible stamp of ownership. One suspects that this little book could tell some tales of where it has been! It has, no doubt, come through many hands…. I have no idea when it was published.
Description
Citation
Publisher
Die Königliche Buchdruckerey
Königliche Hofdruckerey
Königliche Hofdruckerey
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PubMed ID
DOI
Identifier
5872 (Access ID)