Aesop's Fables
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Authors
Croxall, Samuel
Issue Date
1797
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Abstract
Just a month ago I found a copy of a Heptinstall edition and wondered if it was from 1797. I referred to Bodemann #186.1, which describes an 1818 work based on an edition not included in her bibliography, a 1797 edition by T. Heptinstall. Here was an edition by T. Heptinstall! Could it be? It is hard to say from the 1818 title-page, which is very similar to the title-page of that work I had found. But I remark now that the title-page of our work had at its bottom "Published Jan. 14 by T. Heptinstall Fleet Street." Now here is a volume in which the similarly placed line reads "Published Jan. 14, 1797 by T. Heptinstall Fleet Street." Bingo! Eureka! Here is the 1797 edition, a treasure even though it lacks both covers. As I wrote there, I believe that 110 fables and illustrations are a regular foreshortening of Croxall's long work of 196 fables. A clue was that each fable had an "application," a favorite term of Croxall's. I had no doubt that the book was a Croxall edition, even though he was not mentioned. That edition seemed to include the whole Croxall application, rather than just the first paragraph, as some do. It comes as no surprise then that this, I believe, original edition includes a "Preface by S. Croxall." The illustrations here, as there, are wonderfully executed and wonderfully preserved. For example, the second and third illustrations do just what we would want them to do: set up the situation of the wolf against the lamb and of the lion against the four bulls. What a stroke of luck to have come across this little (3¾" x 6") book!
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T. Heptinstall, Fleet Street
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11345 (Access ID)