Fables d'Ésope

Abstract

This book seems to be one-quarter the size of the English version of Orr's book, for which I have guessed a date of 1927, but it is really two-thirds of its size, having 60 pages to the 96 pages of the English edition. The paper is thinner here. But almost all of my favorite Orr illustrations are among those chosen. The four colored illustrations are beautifully presented here and better preserved than in my English edition. I still favor The Eagle and the Crow (24), TB (32), and The Thieves and the Cock (52). Among the black-and-white illustrations, I still enjoy The Miser (17), The Ass and the Little Dog (31), The Astrologer (39), The Ass and His Driver (43), and The Rat and the Frog (51). See my comments on the English edition of the same year. The text peculiarity that I noted there in TH has been lost (10). The boy cries Wolf! parfois (36). The fable about the doe and the lioness is one of those dropped. It is unusual for a French book to have a T of C where it is here, at the book's front; might the English publisher help to explain that unusual placement?