The Classic Treasury of Aesop's Fables

Abstract

This very large format book (over 13 x 10) contains detailed and bright art for a selection of twenty fables. I can find no traditional source for the texts, which show a good eye for lively detail and engaging turns of phrase. The art reminds me of Santore's work. Perhaps its best feature lies for me in the little designs that face the full-page pictures from the text-page of each fable. Here Daily can select, and it seems to me that his comment is even stronger in these. My favorites include the full-page illustrations for The Gnat and the Bull (23) and The Monkey and the Camel (28) and the smaller designs for GGE (24) and OF (35). The latter plays on words in its title, The Bull and the Bullfrog. In The Stag and His Antlers (36) the stag gets away from the entangling trees and the pursuing dogs for the first time in my recollection of this fable! There is a T of C at the beginning.