Fables de La Fontaine
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Authors
de La Fontaine, Jean
Morel, Maurice
Issue Date
1870
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Type
Book, Whole
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Abstract
I find this book disappointing. It is large, with gilt page-edges. It contains some 113 full-page illustrations by Louis Eugène Lambert (1825-1900), but most of them seem to me simple, direct, dull, and predictable. Some are in fact sketchy. A typical illustration might be that for Le Renard et le Bouc (127). Some better illustrations include a symbol overhead that suggests the irony of the fable; thus in FC (7) a censor blows smoke. Similarly above DW (14), there is a bird escaping from its cage. Among the better illustrations are those for the stag and vine (261), the stag seeing itself in water (285), and the wolf and the hunter (444). It is unusual to picture TT after the fall (515). I am very glad to have found this book but sorry that it does not offer more. I was unaware of the then uncatalogued first copy when I found the second in Paris. It is ironic that the book's two prices are within a dollar of each other! The Watermark copy is inscribed Maggie Donald: First Prize for French. 1870-71. It shows some water-staining outside the carefully drawn margins, i.e. in the top and bottom inch of many pages. Because it has a plain cover and spine, it lacks the Veyrier copy's mention (on the cover) Collection J. Hetzel. Because each copy has flaws, I will keep both in the collection. Paul LeRoi writes in G. de Cherville's Les Chiens et les Chats d'Eugène Lambert En 1862, Lambert illustra un La Fontaine, que la maison Lahure publiait par livraisons (xxiv). The relationship of this work to my editions is not yet known to me.
Description
Citation
Publisher
J. Hetzel et Cie
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Identifier
3101 (Access ID)