Famous Aesop Fables: The Cat and the Cockerel & other stories

Abstract

One in a set of seven 7½ x 10¼ pamphlets, each including seven fables. For each fable, there is a full page of text on the left and a full-page colored illustration on the right. The cartoon illustrations are simple and lively. One story may epitomize this member of the series: The Man and the Flea. The conception of the story here is good, namely that a small enemy can do a great deal of harm. The flea argues that he is too small to cause any harm. The man answers that he needs to kill him no matter how small he is. The illustration is lively and dramatic: a huge hand has the squirming flea between thumb and index finger. The English suffers in phrases like he searched the flea to kill and the moral's It is not the matter who did it, but what have done. The illustration for The Lion, the Bear and the Fox does a good job of arranging and characterizing the four characters in this fable. The two combatants struggle, the victim lamb sweats in fear, and the spectator fox licks his chops. The artist offers an unusual frontal view of the bloated frog in OF.