Avec le Bon La Fontaine
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Authors
De La Tour Girard, Compaing
Issue Date
1945
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Abstract
Here is a second copy of this delightful oversized work. I keep it in the collection for two reasons. One is that it is in much better condition than our first copy. The other is that it has a curious misplacement of page 5-6 near the end; how does a mistake like that happen? I note here, as I did not concerning our first copy, that the frontispiece page promises numbering within the edition of 500 copies. Neither copy is numbered. And the preface was finished in May of 1945. What a tumultuous time! As I wrote of the first copy, there are, between 6 and 53, twelve La Fontaine fables, each presented in a large chromolithograph followed by a few questions about the picture and a prose text presenting the fable in a form suitable for young listeners. Following each fable is a two-page application with its own large chromolithograph. At times the parallel between fable and application-story is quite close, as in the first. A proud young boy says that he will never be as proud as the crow in FC. An older boy challenges him to show his courage by climbing up a ladder and perching on a tree branch. When the younger fellow has taken up the challenge, the older boy removes the ladder and challenges him to show courage by jumping down from the tree branch. Sometimes the parallel is more extraneous, as when -- following upon TMCM -- two children steal some pastries but then repent because God sees them. Several illustrations stand out. FC (6) is charming; its application "Le Bon Leçon" (8) has a strong sense of pathos. TH (18) seems to have a frisky rabbit going in the wrong direction! Its lesson, "Guy and Monique" (20) contrasts nicely the working child and the child who dallies before starting. GA (22) is nicely done, and its story seems to have room for criticism both of the niggardly ant and of the careless cicada. I am surprised after the detailed expression of the artists that the cover and title-page illustration is signed "A. Hanjik." It is a two-colored representation of LM in a style quite different from the full-page chromolithographs throughout the work. There is a T of C on 54. A favorite word in this work is "paresseux," "lazy." It fits many of the characters, animal and human. Not in Bodemann.
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Publisher
Tolra, Éditeur
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13051 (Access ID)