Damhegion Esop (Gyda 200 O Ddarluniau) (Aesop's Fables with 200 Illustrations)

Abstract

This book reproduces Books for the Bairns -I that Stead published as the first volume in his Books for the Bairns series in 1896. The page count (62) and illustrations are identical. This copy has glazed pictorial paper cover boards, and its spine has disintegrated. The front cover has separated from the book. This copy has an advertisement for Books for the Bairns on its last page. That advertisement lists twenty issues in the series, while the Books for the Bairns copy of its first issue that I have lists twenty-one issues in the series. There are six pages of advertisements at the close of this book. Cadbury's Cocoa is also prominent on the top of the front cover of this offering. I will include comments I made on the Books for the Bairns copy. Each of the sixty fables listed in the beginning T of C has from two to five small black-and-white illustrations that are most similar to the old transfers we played with as children. There are sub-titles for each of the fables. The four images for Venus and the Cat (37) tell the tale very well. Again here, the typesetter worked very hard to make sure that no reader would have to turn a page in order to finish a fable. On 18-19, on 20-21, and again on 28-29 a short and a long fable are paired up to make a two-page spread. See also the New Series by the same editor and publisher (1899?), the Second Series (1902?), the 1911 republication by the Palmer Company, and the republication (1911?) by Stead's Publishing House. My, one little book developed quite a history!