Fables: Jean de la Fontaine (Fox and Crow cover)

Abstract

There is a small chapter in publishing history hidden in this book. Interiorly it is almost identical with the copy of this book that I had found during June, 1989 at In and Out of Print Books in San Francisco. See my comments there on the book. It is noteworthy for the twelve beautiful full-page colored Ferrand illustrations, listed on 123. I will here list the differences that this copy shows from that copy. That copy had a green back-cover, black spine, and fully colored front-cover with a lively design including a fox, a figure with a mask, a rooster with a book, and a small figure riding the rooster. This copy has the same cream-colored material throughout the cover and spine. FC is pictured on a 4¾ x 5¼ plate pasted onto the front-cover. That copy had green end-papers with a two-page panorama of fable figures. This copy has blank end-papers. There the pre-title-page had Fables near its center. Here the pre-title-page has Fables at its top; it is preceded by a page with 1 FABLES and ALBUM D near its bottom. The Tout droits and copyright statements facing the title-page are differently typeset, as is all of the information on the title-page itself. There the title-page had at its bottom Tours/Maison Mame/Agence á Paris 6, Rue Madame, VIe. Here it has simply MAME. This copy lacks the foxing of that copy. Might its paper also be of different quality? After 126, following Imprimé en France that copy had 1390-1950 at the start of its printing statement. This copy has instead 1677-1952. I hope that information someday helps some bibliographers or historians! I can find no evidence that either of the copies belongs to the numbered sets announced at the books' beginnings.