Les Fables de La Fontaine

Abstract

At first I was prepared to write that the style here was familiar from Vestita's 2018 book from the same press, "The Most Beautiful Fables of Aesop, Phaedrus and La Fontaine." A little investigating showed that the illustrations in the present volume are the exact illustrations used for the twelve La Fontaine fables there. La Fontaine's poetry is made here into a simpler prose version for today's children. There is something nicely geometric about Vestita's figures, including her human faces. One of Vestita's strongest images here is of the crow decked out with peacock feathers (74). He is a tour de force! As happened in the other volume, this book finishes with the best tailless fox that I have seen!