Aesop's Fables
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Authors
Aesop
Folkard, Charles
Home, Gordon,
Issue Date
1912
Volume
Issue
Type
Book, Whole
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Abstract
Expensive but worth it. The twelve colored and the thirteen black-and-white illustrations are wonderful! The best of the former include The Blackamoor (8), MSA (40), and The Ass and the Little Dog (160). Illustration and text work together well when the fox calls the grapes green which the colored frontispiece shows to be purple. For me the best of the black-and-white illustrations, unfortunately few as they are, are LM (77) and The Man and the Gnat (99). The simple illustration of the fox on 67 is duplicated on 88, 145, and 167. 194 fables; it would be fun to see which few fables of Croxall's Home left out. One story told in unusual fashion: the miser's money is stolen by a servant, and the neighbor tells the miser to look at the hole itself (2). There are generally separate morals in caps. There is an AI at the front, and a list of illustrations on xix-xx. Inscribed in 1915. There is a great cover-illustration embossed in gold for the title and for the crown of the new king of frogs. Not in Ashby, Hobbs, Lindseth, McKendrick, or Quinnam, but the illustrations are featured in Ash and Higton (cover/dust jacket, 35, and 63). Now in '97 I have done a careful analysis of the texts, which are almost always Croxall's narratives with the long applications dropped and excellent short morals attached. Home prefers to start fables with the indefinite article for the key character(s) where Croxall preferred the definite. Croxall's favorite could not forbear here frequently becomes could not help. Not from Croxall are The Ape and the Dolphin (#9), The Goatherd and the Shegoat (#25), MSA (#33), and A Boar Challenges an Ass (#159). The last fable is entirely new to me. Home tends unfortunately to suppress Croxall's earthiest vocabulary, e.g., guts in The Frogs and the Fighting Bulls (#188). There are some few substantive departures from Croxall's stories. Thus The Cat Woman (#148) follows Jacobs' line of development, and even some phrasing, but is distinct in its timing of the key mouse-trick. The Ape and the Fox (#118) changes from backside to back. Check The Satyr and the Traveller (#177) for a significant set of changes concerning venue and The Owl and the Grasshopper (#185) for the same concerning fiddling rather than singing. In The Old Woman and her Maids (#92), the ending is completely reworked. Check The Fir and the Bramble (#119) for three changes from Croxall and Sheep's Clothing (#121) for partial changes that do not succeed fully. The 1916 printing does not correct any of these possible errors.
Description
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Publisher
Adam & Charles Black
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DOI
Identifier
2406 (Access ID)