Isoppu Monogatari (Aesop's Fables) [in Japanese]
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Authors
Takei, Takeo
Kusuyama, Masao
Issue Date
2014
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Abstract
I sought and ordered this book at the time when I found a first edition of this whimsical masterpiece. I wanted to have freer rein to investigate than a fragile first edition would allow. And the investigating has been delightful! It starts with a dust-jacket cover and book-cover that I do not understand. A mouse holds a candle? At least it marks in English along its border "Aesops Fables." There are 23 fables here, each receiving four pages. The first left-hand page offers a title, almost always in Japanese, with a large black-and-white design, already often whimsical. We turn that page – backwards, of course, to our reckoning – and we find a three-colored two-page depiction of a high moment in the story. Turn again, and there is, apparently, a full page of Japanese text of the story. Thus, after introductory material like the frontispiece and T of C, for the 23 fables there are 96 pages. There are three full-color full-page illustrations: for "The Fox and the Woodcutter," "Doctor Cat," and the frontispiece of Aesop blowing animals out of a big horn! My prizes for the two-page spreads go to "The Fox and the Woodcutter" and MSA. Other excellent spreads are SW, WL, FS, TMCM, FG, GA, MM, OR, and FC. Two fables near the center are hard for me to figure out, involving perhaps, respectively, a hawk and a rabbit (37-44). The variety in art forms is one of the many things that make this such a special book!
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Publisher
Fuzanbo Planning