Fables and Tales from La Fontaine in French and English Now First Translated, To which is prefix'd the Author's Life
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Issue Date
1734
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Book, Whole
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Abstract
I quote from my favorite private collector (F-0405, with a duplicate C-159): An attractive edition with the text in French and English on facing pages. Not illustrated, but decorated throughout with a great variety of printers' ornaments used as head and tailpieces. The translator erroneously claims his version to be the first in English. Possibly the first version to have the text in both languages. The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, Vol. II, p. 784 lists a Mandeville translation of 1703. One hundred fables rendered into English prose, with four additional tales. Bound here with The Tales and Fables of the late Archbishop and Duke of Cambray, Author of Telemachus, in French and English, that is, Fénelon, published in 1736 by John Hawkins. Be careful: Bettsworth is spelled in various ways. Bodemann lists it with another e before the w. The advertisement on the very last page of this rather thick and hefty book includes a second e but drops the s! I notice that in SW on 239, La Fontaine's appropriate wager Which of us will strip his shoulders is changed in the English here to the less appropriate who of us two shall first oblige yon Man on Horseback to uncover his Shoulders.
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Printed for A. Bettsworth and C. Hitch and C. Davis