Fables de La Fontaine Interprétées par Coco Lulu

Abstract

Here is a wonderful curiosity. Among several inexpensive books I found at Evasion in Brussels in a lucky morning of fable-book-hunting, I found this small paperbound volume. I took it for a duplicate of something we already had, bought from Zubal in July of 2015, but it was so inexpensive that I bought it. Now I have tracked down the copy we already had. They are not the same, especially since this book is published by Librairie Vanderlinden and not by " H. Wellens & W. Godenne, Imprimeurs-Éditeurs." I noticed that the pagination is exactly the same, as one can see in the closing T of C of each book, even though those T of C pages have been newly typeset. Here is another surprise: Paul Wellens is the illustrator in both, but the illustrations are different! Contrast OF in Wellens & Godenne (27) with OF here (27). Both have the same structure but they are clearly differently executed. I see now that my comments on the other edition already took note of this difference in Wellens' illustrations. "Fables de La Fontaine dans la langue populaire du quartier de Marolles (Bruxelles). Coco Lulu est le pseudonyme de Victor Lefèvre (1822-1904). Illustrations n/b de Paul Wellens sont différentes de celles de l'Edition Librairie Vanderlinden." As I wrote then, I tried several of the fables and find them faithful to La Fontaine. They seem to add linguistic turns and topical references from Brussels to the basic verse of La Fontaine. I took Bodemann's word for it that this booklet was published in 1898, though it looks to me like something from the 1930's. I believe they both come from that era. The Bodemann category for both is #378.1. This edition, which I take to be later – even though they both present the same 1898 preface – has thicker paper.