Alesovy Kresby

Abstract

This book represents a recurrent experience and a frustration. The recurrent experience is that of turning over a rock and often finding something. I have looked so often in a book that seems to have nothing to do with Aesop and I have found fables. Here I found a book that had no identification and, daring myself, I looked and found four pages dealing with Aesop. What is the book? I do not know, and there is the frustration. I suspect that it is a book in Czech dealing with an artist named Alesovy Kresby and showing a number of his illustrations, among which are several that he seems to have done for some Aesopic fables in 1886. Until I find a native reader, I will have to offer these hesitant comments. On 105, an ass is carrying a holy image, I believe (Perry 182). On 111, we have Perry 54: a boy asks snails how they can sing when their houses are burning. There are four Aesopic images written into nitials on 116: a snake and a bird around a K, a satyr (Perry 35) in an S, a beetle in an O, and palm trees around a letter I cannot make out. On 125, a lute and a hatchet are crossed. Here is a chance for serious detective work!