Aesop's Fables with Instructive Morals

Abstract

I have changed the date on this edition after getting a copy of a London edition, for which I have guessed a date of 1761. This edition seems to be that which Ulrike Bodemann places as a second edition of 1753, at the same time as an identical edition from London with a long list of publishers. Notice Richardson's attempt, even on the title page, to avoid the factionalism that surrounded l'Estrange and others. He himself finds two English editions worthy of notice: l'Estrange and Croxall. At the end of the preface (xii-xiii), there are lists of fables from l'Estrange not included here, of fables given new morals or reflections, and of fables altered from the l'Estrange version. A life of Aesop and an alphabetical index follow, still before the fables. Morals and Reflections are presented separately from each other, though sometimes two fables are handled together and share both of the above. Missing: 101-4 and the pages of illustrations for #101-110, #131-40, and #161-70. Many of the illustrations are water-colored. They are simple in design and execution. They differ apparently from the illustrations, six to a page, in Lessing's translation of Richardson in 1757. Depictions of lions and of frogs are particularly haphazard (117, 155, 156, 158). There are many new fables for me, and some traditional ones are told differently. The miller throws his ass into the water (#226)! Errata: 89 at top has Aesop's Fbales. 137 (#175) has in its moral my for may. #212 has in its fifth-to-last line feul for fuel. #233 has conside-able. It needs an r. I can report now, in Feb., '97, that these text errors are not in the Huntington copy, for which some hand has guessed 1750 as a date. Its title page lists London: Printed for J. Rivington, R. Baldwin and a list of some thirteen others. One of those thirteen is a J. Dodsley. Bodemann comments aptly that the illustrations are based on those of Barlow.