La Fontaine: Fables Complètes

Abstract

Not in Bodemann. This is a stout (6 x 7¾) one-volume edition of La Fontaine's fables. At the beginning of each book of fables, there is a black-and-white illustration, and at the end of each book there is another illustration related to one of the fables. These are well done. Notice, e.g., the good illustration for OR on 27 and the illustration on 29 for Les Deux Taureaux et une Grenouille. Book III opens with another very good illustration of MSA (55). In Book IV, the dogs attack the lion who has given up his claws and teeth (77). There is also a series of signed colored illustrations, one per book. These indulge sometimes in somewhat garish colors. Consider the peach-colored sky for SS facing 36 or the aqua sky for WC facing 68. Perhaps the worst is the overly blue illustration of Le Rat et l'Éléphant facing 220. 'When the colors are somewhat natural, the illustrations work, as in the illustration for La Grenouille et le Rat facing 92. The frontispiece illustrating FC is also well done. For MM facing 172, the proportions simply do not work! I am particularly taken with the illustration for Le Chat et un Vieux Rat on 76: you almost need to connect the dots to perceive the cat in the trough. Another success is the picture of the wolf who wounded himself with an arrow on 236. At the end one finds Philémon et Baucis, an AI, and a simple T of C. Apparently 300 numbered copies were produced, but this is not one of them.