Aesop's Fables
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Authors
Jones, V.S. Vernon
Issue Date
2020
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Abstract
This beautiful book is a re-presentation of the outstanding work of Agnes Miller Parker for the Gregynog Press in 1931. Her 37 wood engravings are here presented beautifully. Among those that I found particularly arresting on this reading are FK (59); "Androcles and the Lion" (81); "The Young Man and the Harlot" (93); "The Horse and the Stag" (123); and OR (139). The opening essay by Samuel Fanous on the character, history, and illustration of fables is accurate and wide-reaching. It is only a shame that he calls the Jesuits "monks" who brought fables to Japan in the sixteenth century. Fanous also explains well the -- to us -- surprising choice of Caxton's translations for Parker's wood engravings. This copy offers those rather of V.S. Vernon Jones and, where Jones does not have a fable illustrated by Parker, of others. The text version chosen for "I am king of the beasts" on 29 with its hunting party of two does not correspond with the image and its party of four. Several fables appear here in a form that seems different from the traditional texts or else combines two traditional texts, like "The Lion, the Wolf, and the Fox" (156) and "The Wolf and the Hungry Dog" (`168). There is an AI at the end.
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Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
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Identifier
12554 (Access ID)