Fables Original and Selected by the Most Esteemed European and Oriental Authors

Abstract

One of the gems in my collection! 497 fables from some thirty-two fabulists, named with their respective fables in the AI on xxix. Forty-eight magnificent hand-colored plates; the list of full-page illustrations (xxxiv) counts forty-nine, but the presentation plate is uncolored. The versions include prose and verse, revised from their sources for the use of children. LaFontaine is taken chiefly from Matthews (1820), Yriarte from Belfour; all other translations are original. New to me and good: The Schoolboy, the Pedant, and the Gardener (169). The very best plates depict the miser and the treasure (145), the dog with cropped ears (201), the acorn and the gourd (217), the viper and the file (225), the frogs demanding a king (273), and the mountain in labor (297, Aesop). Lindseth lists an edition of this book from Charles Tilt in London in 1839. Notice the adaptation of Grandville's frontispiece to include Aesop, etc. The arrangement in four books seems haphazard. A real treasure for its versions and especially for its plates.