I.A. Krylov: Basni

Abstract

We have a less well preserved copy of this book already in the collection but with one other suggestive difference. Where that copy has "57" crudely stamped onto its colophon-page at the end of the book, this copy has "58." Might it be that this stamp is an indication of the year of actual printing? I would not be surprised. Because of that difference, I will keep it in the collection. This copy lacks the portrait of Krylov just before the first fable. As I wrote of the previous copy, this book seems a standard presentation of Krylov's fables, with a rich assortment of A. Laptyev's 1947 illustrations. Might they perhaps have been done for this edition and then used extensively elsewhere? The T of C at the end lists seventy-eight fables on the book's 147 pages. The only illustrations are full-page black-and-white presentations, and I count twenty of them. Most represent well-known fables from either Krylov or La Fontaine, from "Quartet" and "The Monkey and the Spectacles" to WL and "The Elephant and the Cat." The book has an elaborate green cloth cover and spine with golden lettering.