Fables of Aesop and Others. Newly done into English. With an Application to each Fable. Illustrated with Cutts
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Aesop
Issue Date
1727 , 1727?
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Book, Whole
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Abstract
This book lacks a title page. It was sent to me for analysis by Mercy in Action, to which it had been donated. It also lacks a spine and cover, and has copious writing and doodling, for example, on the early pages. It seems to have been inscribed in 1781. I have compared it with three other editions that I have, including a first edition from 1722. That edition has no date at the end of the preface and has 1722 on its title-page. It measures about 8” x 5”. I also have a third edition from 1731 in very good condition but without a frontispiece. I do not know if it is known whether the 1731 edition when published featured a frontispiece. That 1731 edition includes the 1722 date at the end of the dedication and has 1731 on its title page. That 1731 edition measures, like the present copy, about 6.5” x 4”. I have an eleventh edition from 1778. That edition has a different frontispiece. The publishers have changed. It retains the 1722 date at the end of the dedication and has 1778 on its title-page. The frontispiece here is a redoing of the original larger 1722 frontispiece. In both cases, it shows a statue of Aesop on top of a base declaring “Everything is a story” and quoting the Latin below the whole image: “The Attic Greeks created a huge statue and put a slave onto an eternal foundation.” The fable illustrations in all four of these editions are, as far as I can tell, the original Elisha Kirkall illustrations. The illustrations here are the same size as in both the 1722 and 1731 editions. Bodemann calls the eleventh-edition fable illustrations “Nachschnitte,” but I am not convinced. Perhaps I have missed some clues, but I think the printer in all these later editions had the same blocks that the 1722 printer had. This present copy does not have a date after the dedication. It does not have the same typesetting as either my first edition or my third edition, which are also different from each other. The difference between this copy and my third edition is already clear in the different typesetting of the first page of the dedication, which is the first element after the title-page. Bodemann has the first (1722) edition and then nothing until the eleventh (1778). My guess then is that this copy is a second edition, whenever that was between 1722 and 1731. I have guessed at 1727. The absence of the date after the dedication may suggest a date like this. The frontispiece’s similarity to the first edition’s frontispiece also pushes in the direction, I believe, of that dating. Alternatively, it may be a fourth or later edition, from sometime between 1731 and 1778. The late inscription tends in that direction. In any case it is a lovely, tender book! 196 fables, 357 pages, plus seven pages of Croxall's index of qualities and persons.
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10559 (Access ID)