Aesop's Fables: New Series: Books for the Bairns.-XXVI
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This is a hard-cover version in better condition than the pamphlet version I have listed under the same title, publisher, author. That listing is under 1899?. Besides the hard covers, this copy has different advertisements on the verso of the inside cover and it adds a page of advertisements between this cover and the title-page. The front of this added page gives a full listing of the eighty Books for the Bairns. The other copy had listed thirty-five books in the series on Page ii of the advertisements at the back. This book has six pages of different advertisements at the back, including the back-inside-cover's two pages. I will repeat some of my comments from that other copy. There are eighty-six fables on 56 pages (65-120), preceded by a T of C. According to the cover, the First Series of Aesop's Fables appeared as No. 1 of Books for the Bairns. I had heard of the series often enough to be very curious, and so I snapped up three of their volumes as soon as I saw them available. Brinsley le Fanu does a good job of conveying enough information in his sketches, two to four per single page. A good example of his use of them to provide three distinct moments in a story might be The Negro; or, You may Kill the Man, but You Cannot Change His Skin (105). An excellent point of presentation lies in the fables' frequent sub-titles beginning with or. Thus the first fable is titled The Pedlar's Ass; or, The Dodger Outdodged. These second titles offer good perspective on the fables. Other good sub-titles include The Lion's Kingdom; or, Only in Peace Have the Weak Any Chance (78); The Fawn and Its Mother; or, The Instinct of Self-Preservation (84); The Old Lion; or, The Coward's Kick (110); and The Fox and the Hedgehog; or, There Is No Trouble So Bad But There May Be a Worse (119). The typesetter worked very hard to make sure that no fable here ran over onto another page. This kind of booklet is really ephemera, and I am delighted to have found another copy. The bookseller gives 1902 as the date for this publication. I can find no indication of date whatsoever.
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