Aesop's Fables
Authors
Aesop
Matsumura, Takeo
Issue Date
1949
Type
Book, Whole
Language
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
This traditional Japanese book features a lion, rabbit, and stag on its Japanese front-cover. Inside it has close to eighty fables, with plenty of lively cartoons to accompany them. Notice, e.g., the fox and goat on the second and fourth pages and the two illustrations for TB on the sixth. These cartoons might almost remind us of images generated from rubber stamps. A favorite of mine is the donkey that would become a lapdog on 21 (Japanese numbering). Another is King Log on 49. I do not think I have ever before seen pictured the story of the man who vowed to give the gods a hundred cattle and then fulfilled the vow with wax images; the god here wears a halo. In the illustration for CW near the end of the book, the woman leaves not her bed but the dinner table. How nice to be able to recognize so many old friends so far from home! The spine is deterioriating on this book.
Description
Citation
Publisher
Dainippon Yuubenkai Kodansha
K¿dansha
K¿dansha