Fables de La Fontaine

Abstract

Here is a small (about 5" x 7") version of 43 fables on 185 pages. One sure source for the illustrations is a G.P. Rouge et Or publication of the same title in a larger format in 1981. Illustrations here are often a segment of a larger illustration there. That edition has only 23 fables. Might the publisher have published another book of Verret's illustrations between these two? I have trouble understanding the illustration spanning 126-27. It is meant to illustrate the text which finishes on 126 about a mouse confronting a rooster and a cat. This illustration shows an energetic man with a whip confronting a cat. Though there was another publication by the same publisher in 1984, I cannot find any of these illustrations there: "La Fontaine: Le Loup devenu Berger et Autres Fables." A curiosity of the present book is that it is copyrighted in 1983 but has a "Dépôt Légal" date of 1987 on its last page. There is a T of C at the back. The cover illustration shows a very red fox looking angrily down into a narrow vase, with two mice in the foreground. As I wrote of the 1981 source, I like this book. Its paintings for kids have an exuberant (sometimes even overexuberant) quality; they are alive with color and action. Cute mice act out comments, e.g., holding their ears near the frog about to explode. Here are fables enjoyed as they should be.