Fábulas: Esopo, Fedro, La Fontaine, Samaniego, Iriarte

Abstract

Here is an earlier edition of a book already in the collection with a 2003 date of printing. Curiously enough, this book with a copyright of 1963, has a sixth edition printing date of 1974 (12,000 copies) and an inscription in 1972! By comparison with our 2003 copy, this copy has a different attribution to Sigma on its cover. The Estrella Collection has one fewer member. The title page is set up a slightly differently though it still acknowledges Sigma and Estrella. This copy lacks the 2003 bar code on the back cover. Internally the books are identical. This copy's spine has been fortified. It has also spent too long in someone's humid basement! As I wrote then, this is a large-format, well bound children's fable book of some 60 pages with a T of C at the back. Each fable gets a page or two. The colored illustrations are simple, even naïve, and engaging. Have I seen them before? I can find nothing by Stévano in what we have. A good sample illustration of Stévano's illustrations is "La Zorra, el Lobo y el Caballo" on 55. I am surprised to find a fable "El Mono y los Pescadores" (14) attributed to Aesop. The monkey does what the fishermen had done, that is, he throws a net. But because he does not know what he is doing, he gets tangled up in it and drowns. I have seldom seen as direct an attack as the peacock makes on the crow in BF (16): he pecks at the crow's head, which is flat against the ground. BW is attributed to Samaniego (23); I think that it is the only fable here attributed to Samaniego. Iriarte, who has several fables here, contrasts the chicken who cries out to announce that she has laid an egg with the frog who croaks all day and night and ought to be quiet a little (28). Well done!