Cent dix-sept Fables d'Esope enrichies d'autant de figures selon l'édition de M.DCC.LXIII

Abstract

I had found a copy of this book twelve years ago. In keeping with a policy of including even extra copies of numbered, limited edition books, I will include this copy too. I can offer one new piece of information. I just catalogued the following book: Les Fables d'Esope Phrygien avec Celles de Philelphe. Traduction Nouvelle, edited by a Mr. de Bellegarde and published in Copenhagen around 1757. It has the frontispiece proclaimed here as the frontispiece of this mystery edition of 1763. I knew I had seen it somewhere! Let me repeat remarks I made then. This lovely reproduction in exaggerated portrait format (4¾ x 8½) is a mystery to me. It presents very traditional rectangular illustrations, one for each of the 117 fables. They seem to be signed by I Raymond. But I can find no record of an edition like this done in 1763--or, in Bodemann, for one done in 1963 either. I had presumed that the French Book Club was celebrating the three-hundredth anniversary of a famous book, but I can find nothing out about the book! The fables start with a varied ornamental line across the page, a number, a title, and an illustration. After the narration, there is a simple straight line. The illustrations as reproduced here are quite dark. Is that carpenter on 63 missing a portion of his arm?