Fables: Jean de La Fontaine

Abstract

It would be hard to exaggerate the merits of this beautiful book. The fun starts with the cover picture of bookshelves with figurines of two pots, a tortoise and a hare, and a fox and a crow around a pensive La Fontaine wearing a scarf made of a page of his own printed fable text. Each of the thirty artists has contributed four elements: a full-page colored illustration in one of many different styles (the right-hand page in each fable's set of two pages), a matching colored initial letter, a black-and-white design that appears below the text on the left-hand page, and a self-portrait. The latter are collected at the end of the volume. My favorites among the illustrations include FG (8-9), The Lion in Love (16-17), 2P (18-19), The Rat Who Retired from the World (40-41), The Fisherman and the Little Fish (52-3), The Cat, the Weasel, and the Young Rabbit (58-9), and WL by Tony Ross (60-61). T of C at the front. A real treasure!