Aesop's Fables. With Instructive Morals and Reflections Abstracted from all Party Considerations, Adapted To All Capacities; and design'd to promote Religion, Morality, and Universal Benevolence

Abstract

I had been working with my York Richardson from Spivey in Kansas City, which I had suspected was a second and maybe even a secondary edition. See my comments there. Now I am delighted to get this book. Some bookseller has written 1761 in pencil on the title-page. Though the date is likely in general, it may come from the fact that Dodsley, listed as the last of the publishers here, published his own fable book in 1761. So far I can find no record of a 1761 printing of this book. Ulrike Bodemann's Katalog Illustrierter Fabelausgaben 1461-1990, Vol. 2, Item 131.2 speaks of an original 1749 publication date with J. Osborne as publisher in London. I think the original publication was rather in 1740. She lists two identical copies of a 1753 second edition: York: T. Wilson and R. Spence (my Spivey copy mentioned above) and London: J.F. & C. Rivington, T. Longman, B. Law, W. Nicol, G.G.J. & J. Robinson, T. Cadell, R. Baldwin, S. Hayes, W. Goldsmith, W. Lowndes, Power & Co. Jon Lindseth's notes do not indicate a 1761 edition but rather editions in 1739/40, 1747?, 1773, and 1776? Lindseth has an edition that he seems to date to 1776, but that publisher's list is different from mine. Common to mine and Lindseth 1776 are five of my eight names: Longman, Hawes, Rivinton (sic), Keith, and Dodsley. Common to mine and Bodemann 1753 are two of my eight names: Rivinton (sic) and Longman. Does this comparison not suggest that my edition belongs between the two dates of 1753 and 1776? In any case, this is a remarkably clean copy for its age. The typos I had found in the York edition are not here, though there is the unusual spelling FEWEL in #212. A page of ten life-vignettes faces the title-page, and the other twenty-four pages of fable-vignettes are intact. In all 192 pages long. I am just delighted to have found this book!