Fables of Aesop and La Fontaine

Abstract

There are thirty fables from Aesop and ten from La Fontaine in this oversized book with cardboard covers. The spine is particularly worn. T of C at the front. Inserted among the text-pages are these full-page colored illustrations: BF (1), The Lion and the Four Bulls (10), DS (17), DW (21), OF (28), The Bruin and the Bees (60), and The Partridge and the Hare (86). The colored illustrations seem to be done with soft-focus pastels. The method may show up best in The Bruin and the Bees (60). Perhaps the best of the thirty or so partial-page black-and-white illustrations shows the woman, knife in hand, with her head buried in her arms on the table next to the dead goose (68). On 49, the city dog chases three mice, even though there are only two in the story. The texts are longish prose. I could not find a source from a random sampling of them. The cover raises the images nicely of the fox, vine, and grapes as well as the print of the title. Inscribed at Christmas, 1921.