Oeuvres de Florian: Les Fables

Abstract

I do not have a complete set of the Grandville illustrations for Florian's 110 poems. In the meantime, the selection here is fine, and the printing is fair. It is nice to encounter illustrations I have already enjoyed elsewhere. I now recognize where some fable-cards got their designs! Florian's fables are divided into the usual five books--three introduced with an engraving--of twenty-two fables apiece. Somehow there seem to be 111 fables here rather than 110. The eighteenth-century tailpieces are small and less detailed than the Grandville illustrations, but nonetheless charming. One of my favorite illustrations and fables this time through has been Le Chien et le Chat (18). A dog tries to return to the house in which he was born and from which he was sold. He is ousted and dragged back to his new home, and an old cat asks Did you think, you poor fool, that people love us for our own sake? A favorite illustration of mine is for The Flying Fish (187). Fables make up the first 188 pages here. There is an AI of fables at the end of this whole book. The book also contains Florian's theatrical and pastoral work, as well as his stories and poems.