The Children's Book of Virtues

Abstract

Here is the first of two extra copies of this book. As Bennett's introduction notes, this book adds pictures to selected texts from his The Book of Virtues (1993). The ten categories of the former are boiled down to four composite groups here. Six fables appear, all with the same text as in the 1993 book, but all with new proemia: TH (19), The King and His Hawk (44), Hercules and the Wagoner (52), LM (76), BW (100), and The Honest Woodman (101). Again, the latter stops with the woodman getting all three axes. The illustrations are the brightest and most colorful of Hague's work that I have seen; I think that he is at his best when he pictures elves, dragons, and water-fairies.