La Fontaine: L'Âne et le Roi

Abstract

This is a whimsical book of 80 pages, about 8½ x 10. With colored illustrations of a donkey-king and a vulture (?) on its front cover and of a frog on its back cover, it has two-color art inside. From my understanding of it, it is a play with four acts. Characters of La Fontaine's fables act out their parts in various ways as they encounter La Fontaine and a book of his fables. The beginning characters include a lion, a frog, a country rat, a crow, and others. There is a list of characters opposite the title-page. The three fables that may be most directly replayed here are GA, OF, and MSA. The art inside ranges from smaller images of La Fontaine to full-page illustrations involving several animals, like that picturing the lion, crow, and frog on 12. The best of these may be the full-page parody illustration of MSA on 41. It is great to see people having this much fun with La Fontaine!