LaFontaine: Selected Fables

Abstract

This Penguin Classic is slightly smaller and only in paperback, but it otherwise is a direct copy of the 1979 Viking edition, including Michie's translations and J.J. Grandville's illustrations. Grandville's illustrations remain a treasure-house. Unfortunately, the same issues concerning the size of the illustrations and their uneven quality continue here. Grandville does a good job of dressing animals up, and often suggests in the picture the social point. Like its source, this book stops very abruptly after 272; there is an illustration facing 272 with a blank obverse--and then the back cover.