Aesop's Fables with his Life: in English, French, and Latin, Newly Translated

Abstract

Here is one of the foremost treasures of this collection! Barlow did a first edition, to which this book belongs, in 1666. As Hobbs reports, The original edition had been printed in 1666, a year after Ogilby's folio collection, but most copies vanished in the Great Fire of London. Barlow's one hundred and ten vigorous compositions -- which he etched himself -- gave fresh impetus to the ever-persisting influence of Marcus Gheeraerts' genre pictures, which had yielded a whole succession of imitations since their first appearance in 1567. There are actually one hundred and twelve illustrations, including the frontispiece -- Aesop and the animals -- and title-page. The title-page actually dates the book to 1665. After three lives of Aesop -- English, French, and Latin -- each fable has its own program: a French prose version with Le Sens Moral; the half-page illustration including the English verse version; and the Latin prose version with its moral. So many of these illustrations are either memorable or famous or both! I feel as though I have seen half of them elsewhere in various histories in tribute to Barlow. There are some curious features of the book. The consistency of the paper is different on different pages. The illustrations (including the English verse) are clearly imprinted onto the paper in a separate operation from the printing of the prose texts, and the two do not always align well with each other. There are some problems, as could only have been expected in bringing together many different elements. Thus on 99 the illustration is of the ant and fly. It is labeled Ant and Grasshopper. On 143 there is a picture of a man and cat; the title is The Nurse and her Child, already used correctly on 139. Is The Old Lyon (199) a repeat picture? There is a bit lacking on the book's last page; there are some repeated tears (e.g., on 132); and there is some water damage. But what a glorious book! Even more than Gheeraerts, Barlow 'in turning fable illustrations from humorous pantomime or stylized morality plays into often moving domestic drama' (Hodnett 1979) achieved 'a sense of credibility that is the mark of distinguished illustration (Hobbs, 62). Besides Stephen Zabriski, this book has belonged to Charles Butler; Edward Cheney; and John Griffith and Justice Edwards.