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Aesop's Fables > Books of Fables > Individual Books > 1880 to 1889

• 1880 - 1881
• 1882 - 1883
• 1884 - 1885
• 1886 - 1887
• 1888 - 1889

1880 Aesop's Fables. No editor acknowledged. With Cuts by Carl Van Sichem reproduced from the Original Edition of 1659. Printed in USA. Boston: The Halford Sauce Company. $6 from Gordon Daniels, Stoddard, NH, through Ebay, Oct., '99.

A booklet like this shows one of the main reasons why I work on this collection. Aesop shows up in the strangest places! The preface bills this delightful sixty-four page booklet as "a free translation of the Greek and Latin edition of Aesop's Fables, published at Amsterdam, Holland, in the year 1659, together with Homer's Battle of the Frogs and Mice, embodied in the same volume, and translated by Mr. Pope." The edition pointed to is not listed in Bodemann 1998, but seems to be in the family represented there under #65; it includes editions in 1626, 1649, 1653, and 1672. "Homer's Battle of the Frogs and Mice," in three books including six cuts, is found on 44-64. Pages 5 through 43 are given to a fable each (except for "Mercury and the Woodchoppers," which occupies 42-43), with a single cut and an explicit separate moral for each fable. Thus there is a total of thirty-eight fables. The cover image of Aesop with a ring of animals dancing around him is classic. I cannot find the texts in my text-bank. Several infrequent fables show up here, e.g. "The Fisherman" (5), "The Dog and the Meat-Cook" (12), and "The Sick Raven" (22). The lions' faces are unsuccessful, e.g. on 20 and 21. The advertisement on the inside of the back cover proclaims "Halford Leicestershire Table Sauce. The Most Perfect Relish of the Day. An absolute Remedy for Dyspepsia. Invaluable to all Good Cooks. A Nutritious Combination for Children. Invaluable for Soups, Hashes, Cold Meats, and Entrées." Wow!

1880 Babrii Fabulae Aesopeae. Edidit F.G. Schneidewin. Lipsiae: Sumptibus et Typis B.G. Teubneri. $16.50 by mail from B & B Smith, May, '96.

This Teubner text looks quite straightforward to me, with its total of 146 fables, of which the last nine are fragments. There is an Index Fabularum Lachmannianus on 64-66. What we might expect in an apparatus criticus seems to show up in the praefatio, specifically on viii-xx.

1880 French Fables for Beginners.  F(erdinand) E.A. Gasc.  New Edition.  Hardbound.  London: Foreign Classics:  Whittaker and Co./Bell and Daldy.  £3.99 from World of Rare Books, June, '14.  

1880 Illustrated Fables. By Albert Welles. Hardbound. NY: James Miller. $19 from Richard Steignano, Oneonta, NY, through Ebay, August, '99.

A lovely gold-embossed green cover features several creatures around a lion encircled by "Illustrated Fables." The spine of this book has been reconstructed with duct tape, and the pages are threatening to come loose. Perhaps blank pages have already been lost at the beginning and end. The first page greeting the eye is a pre-title-page saying "Welles' Illustrated Fables." The 249 pages contain forty-one illustrations, of which there is a list on v. A wide ranging proem claims that "Knowledge obtained from Fables is to the mind what agreeable exercise is to the body" and, referring to Jesus, that "the parables are all fables." These verse fables are frequently from Aesop, but there are also plenty that are new, at least to me, starting with the first, in which the hungry fox disguises himself as a fortune-teller and offers stupid geese a chance to go off and see the world with his help. Illustrations seem to come from either J.E. Ridinger (who is perhaps just an engraver?) and Ernest Griset. The former tends to illustrate the new fables, e.g. "The Unhappy Marriage" (20), "The Animals on a Spree" (25), and "The Elephant and the Foxes" (84). Not all here is fable; note, e.g., the invocation to God on 24 and the dirge on 64. Reading the first hundred pages of these fables has me thinking that they quickly become tedious and preachy and, when they seem new, actually revert to standard fable themes. Thus the marten kills the boasting peacock (32), the other birds reject the falcon's finery when they learn that he belongs to a master (46), the wolf pursuing a hare is caught by a trap and pleads that the hare has been unfair to him (51), the wolf who has taken the hare back to his lair intending to kill him dies first while lying outside his lair among snakes (75), and the stingy squirrel saves up a vast treasure of nuts to entrust to her son but he just squanders them prodigally (98).

1880 Memorial Sketches of Rev. George B. Atwell. Hardbound. Hartford, CT: Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company. $15 from Peter L. Masi Books, Montague, MA, through abe, August, '03. 

The Rev. George B. Atwell was a Baptist minister in Connecticut until his death in 1879. There is a frontispiece of him at the age of 85. His serious look sets him a long way from Aesop playing with kids in the street! This book is composed of fifteen chapters written by his children as biographical sketches of periods of his life. During his pastoral duty, he wrote a series of original fables, a few of which were published. He meant to title the collection "Pearls for the Poor, Contained in Proverbs and Parables, in Which Fact Is Drawn from Fable." (In fact, "Pearls for the Poor" still is at the bottom of the cover of this book.) Chapter X, "Pearls," offers a good selection of these fables (89-126). Some of the fable subjects include the wrangling of vowels and consonants (90), an argument between the sword and the plough (94), the refusal to share of a man who has stood on another's shoulders to get grapes (95), and an argument between snow and ice (98). The latter takes a good turn when the sun dissolves both, and they find themselves becoming one. There is something humorous about "The Short Man and Long Shadow" (93). A man sensitive about his height notices at dawn that he now casts a long shadow. Wondering whether the shadow reflects reality, he decides to wait until sunset to check again whether his shadow has become long. Atwell enjoys punning, as when the river tells the fire that he has two banks, from which the fire will receive a "check" for all that is demanded of him. A turn of the screw worthy of the fable tradition occurs when a hen being sued for custody of her children has a fox as a lawyer, who pleads brilliantly and then demands the children as his fee (109). Atwell likes to pun and play with letters and sounds as when "U" and "I" square off in "Woman's Rights" (116).

1880 (Das Zweite) Milwaukeer Lesebuch. Nebst praktischen Sprach- und Uebersetzungs-Uebungen. Verfasst vom Verein deutscher Lehrer der öffentlichen Schulen von Milwaukee. Das Redaktions-Komite: Paul Binner, Josef Baldauf, Bernard Abrams. Neue Auflage. Milwaukee: Druck und Verlag von Georg Brumder. $8 from Sheryl Ellis, Mukwanago Maxwell Street Days, June, '93.

Here is an unlikely find. This is a revised edition of a reader for students in the third through fifth years of school in Milwaukee. In the introduction, the editors tell us that they did the work on this book for free! There are three parts, with vocabulary at the end of each part (e.g., 91-2). The first part includes seven fables, including a version of "The Bear and the Settler" which has the bear throwing a stone at the fly and thus killing both the settler and the fly (7). Their version of "Wolf and Sheep" (10) is new to me: a naive sheep makes friends with the wolf, who turns on him the next morning. Part II has a fable and a riddle in its fifty specimens. Viel Spaß!

1880 The Book of Fables: Containing Aesop's Fables. Complete, with text based upon Croxall, La Fontaine and L'Estrange. With copious additions from other modern authors. Profusely illustrated by Ernest Griset. NY: American Book Exchange. $18.75 from Stage House II, Boulder, March, '94. Extra copy in fair condition without frontispiece for $9.50 from Louenna Avery, Fair Haven, VT, through Ebay, October, '00.

The plates are identical with those in the "Arlington Edition" by Hurst which I have listed under "1899?," but the pages are thinner and the reproduction of Griset's work is excellent. The "Finis" page here occurs by mistake between 242 and 243. There is a slip-sheet between the frontispiece and the title page. After 140 pages of Aesop, there are 132 "Later Fables" in the last hundred pages of the book. There is a list of illustrations on vii-viii, and an AI on 245-9.  Since the second copy has a different color cover, I will keep it in the collection.

1880 The Elementary Spelling Book. Noah Webster. Hardbound. NY: American Book Company. $25 from Karey Giguere, Potrero, CA, Jan., '12 .

Twenty years ago I found two copies of this book in its 1908 printing. Now at last I have arrived back at the 1880 original. But "original" may be misleading. The verso of the title-page here refers to two previous copyrights, 1857 and 1867. Perhaps it is in relation to them that this is the "revised edition." Seven nicely told fables, each with an illustration, on 140-5. The approach is strongly moralistic. The best are MM, "The Cat and the Rat," and TB. The others are all less well known: "The Boy Stealing Apples," "The Two Dogs," "The Partial Judge," and "The Fox and the Bramble."

1880 The Fourth Reader for the Use of Schools. M.A. Newell. No illustrator acknowledged. Baltimore: John B. Piet. $4 at The Book House, Williamsburg, Spring, '86.

Includes four fables: "The Dog and the Manger," "Hercules and the Carter," GA, and DS. Remarkably clear engravings. A good example of the use of Aesop in earlier American education.

1880 The Modest Raindrop and Other Fables For Old and Young Translated from the Persian.  H.G. Keene; A New Edition edited by his daughter Katherine Keene.  Illustrations by Samuel Fry.  Hardbound.  London: David Bogue.  £15 from Rooke Books, Bath, UK, Nov., '18.

1880 The Picture Preacher. A Book of Morals, comprising Esop's Fables with Additions from Modern Fabulists; Also, The Ways of Man in the Social Relations of Common Life; with Bible References, Pictorial and other Illustrations. John Warner Barber. New Haven: Henry Howe. $75 at Argosy, NY, Jan., '90.

One of the strangest and most fascinating books I have, representative of nineteenth-century use of the fable. "The object in these pages is to convey moral and religious instruction to the mind in a forcible manner, in accordance with the great principles of Christianity" (34). About one-fourth of the lessons build around ninety-one fables, listed alphabetically on 8. The 114 illustrations and their proverbs are listed on 10. The engravings are two-thirds on boxwood and one-third on metal. Barber admits his dependence on Croxall, especially for "applications." Differently told: "The Cat and the Monkey" (100) and "The Master and the Corks" (399). Typical illustrations: lying and stealing (226), litigious cats (244), dog invited to supper (426), and FK (445). The book is severely broken at 269 and partially broken at 168 and 240.

1880 World-Wide Fables. Aunt Louisa Series. No editor or illustrator acknowledged. NY: McLoughlin Brothers Publishers. $20 at The Bookworks, Chicago, Sept., '90.

A favorite. The miller and his son shoulder the ass. Six pages of square colored pictures; some colors miss slightly. The verse text (British?) is sometimes at odds with the (American) illustrations, as when the mice come to Lincoln's Inn, but the picture's sign points to New York! "Mrs." Stork wears pants! Seven fables: LM, TMCM, "The Magic Casket," "The Father's Legacy," FS (best prints), "The Lark and Her Young," and "The Old Man and the Ass." The mice smoke at dinner, work with a knife and fork, and face all the intruders at once. Originally $.25. My favorite private collector dates the booklet to 1880.

1880/82 De Nieuwe Aesopus. Groot Fabelboek voor Jong en Oud. Voor Nederland bewerkt door M. Leopold. Met Honderd Zestig Platen (not acknowledged as from Ernst Griset). Groningen: Wolters. The title page is dated 1880, but the "Voorbericht" 1882. $32 from Kok, Amsterdam, Dec., '88.

Beautiful and copious Griset work, though some turns out dark even in so careful an edition. There seem to be three different kinds of Griset engravings. The fables come from various authors. Curiosities include eyeglasses, telescopes, and a thief and dog from Greenland. The best illustrations are of two frogs, a wolf and a stork, and FC.

1880/1908 The Elementary Spelling Book. Being an Improvement on the American Spelling Book. By Noah Webster. Inscribed 1912. NY: American Book Company. $.12 at Georgetown library sale, Oct., '91. Extra copy for $10 at Academy Book Store, NY, Jan., '90.

Seven nicely told fables, each with an illustration, on 140-5. The approach is strongly moralistic. The best are MM, "The Cat and the Rat," and TB. The others are all less well known: "The Boy Stealing Apples," "Two Dogs," "The Partial Judge," and "The Fox and the Bramble." The Academy Book Store copy is in such good condition that it is hard to believe that it was published in 1908.

1880? A Selection of Aesop's Fables Versified and Set to Music with Symphonies and Accompaniments for the Piano Forte. Hardbound. London: Davidson, Peter's Hill, Doctor's Commons. £17.56 from Geoff Lammas, Chicester, W. Sussex, UK, through eBay, Oct., '06.

Rebound in blue cloth boards, this copy is 8¼" x 10¼". The original front and rear covers are present inside the added outer covers. The original front cover contains some lovely work "designed by A. Butler." This work consists of seven Victorian vignettes arranged around the title at the page's center. As the beginning T of C shows, there are 28 fables on 112 pages. All the edges of the original book are gilt. There is a small tear at the bottom of the front cover. The texts are, as might be expected for musical texts, strong on rhyme and repetition. I have long wondered if there were not some substantial collections of musical fable texts. This book gives a good answer to that question. My best guess is that D. Williams is the lithographer who printed the book. I do not know what to make of this publisher: "Davidson, Peter's Hill, Doctor's Commons."

1880? Aesop's Fables: A New Version, Chiefly from Original Sources. Rev. Thomas James. With more than Fifty Illustrations designed by John Tenniel. Philadelphia: Porter & Coates. See 1848/80?

1880? Aesop's Fables: A New Version, Chiefly from Original Sources. By Thomas James. With more than Fifty Illustrations Designed by John Tenniel. Hardbound. Philadelphia: Porter and Coates. See "1848/80?"

1880? Aesop's Fables: A New Version, Chiefly from Original Sources. Rev. Thomas James. With more than Fifty Illustrations designed by John Tenniel. On cover: "Alta Edition." Philadelphia: Porter & Coates. See 1848/80?

1880? Aesop's Fables, Chiefly from Original Sources. Rev. Thomas James. With More Than One Hundred Illustrations Designed by John Tenniel. Hardbound. NY: Knickerbocker Nuggets: The Knickerbocker Press: G.P. Putnam's Sons. See 1848/80?

1880? Aesop's Fables for Little Readers. Told by Mrs. Arthur (Olive) Brookfield. Pictured by Henry J. Ford. Hardbound. London: T. Fisher Unwin. £18 from Abbey Antiquarian Books, June, '98.

Fifty-six fables are numbered here in a book with a weak spine. Ford does sepia throughout, starting with a frontispiece of "The Old Tree and the Gardener" and a sepia title-page: is that Aesop telling children stories about all the creatures ranged around them? There are three other full-page illustrations (one a repeat of the frontispiece on 31) and numerous smaller vignettes. "I have found, then, that even the simplest editions which are published are too difficult for my own little children to understand…." So Olive Brookfield founds her enterprise in the introduction (9). T of C at the beginning. Polysyllabic words are hyphenated. There is generally one fable to a page; in fact the printer's various spacing to accomplish that uniformity becomes distracting. The moral to "The One-Eyed Doe" is that God "alone, in His own way, can guard us from every kind of harm" (22). The moral of "The Two Frogs" is that we should think well and pray well before we take any great step in life (27). The best illustration of the book for me is the second illustration for "The Hermit and the Bear," for it shows a hermit with a terribly bent nose, which the bear broke according to this version (33). There is not only no death in this version, but there is also no rock. WC has a set of three illustrations on 41, repeated from the cover, where they are done in color. "The Snipe and the Partridges" (46) is new to me; the point is that you can shoot at only one object at a time. The printer and engraver work well together on TB (51). The calf mocking the ox on 57 is soon led away not to be sacrificed but to be butchered. The moral to "The Bear and the Honey" (59) may be very instructive. It starts with "Honesty is the best policy." I would not have said that this fable is at all about honesty. The moral next gives perfectly good advice: when you want something, think first if you have a right to it and next whether your taking it will give pain to others. Then comes another surprise: "If you only think of yourself, it will often end in your looking very foolish." Oh? Is this fable at all about looking foolish? And is that motivation not quite different from considerations of right and pain to others? Is there a fable in the tradition on an eclipse of the moon (67)?

1880? Aesop's Fables for Little Readers. Told by Mrs. Arthur (Olive) Brookfield. Pictured by Henry J. Ford. Hardbound. Second Edition. London: T. Fisher Unwin. £16 from Ray Hennessey Bookseller, Crowborough, East Sussex, through Bibliofind, Sept., '98.

See my comments on the original edition. There seems to be no indication in this book of when this second edition appeared, but then even the first edition was undated! Here are the differences I note from the first edition. The pages are smaller in both height and width. The cover is red. The back cover now features my favorite Ford design of the hermit with the broken nose. Along with it is what I take to be Ford's sign. Finally, this edition lists a printer on the bottom of 71.

1880? Aesop's Fables for Little Readers.  Told by Mrs. Arthur (Olive) Brookfield.  Pictured by Henry J. Ford.  Second Edition.  Hardbound.  London: T. Fisher Unwin.  $52.92 from Attic Books, Cheltenham, UK, through ABE, March, '15.

1880? (Die Fabeln von Jean de la Fontaine). Grandville. Hardbound. Gift of Friedrich von Fuchs, Sept., '97.

This is a strange and dear book. It consists of what is left of an edition of fables using Grandville's illustrations. In fact, the printer's designs around the fable numbers remind me of those in the first three editions of Grandville's La Fontaine. Unfortunately, the one I checked for WL is not identical with any of the three different printer's designs for that fable in those early Grandville editions. The book has a number of repaired pages. These repairs account for at least some of the non-paginated pages. That is, the reconstructor took a whole new page and backed what was left of an illustration page. The title-pages and first five fables are missing. At least some other pages are missing. The last fable here is "Fabel 91," but it seems impossible to know if the book originally contained more fables. It is not even certain to me that these are all La Fontaine's fables. The verse texts are not those of Theodor Etzel. The book shows some possible identification with Bodemann #288.5 from Georg Wigand in Leipzig in 1837, but some details of the signatures of the lithography seem not to agree. A search through Bodemann has not yielded any other candidates.

1880? Fabelbuch für die Jugend.  Gesammelt und bearbeitet von Julius Hoffmann.  Mit 8 Bildern in Farbendruck nach Aquarellen von C(arl) Offterdinger und F(riedrich) Specht.  Dritte Auflage.  Hardbound.  Stuttgart: Julius Hoffmann.  €90 from Franziska Bierl Antiquariat, Munich, July, '19.

1880? Fables de Florian.  Illustrations by Lacaille and Fernand-Auguste Besnier.  First printing.  Hardbound.  Paris: Librairie Théodore Lefèvre et Cie.  €125 from Peter Everaers, Hulst, Netherlands, Dec., '21.

1880? Fables de La Fontaine: Édition Illustrée.  J. David, T. Johannot, V. Adam, F. Grenier et Schaal.  Hardbound.  Printed in Paris.  Paris: Henri Plon; Morizot.  Can$150 from MacLeod's Books, Vancouver, B.C., June, '03.  

This book represents a lovely find.  I feared, as so often, that I was probably purchasing something that I already had.  As so often, I was wrong on that.  The book is in the tradition of my two volume set of La Fontaine from 1839 illustrated by J. David.  It belongs in the family represented by #287 in Bodemann.  It is closest in bibliographical terms to #287.4, but it lacks Walckenaer's historical notice.  Bodemann dates that edition to about 1846.  This edition of mine may thus be earlier than my guess of 1880.  It has an inscription of 1905 by V(oltelin) Heath in Paris, and was sold by Feret & Fils in Bordeaux.  This book has moved around!  It has the smell of a book that has been with other old books for a while.  It features a small (2" x 3") illustration at the beginning of each book, typically signed by J. David.  It also has twelve full-page engravings inserted on heavier stock, typically etched by Thompson and signed by one of the five artists mentioned on the title-page: David, Johannot, Adam, Grenier, or Schaal.  These are particularly well done here.  At least three of these seem to be repeaters from the work in my 1839 edition: "Wolf, Mother, and Child" (120); "Old Woman and Two Servants" (137); and TH (163).  The other full-page illustrations are GA (frontispiece); "Thieves and Ass" (38); FS (44); MSA (77); "La Fille" (187); "Horoscope" (236); "Wolf and Hunter" (255); "Oyster and Litigants" (274); and "Crow, Gazelle, Turtle, and Rat" (372).

1880? Fables de La Fontaine. 268 Illustrations de J.-B. Oudry. Hardbound. Édition Artistique Illustrée. Paris: J. Tallandier. $93.66 from Mark Steinberg, New London, CT, through Ebay, Sept., '00. Extra copy with bumped edges for $35 from Logic and Literature, Washington, D.C., Oct., '90.

A good comprehensive edition of Oudry, though the printing is not as good as in the Thornbury edition (1875?), where one hundred of Oudry's illustrations appear. This book lacks the introductory and appendix material. T of C at the end. The "classic" settings tend to overpower the narrative in Oudry's work. Often a viewer has to work to find the fable in the midst of it all. The fable itself is sometimes energetic, violent, or funny in peaceful surroundings. I find no reference to this work in either Bodemann or Bassy. In the good copy the first few pages are shaken. The good copy is inscribed in 1915.

1880? Hundert Fabeln mit hundert Bildern von Grandville.  Hardbound.  Berlin: Verlag von Carl J. Klemann.  €115.20 from Versandantiquariat Liber Antiqua through ZVAB, March, '15.

1880? Le La Fontaine en Action. Premiere Partie. Grand Exemples Historiques de Courage, de Vertu, de Dévouement et de Sagesse Développant la Morale pratique des Fables de la Fontaine. Par C. Hygin-Furcy. Hardbound. Paris: Librairie Classique et d'Éducation, Ve Maire-Nyon, A Pigoreau, Successeur. 50 Francs from Seine Bookstand, Paris, August, '99.

Here is a great resource for beleaguered teachers of La Fontaine's fables. For every fable in the first six books there is here an historical example of the fable carried out. The range of available material seems broad, covering classical and French history. The examples seem seldom to be longer than a page or two per fable, and there seems to be just one example per fable. Of course I suspect that there is a second part out there somewhere covering the last six books. Who knows when I will come across it?!

1880? Little Fables for Little Folks. With Coloured Illustrations. Hardbound. Cassell's Eighteenpenny Series. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin. $16 from Jacque Mongelli, Warwick, NY, through Bibliofind, Dec., '98.

Here are twenty-eight original fables giving lessons to make children dutiful. Thus the first fable's wandering chick learns, by narrow escapes from danger, to obey his mother. Later on, overhearing a conversation between gnats and a moth should stop children from being irritable and cross and especially--heaven forbid!--gaining a character for being disagreeable (108). The fables are heavy-handed. This book is unusual in including four colored illustrations: frontispiece, 16, 69, and 105. There are ten pages of advertising at the back, including the advertisement for Cassell's Eighteenpenny Series, to which this little book belongs. The spine is cracked and separating.

1880? Old Friends and New Friends: Tales, Fables, and Emblems, in Prose and Verse. By H.W. Dulcken. Pictures Drawn by Watson, Dalziel, Gilbert, Zwecker, Weir, Browne, Houghton, Pasquier, and Bayes; Engraved by the Brothers Dalziel. Hardbound. London: Frederick Warne and Co.; NY: Scribner, Welford, and Armstrong. $42 from Roy Sheffield, Roosterbooks, Northampton, March, '04. 

Here is a fat little book, 6" x 7¼". The body of the book starts off well with a full version of MSA, including six strong illustrations, the last of them a full page in size. Other stories along the way include MM, "The Man and the Snake," "The Valorous Hare," "The Wolf and the Shepherd," BS, BW, GGE, "The Boy and the Nettle," and "The Boy and the Filberts." Those fables and other stories that appear here may have been chosen principally for their propensity to point focused morals. There are four strong images for "The Animals in Council" (57). The images tend overall to be strong and dramatic. This tends to be a pious book; notice the prayers on 307 and 309. The spine is starting to give way. This book has the smell of having been in a musty place.

1880? One by One: A Child's Book of Tales and Fables, With Fifty Illustrations. By H.W. Dulcken. Hardbound. London/NY: George Routledge and Sons. $15 from Joe's List, Hudson, NY, through Bibliofind, Dec., '98.

Here are fifty-four stories including some of the most didactic and saccharine I have seen in a while! These stories are well calculated to make little children into obedient little parent-lovers with all the other virtues. I have read the first ten and find them strong on conscience and obedience. The first story gives a clue. Lina's bird dies and she cries hard--and even harder when mother buys her a new bird. Lina ate the sugar meant for the bird. Mother does not smile, for she reverences the "holy voice of conscience in the heart of the child" (2). Then mother says "Ah, such must be the feelings of an ungrateful child at the grave of its parents." Take that, all you ungrateful children! I found one story in the ten that belongs in a good fable collection. "The Falcon and the Hen" is a typical fable-argument (16). The falcon chides the hen for running away every time humans come near. The hen answers that the falcon has never seen a falcon on a roasting-spit, whereas the hen has seen fowls cooked with every kind of sauce. A straight telling of DW is on 110, and a good version of "The Unjust Judge" on 111. The book includes a straight version of "Aesop Playing" (68) and a story, new to me, of Aesop beaten and thrust out into the desert (113). Expected to take his life, he tells instead the story of "Death and the Woodcutter." The story carries on praising Aesop's contentment even through the death process in Delphi. There may be more good material here; I just cannot bear to search it out! The illustrations are as sentimental as most of the texts. This book has beautiful gold-embossed red covers. Its spine is deteriorating.

1880? One by One: A Child's Book of Tales and Fables, With Fifty Illustrations.  By H.W. Dulcken.  Hardbound.  London/NY: George Routledge and Sons.  $20 from an unknown source, March, '15.

1880? Our Picture Book. Paperbound. Oswego, NY: T. Kingsford & Son. $21.99 from Resource Books, East Granby, CT, through abe, June, '12.

"Compliments of T. Kingsford & Son to the Little Folks of America." As the bookseller wrote, this booklet was an advertising giveaway of Kingsford's Corn Starch "including entertainments for children, such as shadow puppetry and Longfellow's poem, 'The Children's Hour,' among a few black-and-white illustrated fables." Unfortunately, there are really no fables here. Still, the first piece in the booklet is close enough. Titled "Tables Turned," it follows Johnny through several incidents, in each of which he learns that the person beating another will soon learn how painful it is to be beaten. Each of these incidents follows a familiar fable pattern. The most touching piece in the booklet has a mother and daughter chatting about "loving back," as a doll cannot. At the end the mother whispers "We love Him because He first loved us." In the center of this touching story is a pair of illustrations of the young Black William Augustus. In the first, perched on stacked Kingsford cases, "William Augustus finds the watermelon." The second shows him in the midst of a mess on the floor: "And Aunt Chloe finds William Augustus." Including the covers, this fragile full-sized pamphlet is twenty pages long.

1880? Phädrus Aesopische Fabeln. Bändchen 1, Abthlg. B, Buch 1, 2. Uebersetzt von Dr. H.J. Kerler. Paperbound. Stuttgart: Römische Dicht. 24B: Metzlersche Buchhandlung. DM 2 from Antiquariat Friedrich Welz, Heidelberg, August, '01.

This poor little (about 4" x 5¼") pamphlet has suffered. Perhaps some pages are missing, since it starts abruptly in the midst of a sentence of the introduction on 81. However, it finishes on 112 with a translation of the last fable in Phaedrus, Book II, and so there is nothing evidently missing at the end. The translations of Phaedrus are done in verse lines. Is that simply for ease in comparison with the original, or are these really verses? Perhaps the most impressive things about this little booklet are two: first, it still exists! Secondly, the list of available translations of classical authors, found on the inside front cover and both sides of the back cover, is impressive.

1880? The Fables of Aesop. S[amuel]. Croxall. No illustrator acknowledged. J.B.L. and Co. $2.50 at Constant Reader, May, '89.

This is a curious little book without title-page. It contains Croxall's dedication, preface, and usual AI in addition to all the fables with their longish applications, but it lacks the index to the morals at the end. The book includes one colored frontispiece and six black-and-white full-page engravings, apparently etched by a J.M. Corner. The illustrations are all in a pattern that might best be described as an archway door. They are DS (23); FC (26, a curious black-and-white repetition of the colored frontispiece; it lacks the etcher's signature); GGE (78); "Mercury and the Woodman" (130, now separated); TH (178); and "The Goat and the Vine" (190). This edition retains "Britain" in the preface. It has the modern "s" and has taken away Croxall's frequent capital letters for nouns. The 196 fables finish on 216. One learns only from the spine that the publisher is "J.B.L. & Co."

1880? The Fables of Jean de La Fontaine. Translated into English Verse by Walter Thornbury. To which is added an essay on his life and works; also, the life of Aesop, the Phrygian. Profusely illustrated by Gustave Doré. Amies Standard Art Edition. Philadelphia: William T. Amies. $40 at Lloyd Books in DC, Feb., '89.

Great cover and binding decoration! 240 fables, without book divisions. Not the original Thornbury edition of 1868, published by Cassell. The illustrations are good but not as good as in the Ten Kate version from Holland (1870?). The best are the full-sized dark illustrations, e.g., of the two rats (21), the wolves and sheep (119), the little fish (215), and the doctors (261). Page 665 repeats page 193 upside down! Now, eight years later, the spine is weakening.

1880? The Fables of Jean de La Fontaine. Translated into English Verse by Walter Thornbury. To which is added an essay on his life and works; also, the life of Aesop, the Phrygian. Profusely illustrated by Gustave Doré. The Art Edition. NY: Hurst & Co. $10 from Strand, NY, April, '97.

This book is so inexpensive because it is in very poor condition. Its spine is particularly torn and shrivelled. It also has some torn (and uncut?) last pages. If one compares this book with both "The Standard Amies Art Edition" which I list adjacently and the 1886 edition from Pictorial, one starts to notice things. First of all, the essay on LaFontaine and the life of Aesop promised by the title-page, along with the preface found in the other two editions and the last 176 pages and their fifty-two fables, are not here! Even the first illustration (of GA) is missing. As far as I can tell, these things did not fall out; they were never part of the book! Talk about a hack job of taking over someone else's plates and using them! It may be some evidence of the switch that the spine imprint spreads too far around this thin book. Someone even removed the "Gustave" from Doré's name because there would not be enough room for it on this narrowed spine. If the pages had been printed and had fallen out, I do not think we would find an unprinted reverse of the last page (557), whose reverse is printed—with the start of Fable 189—in the other two editions. This edition has all silver, rather than some silver and some gold, for its last phase on the cover. Am I deceived, or is the imprinting of the basic cover pattern also much shallower? My, the things one finds in the history of publication!

1880? The Little Fable Book. Hardbound. Printed in Edinburgh. Gift of Shirley Perry, May, '00.

This little (3½" x 5¼") book has lost its title-page. The first thing one finds upon opening the book is a T of C (iii), which lists forty-four traditional fables. The title does show up on the cover, at the head of the fables, and as a header on every page. I checked the first three fables, and they are verbatim from Croxall, including the long application. The application is not labeled or separated by anything other than a paragraph break. This booklet was included by Shirley Perry when she sent me some platters showing fable scenes. I am delighted to give it a home here. Little ephemera like this otherwise get lost so easily!

1880? Three Hundred Aesop's Fables. Literally Translated from the Greek by the Rev. Geo. Fyler Townsend, M.A.. With One Hundred and Fourteen Illustrations Designed by Harrison Weir. Hardbound. NY: McLoughlin Brothers, Publishers. $24 from Clare Leeper, June, '96.

This tight, well-executed book uses the same text and the same engravings that appear in Routledge editions of 1867 and "1885?" Let me note the differences and repeat some good comments from those editions. Greenaway is no longer mentioned on the title-page as engraver.  This edition uses the first two pages of the preface and drops the other nineteen pages. The life of Aesop drops the Greek and Latin sections and cuts the text from four pages to two. The list of illustrations does not appear here. The AI at the back of those editions appears at the front of this edition. The text is newly typeset. The paper is better here. I note little or no foxing. The engravings are slightly less defined. One finds Weir's name less clearly imprinted in the illustrations, for example. Weir so often appears in cheap editions whose illustrations are indistinct! Among the most memorable illustrations here are LM (11), WL (13), WC (15), TH (19), "The Seagull and the Kite" (119), and "The Ass and His Driver" (209). There is a set of illustrations that I find sketchier and almost ethereal. They would include "The Labourer and the Snake" (43) and "The Blind Man and the Whelp" (177). This is one of many excellent contributions from the Leeper Collection.

1881 Aesop's Fables.  With Cuts by Carl Van Sichem reproduced from the Original Edition of 1659.  Pamphlet.  Boston: The Halford Sauce Company.  $10 from ebaugh77, through Ebay, Feb., '20.

1881 Aesop's Fables: A New Version, Chiefly from Original Sources, With Fifty Illustrations. By Rev. Thomas James. Illustrations after John Tenniel and Joseph Wolf? Paperbound magazine. Farm and Fireside Library #8, July 15, 1881. NY: The American News Company/Springfield, OH: Farm and Fireside Company. $6.50 from Barbara Poland, Romney, WV, through Ebay, Sept., '01.

Here is a very lucky find. This 94-page booklet includes perhaps two hundred fables on 9-93 after the typical James "Introduction to the Life and Fables of Aesop" and before a page of advertisements that continue on the inside and outside back-cover. The fifty illustrations would make for a fascinating study. I believe that they are derived from the reworking John Tenniel and Joseph Wolf did of Tenniel's original work. Take a sample image like that for "The Boasting Traveler" on 65. It is clearly fashioned after the work that appeared in those Tenniel/Wolf editions, but it is copied. And it bears a stamp, as do many here: "Commercial Eng. Co. Chicago." I am amazed that the publisher could pack in so many fables and illustrations in a little magazine--and happy that it has lasted this long. This booklet suggests something both about the popularity of fables and about the "delivery system" for them in the late nineteenth century. The front cover has become detached.

1881 Aesop's Fables: A New Version, Chiefly from Original Sources, With Fifty Illustrations.  By Rev. Thomas James.  After John Tenniel and Joseph Wolf?  Paperbound.  NY/Springfield, OH: Farm and Fireside Library #8, July 15, 1881:  NY: The American News Company/Springfield, OH: Farm and Fireside Company.  $13.99 from Kory Nelson, through Ebay, Oct., '13.  

1881 Florian: Fables, Précédées d'une Étude sur la Fable, Suivies de Tobie et de Ruth et Accompagnées de Notes. Par É. Geruzez. Various artists. Hardbound. Paris: Nouvelle Collection de Classiques: Librairie Hachette et Cie. $5 from The Book Cellar, Bethesda, MD, March, '96.

I am surprised to learn that this handy little volume is my first Hachette copy of Florian. The five books of fables seem to be all there on this book's 140 pages, with an AI at the back and a few simple designs along the way.

1881 New and Old: For Seed-time and Harvest.  Edited by Rev. Charles Gutch.  First edition.  Hardbound.  London: J.T. Hayes.  $45 from Thomas J. Joyce And Company, Chicago, Dec., '21.

1881 Phaedri Augusti Liberti Fabulae Aesopiae. Recognovit et praefatus est Lucianus Mueller. Hardbound. Leipzig: Teubner. $11.05 from Don Nash, Plymouth, MA, through eBay, August, '05. 

This book seems to reproduce the one which I have listed under 1876, right down to the page count. I will repeat my comments from there. This is one of the many printings under Number 620 in Carnes' Phaedrus bibliography. Here is Carnes' description: "One of the most successful editions of Phaedrus, a school edition, by Müller (1836-1898), with a short introduction `De Phaedri vita et scriptis' in three parts: an introduction to Phaedrus, recognition of his debt to the Dressler edition, together with an overview of Phaedrus' metrics. The third part deals with textual questions and emendations, especially where they differ from Dressler. Grammatical notes and glosses, a much reduced text as compared to Müller's critical edition (Müller 1877)." I emphasize that there are no comments or elucidations after or beneath the text. It is indeed much reduced when compared with his important Teubner text of 1877. xiv + 66 pages.

1881 The Fables of La Fontaine. Volume I, Part I of a four-book set. Translated from the French by Elizur Wright. With Notes by J.W.M. Gibbs. The Exquisite Series. Edition Jouaust. Illustrated with etchings by Le Rat (about three or four per volume); also (unacknowledged on title page) at least one smaller etching per fable by Vivier. Gilt edged. Leather bound. Boston: Estes and Lauriat. $6.25 at Goodspeed's, March, '89.

This first of the four books has a separated front cover. There is an excellent introduction to Wright and an account of his editions, including the five fables he wrote to be included in the place of expurgated material in the sixth edition (1843). The order of pictures 38, 40, 39, 41 is changed. The Vivier engravings are numbered and well protected; the best of them here are of the lion, gnat, and spider (#35) and of the lion and ass hunting (#45).

1881 The Fables of La Fontaine. Volume I, Part II of a four-book set. Translated from the French by Elizur Wright. With Notes by J.W.M. Gibbs. The Exquisite Series. Edition Jouaust. Illustrated with etchings by Le Rat (about three or four per volume); also (unacknowledged on title page) at least one smaller etching per fable by Vivier. Gilt edged. Leather bound. Boston: Estes and Lauriat. $6.25 at Goodspeed's, March, '89.

No title page for this second half of Volume I. Plates 71/70 and 135/134 are out of order. The best illustrations here are of the frog and rat (#84) and of the sick lion and the fox (#131). Vivier's animal anatomy sometimes suffers. Notes and AI to all of Volume I.

1881 The Fables of La Fontaine. Volume II, Part I of a four-book set. Translated from the French by Elizur Wright. With Notes by J.W.M. Gibbs. The Exquisite Series. Edition Jouaust. Illustrated with etchings by Le Rat (about three or four per volume); also (unacknowledged on title page) at least one smaller etching per fable by Vivier. Gilt edged. Leather bound. Boston: Estes and Lauriat. $6.25 at Goodspeed's, March, '89.

Plates 187/186; 197/196/195; and 204/203 are out of order. The best illustrations here are of MM (#148), two cocks (#151), the animal in the moon (#156), and the bear and the gardener (#166).

1881 The Fables of La Fontaine. Volume II, Part II of a four-book set. Translated from the French by Elizur Wright. With Notes by J.W.M. Gibbs. The Exquisite Series. Edition Jouaust. Illustrated with etchings by Le Rat (about three or four per volume); also (unacknowledged on title page) at least one smaller etching per fable by Vivier. Gilt edged. Leather bound. Boston: Estes and Lauriat. $6.25 at Goodspeed's, March, '89.

No title page for this second half of Volume II. It begins with the last two fables of Book IX. Plates 224/223, 244/243, and 246/245 are out of order. The best illustrations here are of the spider and the swallow (#215), the two goats (#239), and the fox, the flies, and the hedgehog (#251). Notes and AI to all of Volume II.

1881 The Fables of La Fontaine I. Volume 1 of 2. Translated from the French by Elizur Wright. With Notes by J.W.M. Gibbs. Illustrated with Etchings by Le Rat From Designs by E. Adam. Hardbound. The Exquisite Series. Boston: Edition Jouaust: Estes and Lauriat. $10 from Norbert Osterrich, Unionville, CT, through Ebay, Nov., '00.

This is the first of two volumes with gold embossed blue-and-white covers in excellent condition. It combines the first two volumes of the set of four which I found at Goodspeed's in March, '89, except that this edition does not have the numerous Vivier illustrations. It has only the seven etchings by LeRat. They are listed between the title-page and the "Preface to the Present Edition." Since the other edition continued pagination from Volume I, Part I to Volume I, Part II, the continuous pagination here presents no problem. See my comments there.

1881 The Fables of La Fontaine II. Volume 2 of 2. Translated from the French by Elizur Wright. With Notes by J.W.M. Gibbs. Illustrated with Etchings by Le Rat From Designs by E. Adam. Hardbound. The Exquisite Series. Boston: Edition Jouaust: Estes and Lauriat. $10 from Norbert Osterrich, Unionville, CT, through Ebay, Nov., '00.

This is the second of two volumes with gold embossed blue-and-white covers in excellent condition. It combines the final two volumes of the set of four which I found at Goodspeed's in March, '89, except that this edition does not have the numerous Vivier illustrations. It has only the six etchings by LeRat. They are listed between the title-page and the beginning of the fables. Here as there the MM illustration appears not facing 24 but rather as frontispiece. Since the other edition continued pagination from Volume II, Part I to Volume II, Part II, the continuous pagination here presents no problem. See my comments there.

1881 The Fables of La Fontaine. Translated by Elizur Wright. Illustrated by Le Rat (NA). Hardbound. NY/Boston: H.M. Caldwell Co. $8.50 from Marilyn Wright of The "Wright" Treasure, through Ebay, March, '99.

This handy-sized edition of the Wright translation of LaFontaine with frontispiece of La Fontaine and three illustrations has a curious place in the history of Wright editions. Apparently it reproduces the preface and text used in both the four-volume Estes and Lauriat edition of 1881 and the smaller edition without illustrations listed under 1881?/1896 by George Bell. See my comments on both. Thus it has the long preface detailing the history of Wright's translation, and it includes the corrections but not the expurgations of the sixth edition. The preface presents the five fables that Wright, under some duress, substituted for the expurgated LaFontaine fables in that sixth edition. The three fables illustrated by Le Rat, in what look like poor photographs, are "The Boy and the Schoolmaster" (28), "The Peacock Complaining to Juno" (60), and "Fortune and the Boy" (156). I find no acknowledgement of Le Rat in this book. This volume handles only the first six books of La Fontaine's fables, but it seems unaware of the existence of a larger set to which it may belong. There are notes and an AI of the first six books at the back. There is a pleasant cover illustration of boy and girl sitting back-to-back and reading.

1881 The Fables of La Fontaine (Flowered Cover). Elizur Wright. Le Rat (NA). Hardbound. NY: H.M. Caldwell Co. $6.99 from Diane Nolan, Annandale, NJ, through eBay, Feb., '04. 

This book repeats in all but two respects an edition with the same bibliographical information. First, it has a lovely floral cover, part of which is done against a white leatherette background. Secondly, the H.M. Caldwell Company here lists only New York (and not also Boston) on the title-page. Let me repeat some of my comments from that other edition. This handy-sized edition of the Wright translation of LaFontaine with frontispiece of La Fontaine and three illustrations has a curious place in the history of Wright editions. Apparently it reproduces the preface and text used in both the four-volume Estes and Lauriat edition of 1881 and the smaller edition without illustrations listed under 1881?/1896 by George Bell. See my comments on both. Thus it has the long preface detailing the history of Wright's translation, and it includes the corrections but not the expurgations of the sixth edition. The preface presents the five fables that Wright, under some duress, substituted for the expurgated LaFontaine fables in that sixth edition. The three fables illustrated by Le Rat, in what look like poor photographs, are "The Boy and the Schoolmaster" (28), "The Peacock Complaining to Juno" (60), and "Fortune and the Boy" (156). I find no acknowledgement of Le Rat in this book. This volume handles only the first six books of La Fontaine's fables, and it titles its notes "Notes to Volume One." Was a Volume Two ever published? There is also an AI to Volume One at the back.

1881/98 Phaedri Augusti Liberti Fabulae Aesopiae. Recognovit et praefatus est Lucianus Mueller. Editio Stereotypa. Paperbound. Leipzig: Teubner. €2 from Michael Solder Antiquariat, Münster, August, '06.

I first found a book that Mueller did for Teubner in 1876. Then I found that book redone in 1881. Now this book seems to reproduce that book perfectly, only with slightly larger margins and the addition on the title-page of "Editio Stereotypa." This book seems to reproduce the one which I have listed under 1876, right down to the page count. I will repeat my comments from there. This is one of the many printings under Number 620 in Carnes' Phaedrus bibliography. Here is Carnes' description: "One of the most successful editions of Phaedrus, a school edition, by Müller (1836-1898), with a short introduction `De Phaedri vita et scriptis' in three parts: an introduction to Phaedrus, recognition of his debt to the Dressler edition, together with an overview of Phaedrus' metrics. The third part deals with textual questions and emendations, especially where they differ from Dressler. Grammatical notes and glosses, a much reduced text as compared to Müller's critical edition (Müller 1877)." I emphasize that there are no comments or elucidations after or beneath the text. It is indeed much reduced when compared with his important Teubner text of 1877. xiv + 66 pages.

1881? C.D. Cobb & Bros. Advertising Magazine. C.D. Cobb & Bros.. Paperbound. Boston: C.D. Cobb & Bros. Advertising Magazine. $9.99 from Dr. StrangeGoods through eBay, April, '09.

This is a curious circular put together apparently by a store with a main location and three branches in Boston and further branches in Westboro and Fitchburg. This 32-page stapled pamphlet combines various advertisements with vocal music, instrumental music, needlework companion, drawing lessons, and texts of fables. The fables, each with a moral, start on 7 and continue on every odd-numbered page through 29. There are no illustrations for the fables. I cannot find an easy match of the texts with a well-known set of fables. The surprise of this magazine for me is that its advertisements are for other merchants! An advertisement on 26 includes some claims with dates; it is from those 1881 dates that I guess that the magazine appeared that same year. For a picture of this advertising pamphlet, consult "Advertising" under Aesop Artifacts.

1881? Fables de La Fontaine: Édition annotée a l'usage de la jeunesse. Illustrations de Hadamar et Desandré. Hardbound. Paris: Théodore Lefèvre, Éditeur. £15 from Susan Wickham, Kent, England, through Ebay, July, '00.

Bodemann #339.1. Bodemann notes there that this volume goes back to an 1867 first Joaust edition. See my comments under "1901?" on the later edition of the same book (Bodemann #339.2). Here I will highlight some of the differences. This copy was inscribed in December 1881 as a prize at the Market Drayton Grammar School. It had been sold in Anvers. It has the same red cloth cover figured in gold and black with an elaborate design, including a medallion of La Fontaine. Where that will have a large monogram "EG" on the back, this has a repeat of the diagonal black "La Fontaine" from the front cover. The title-page here has the same information differently typeset. Where that will have an "EG" monogram on the title-page, this has a "TL" monogram. Where that will have "Librairie de Théodore Lefèvre, & Cie/Émile Guérin, Éditeur," this book has simply "Théodore Lefèvre, Éditeur." One can, I think, safely conclude that Guérin joined the operation between 1881 and 1901. Where that will have a frontispiece portrait of La Fontaine in black-and-white, this copy features "L'Astrologue qui se laisse tomber dans un puits" as its frontispiece. That book will put this illustration with its fable on 19. Where finally that copy will have at the bottom of 284 "1835 -- Corbeil. -- Imprimerie de Crété," this copy has "8652-79 -- Corbeil. -- Imprimerie de Crété." Except, then, for the illustration taken as frontispiece, the other eight hand-colored illustrations occur where they will in the later edition: "L'Enfant et le maitre d'ecole" (19), MSA (41), "Le Berger et la mer" (59), TB (a favorite of mine, 101), MM (133), "L'Ours et l'amateur des jardins" (159), "Le Gland et la citrouille" (190), and "Le Vieillard et les trois jeunes hommes" (241). It is a wonderful experience to compare the different hand-paintings of the same engravings in these two different printings. Characters change the colors of their clothing with remarkable ease! MSA and TB present especially striking contrasts.

1881? Fables de La Fontaine: Édition annotée a l'usage de la jeunesse. Illustrations de Hadamar et Desandré. Hardbound. Paris: Théodore Lefèvre & Cie, Éditeurs. €35 from an unknown source, July, '07.

This book is very close to another that I have listed under "1881?" I identified it there with Bodemann #339.1. This copy seems identical except for two and possibly three factors. As for similarities, it has the same red cloth cover figured in gold and black with an elaborate design, including a medallion of La Fontaine. On the back, this has a repeat of the diagonal black "La Fontaine" from the front cover. The title-page here has the same information typeset identically, including the "TL" monogram. Where that book has simply "Théodore Lefèvre, Éditeur," this has "Théodore Lefèvre & Cie, Éditeurs." There is the first difference. This copy, like that -- in contrast to the version I have listed under "1901?" -- features "L'Astrologue qui se laisse tomber dans un puits" as its frontispiece. Where that copy on 284 has "8652-79 -- Corbeil. -- Imprimerie de Crété," this copy, in its second difference, has "8130-83 -- Corbeil. Typ. et stér. Crété." The other eight hand-colored illustrations occur where they will in the other edition: "L'Enfant et le maitre d'ecole" (19), MSA (41), "Le Berger et la mer" (59), TB (a favorite of mine, 101), MM (133), "L'Ours et l'amateur des jardins" (159), "Le Gland et la citrouille" (190), and "Le Vieillard et les trois jeunes hommes" (242). Is that last placement a difference of one page from the other book's placement on 241? This book is unusually tight and well preserved.

1881?/96 The Fables of La Fontaine. Translated from the French. By Elizur Wright. A New Edition, with notes by J.W.M. Gibbs. Bohn's Standard Library. London: George Bell and Sons. $8.50 at The Literary Guillotine, Santa Cruz, July, '92.

This standard-seeming handy-sized edition of the Wright translation of LaFontaine without illustrations turns out to have a wonderful preface dated in 1881. The preface traces the history of Wright's translation. After six quick editions in Boston (1841-3) and one small-type edition in London at the same time, there had been nothing till this edition in 1881. (I have an 1860 Derby and Jackson edition by Wright. Its existence seems to contradict the preface's claim. I also have the small four-volume set done in 1881 by Estes and Lauriat.) In fact, there had been only one other translator of the complete LaFontaine's fables into English during that time (Thornbury), and the preface finds that translation inferior to Wright's. This edition embodies the corrections but not the expurgations of the sixth edition (see my 1843 copy); in fact the preface presents the five fables that Wright, under some duress, substituted for the expurgated LaFontaine fables in that sixth edition. The preface continues with a nice account of Wright's life. Notes with the fables. AI and forty pages of advertisements for Bell's books at the back. Originally owned by the University of California Medical School in San Francisco.

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1882 Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by Ernest Griset. With text based chiefly upon Croxall, La Fontaine, and L'Estrange. Revised and Rewritten by J.B. Rundell. Boston: Lee and Shepard/NY: Charles T. Dillingham. $63 at Unique Antique Mall, South Bend, Indiana, May, '95.

With the 1893/93? Cassell edition, this is one of the more serious Griset editions I have. It is also one of the few that names Rundell rather than "J.B.R." or nothing at all. This expensive edition in good condition is not without its problems. It seems to have only the 266 original Rundell fables, the original introduction, and the ninety-three illustrations, without the morals or T of C that most Rundell editions lack. However, I have an edition from American Book Exchange from 1880 which already has the 132 "Later Fables" attached. I have been doing a major Rundell project, and this is a nice text from which to have started. The page-edges are gilt all the way around. This is of course not the Cassell, Petter, & Galpin 1869 first edition. The language-lab director at St. Mary's was driving me to Niles and mentioned that this antique store might be worth stopping at on the way. We found this book within thirty seconds!

1882 Aesop's Fables: A New Version Chiefly from the Original Sources.  Thomas James.  With more than one hundred illustrations designed by (John) Tenniel and (Joseph) Wolf.  Seventy-eighth Thousand.  Hardbound.  London: John Murray.  See 1867/82.

1882 Aragk (Fables). First edition? Paperbound. Venice: Soorp Ghazar. $21.50 from Yektan Turkyi Imaz, Durham, NC, through eBay, June, '04. 

Until I find someone who can read Armenian, I will have to be satisfied with limited knowledge about this very old pamphlet. It has forty-four fables on some 94 pages after a green paper cover. They seem to be in verse. There is a T of C at the end. Many fables have a simple illustration of one animal, and many seem to have an attribution at the end. The eBay seller claims this as a first edition. The front cover pictures a swan, while the back cover has, in a different style, two adult and four young chickens.

1882 Choix de Fables d'Ésope. M. Aniel. Hardbound. Paris: Nouvelle Éditions de Classiques Grecs: Librairie Classique Eugène Belin. Gift of Wendy Wright, Nov., '09.

Here is a handy little volume from the late nineteenth century in Paris. First there are forty fables in Greek, each with an epimythium and plenty of footnotes. After that come forty fables of La Fontaine that imitate Aesop, again with plentiful footnotes. (It thus becomes clear that the choice of Aesopic fables in the first section is determined by the La Fontaine imitations in this second section.) Pages 81-128 then are a Greek-French lexicon. Following that is a T of C for each of the sets of forty fables. The last major section contains forty-five themes of imitation on the twenty-four first fables of Aesop with grammatical notes by M.C. Rouzé. Pagination starts afresh in this section. What a wonderful find!

1882 De Nieuwe Aesopus. Groot Fabelboek voor Jong en Oud. Voor Nederland bewerkt door M. Leopold. Met Honderd Zestig Platen (not acknowledged as from Ernst Griset). Groningen: Wolters. The title page is dated 1880, but the "Voorbericht" 1882. See 1880/82.

1882 Fables de Florian. Plates in three states; No. 86. Hardbound. Paris: P. Rouquette, Éditeur. $24 from Melrose Books & Art, Melrose, MA, through eBay, July, '11.

This is a fine little (4¼" x 6⅜") book of Florian's fables with a lovely binding of leather and marbled boards. Its special quality is its illustrations (about 2¼" x 1½") in three states, separated by slipsheets. The illustrations include a portrait of Florian; "Fable and Truth"; "The Young Woman and the Bee"; "The House of Cards"; "The Good Man and the Treasure"; "King Alfonse"; "Amour and His Mother"; "The Journey"; "Pan and Fortune"; "The Guilty Dog"; and "Jupiter and Minos." The paper used for the first two illustrations -- alone on their pages -- is thicker than that used for the last illustration, since text joins that last illustration. The second illustration seems to fill in background missed in the first sketchy illustration. The third illustration adds the print on the rest of the page. There are five books, an epilogue, and an appendix of twelve fables, with an AI at the back. The lower and outside page edges vary considerably in the course of the book. "No. 86" is written opposite the pre-title page, but there is no indication of the size of the edition. There is an extra portrait of Florian in the second state. Not in Bodemann.

1882 Happy Thought! Gleanings from Shakespere and Aesop and Applications. Dempsey & Carroll; Edited by George D. Carroll. Hardbound. NY: $5.24 from Snappy Auctions through eBay, Nov., '06.

This book is inscribed by Dempsey & Carroll, "Art Stationers," on Union Square in New York City. Its two main sections are Shakespearean quotations and "Aesop and Applications." The book's early treasures include sample fancy wedding invitations. The gleanings from "Shakespere" are grouped by plays. I checked the Macbeth section: a good selection of quotations from the play, unfortunately without any reference to the speaker or the scene in which they occur. The following sections present "Ladies' Card Etiquette" and then "Bachelors' Card Etiquette." The samples are beautiful! Then there are "Fifty Selected Aesop's Fables, with Applications Written over 100 Years Ago." The latter section runs for 54 pages. It starts with a title-page, a T of C, and a history of Aesop. The texts in the "Aesop and Applications" section give themselves away by their inclusion of the long "Applications." That is, they are from Croxall's 1722 edition. This section, which is newly paginated, ends the book.

1882 La Fontaine and Other French Fabulists, Rev. W. Lucas Collins. Hardbound. Edinburgh & London: Foreign Classics for English Readers: William Blackwood and Sons. $12.50 from John Greenberg, The Bear Bookshop, Brattleboro, VT, through ABE, May, '01.

This is a 4½" x 7" little book of 176 pages discarded by the Marlboro College Library. Its first four chapters introduce fable and examine La Fontaine's original fables, his life, and his fables respectively. The last four chapters handle other French fable writers: de la Motte (V); Richer, Desbillons, Aubert, and Le Monnier (VI); Florian (VII); and Le Bailly (VIII). I focussed my attention on what was original in La Fontaine, on Desbillons, and on Florian. Collins finds La Fontaine's few original fables among his weakest. The chapter on La Fontaine's originals becomes more a chapter on his real and possible sources and their places in fable tradition. Desbillons receives unfortunately just a page, summing him up as a "simple, good man unsuited for the France of his days" (144). Desbillons' fable "The Peasant and his Ass" is summed up in prose, since "Desbillons evidently enjoyed his powers of composition, and gives us rather too much of it" (144). The story is one of a good beast being overburdened one step at a time, until he finally breaks down and dies. Collins sees the "fulfillment of the Jesuit's fable at the Revolution--but with this difference, that it was not the Ass who was the victim" (145). Collins presents Florian as living in the world of the French aristocracy just before and into the revolution. He died in 1794. Collins even sees a presentiment of the coming deluge in his life and poetry. "The Confident Parrot" (III 19) thus presents a fine statement of impending doom. A parrot taken on board a ship continues to echo the captain's words said before sailing into weather that had the pilot and others warning him not to sail. Those words, "It will be nothing," echo down the days until the starving sailors eat the parrot! "Fable and Truth" is Florian's admirable prologue to the others. Gaudily dressed fable is the older sister to naked truth. Fable offers to cover her with her cloak and suggests that they go together, presenting something appealing to both the wise and the foolish. "The Ass and the Flute," "The Rope-dancer," and "The Ape and the Magic Lantern" Florian got from Iriarte. He also borrowed from Gay. The selection of fables presented from Florian is good.

1882 La Fontaine et Les Fabulistes, Vol. I. Par M. Saint-Marc Girardin. Nouvelle édition. Hardbound. Paris: Calmann Lévy, Éditeur. €20 from Chapitre.com., July, '04.

Here are two volumes covering a good deal of information about La Fontaine, those who preceded him, and those who followed him. Since the preface is dated 1866, I will assume that an earlier edition appeared then. This first volume has a T of C at the front. Early chapters deal with Aesop, Phaedrus and Babrius, oriental fables, parables in the Gospel, and medieval fables in Roman du Renard and in fabliaux. The eighth chapter compares La Fontaine with fabulists of the seventeenth century. Girardin then goes on to examine the character and life of La Fontaine; Lulli, Saint-Évremond, and La Fontaine's death; and his bringing together of study and inspiration. The last two chapters look at the "morale" of his fables. Here is a first for me: at the end of this book there is one note (447). One! The cover of both volumes is stamped "Lycee de la Rochelle," where these volumes were given as a second-prize in mathematics to a student. The book was purchased from A. Foucher's Librairie in La Rochelle. 

1882 Le Favole di Luigi Clasio. Hardbound. Milan: Paolo Carrara. $40 from Libreria Antiquaria Lombardi, Naples, July, '97.

I can comment only peripherally on the content of this book, but I can say some things about its history. I found it during a time while I was a tour guide for a group of classics teachers in Cumae. We were visiting the National Museum in Naples. I had been there perhaps four times in four weeks. After I did my overview of some of the treasures of this spectacular museum, people needed an hour to find their own treasures in the museum. I took this hour of rare freedom to hit the streets and find used bookstores. This is the one treasure I can remember finding. Access to its bibliographical information is unfortunately restricted by a picture advertising a German phonograph record, which has been pasted over the middle of the title-page! The bookseller's card praises the many tasteful vignettes. It mentions the "vignetta postuma attaccata al front." The book, in frail condition, seems to contain one hundred original fables, many of them adorned with simple but tasteful black-and-white designs. Perhaps the most dramatic of these is the first, showing the sheep among the thorns (1). At the back of the book is an AI of "parole spiegate"; I take this expression, which seems to "elucidated" or "explained," to refer to the copious footnotes on words on almost every page. Following this index are a "ricordo biografico" of the author of these fables and a T of C. There is foxing throughout this book.

1882 Lyoner Yzopet: Altfranzösische Uebersetzung des XIII. Jahrhunderts. Wendelin Foerster. Hardbound. Heilbronn: Altfranzosische Bibliothek, Band 5: Verlag von Gebr. Henninger. $80 from Kew Books Caxton through abe, July, '12.

The bookseller's summary includes "8vo, original red cloth, gilt lettering on spine. Pp XLIV, 166. Subtitle: In der Mundart der Franche-Comte - mit dem kritischen Text des lateinischen Originals (Sog. Anonymus Neveleti). The first printing of a MS of 13th century fables in the dialect of the Franche-Comte. Volume V in the Altfranzösische Bibliothek. From the collection of J. Cremona, the Cambridge Romance philologist." I am happy first of all to have a good text of the Anonymus Neveleti. In fact, cataloguing this book has led me to find a good text of that collection online. This book is a good piece of careful German Wissenschaft. Especially helpful to some of us will be the table on XVI-XVIII that gives the numbers assigned to various fables in various authors and manuscripts. The list anchoring the table is taken from the "Anonymus Neveleti" offered here on 96-137. Foerster put this text of the Anonymus Neveleti together himself. Prior to that collection in the text we have, first, introductory materials on such things as the manuscripts, language, dating, and authorship of the Lyoner Yzopet. Next follow the old French texts of the sixty-one fables, encompassing some 3590 verses. After the Latin texts come Foerster's comments on the Yzopet poems, a short glossary, and a T of C, helpful for offering a list of the sixty-one French texts. Foerster sees the French translation of the Walther/Anonymus text here to be more of a paraphrase. He dates this "Lyoner Yzopet" to the end of the thirteenth or perhaps the beginning of the fourteenth century. 

1882 Swinton's Third Reader. No author or illustrator acknowledged. NY: Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor, and Co. $1.50 from Don Dupley, Omaha, Oct., '89.

A standard kids' reader with two fables: "The Cat and the Fox" (45) and AL (210). The stories about dogs include one on 98 that echoes Aesop. Here the dog who is faced with two attackers and the lunch he has dropped is smart enough to eat the lunch before they can!

1882 The Book of Fables Chiefly from Aesop. Chosen and phrased by Horace E. Scudder. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company/Cambridge: Riverside Press. $10 by mail from Connolly Out of Print Books, Kansas City, Sept., '97.

I had had this book on my want list for some time. In April of this year, I found the 1910 reprint at Dulles. Now I find the first printing on Interloc! See my comments there. Good condition! AI at the back, before a large set of Houghton Mifflin advertisements.

1882 Three Hundred and Fifty Aesop's Fables. Literally Translated from the Greek by the Rev. George Fyler Townsend, M.A. With One Hundred and Fourteen Illustrations, Designed by Harrison Weir, and Engraved by J. Greenaway. Hardbound. Chicago and NY: Belford, Clarke, and Co. $40 from A Time for Books, San Carlos, CA, through Interloc, Feb., '98.

See my "Caxton Edition" copies from 1884, 1885, and 1886. This copy comes from the same publisher but is earlier and is not in that series. Pages 183-98 are interbound between 278 and 279 instead of where they belong. Still, the book has 288 pages, including fables and an AI, as do all Belford copies. There are no advertisements at the back. The illustrations here are only average in execution. An illustration like that of "The Ass and His Driver" (231) has lost a lot of definition if we contrast it with the same illustration in my 1867 version. Inscribed in 1887. Like all Belford copies, though the title-page title starts with "Three Hundred," the spine reads only "Aesop's Fables."

1882/87/90 Fables and Folk Stories. Horace E. Scudder. Part I. Riverside Literature Series #47. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. $2.50 at Powell's on Hawthorne, Portland, July, '93.

This little ninety-six-page pamphlet mixes fables and folk stories together, thirty-five of the former and eight of the latter, often in several parts. Scudder draws upon his already published Book of Fables and adds others (vii). The introduction gives the reader a sense of what people thought of fables late in the nineteenth century: they are for both the boy and the man; they speak of animals; they bolster prudence, which is a beginning of virtue; they begin a child's acquaintance with permanent literature. Different: the mouse runs into the lion's mouth (41), and the goose lays a golden egg every day of the year (66). New to me: "A Country Fellow and the River" (28) and "The Arab and his Camel" (81), which plays out each of the phases including the camel's suggestion that the Arab leave the tent. I have wanted for years to find an edition of fables in this or other small-book formats, and I am amazed at last to have found a pair! T of C on ix-x.

1882/87/90 Fables and Folk Stories. Horace E. Scudder. Part II. Riverside Literature Series #48. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. $2.50 at Powell's on Hawthorne, Portland, July, '93.

This little 102-page pamphlet picks up from Part I (see my comments there) and mixes together twenty-nine fables and eight folk stories, often in several phases. Though the dates of the two parts are the same, the cover format here is slightly different; for example, "December, 1890" is listed on the cover. Well told: "The Lark and her Young Ones" (121). Again there are some differences from the traditional versions. In "The Cat, the Weasel, and the Young Rabbit" (170), the cat not only eats both litigants, but he also takes the house they fought over. The elder frogs ask for a king; Jupiter sends a log, a stupid eel, and then a stork (186). T of C on iii-iv. Three pages of advertisements at the end include one touting this edition as "sound, sensible, economical, practical, interesting, and inspiring" for grades I-III. The covers are loose.

1882/87/90 Fables and Folk Stories. Horace E. Scudder. The Riverside School Library. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. $17 at Book Gallery, El Paso, August, '96.

This book is literally a composite of the two pamphlets preceding. It even follows their pagination (or perhaps vice versa). T of C at the front and an AI at the back, followed by extensive advertisements for the Riverside School Library. Deteriorating spine. How lucky I was to find something in my short time in El Paso!

1882/87/90 Fables and Folk Stories. Horace E. Scudder. Hardbound. The Riverside Literature Series, #47-48. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. $5.50 from John Phelps, West Terre Haute, IN, through Ebay, March, '00.

Internally, this book is identical--except for thinner paper--with the book of the same title by the same publishers in the same series of years (1882, 1887, 1890). It is in a different series, "The Riverside Literature Series," where that book had been in "The Riverside School Library." This edition has simpler cloth covers without any gold on the spine. It lacks the frontispiece of Cinderella and the framing design on the title page. Where that edition has some thirty pages of advertising for the Riverside School Library, this edition has only endpapers advertising The Hiawatha Primer and the Riverside Literature Series. By mentioning on its cover the numbers of these items in the series, it is even closer than that "Library" volume to the two pamphlets of the same title (both under "1882/90"), from which it is made up. See my comments on those two pamphlets and on the "Library" volume.

1882/88 The Book of Fables Chiefly from Aesop. Chosen and Phrased by Horace E. Scudder. With Illustrations by H.W. Herrick. Hardbound. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company/Cambridge: The Riverside Press. $40 from Renaissance Airport Book Shop, Milwaukee, August, '00.

I must stop buying this book! I bought this one on a hurried trip through the airport because it is in such excellent condition. See my comments on the various other printings of this book. Stedman's Victorian Poets is already $2.25 in this printing's advertisements at the back.

1882/90? The Book of Fables Chiefly from Aesop. (Title page missing.) (Chosen and phrased by Horace E. Scudder. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company/Cambridge: Riverside Press.) $5 on the Internet from Betsy Lewis at Book Rescue, Stony Point, NY, Sept., '97.

This book is in poor condition. Besides lacking a title page, it has many loose pages. My sleuthing puts it between my 1882 and 1910 printings. It has at least one book that grew more expensive in the advertisements at the back: Stedman's Victorian Poets went from $2 in 1882 to $2.25 in this printing. (Where in those advertisements is this little book? I find it under neither Aesop nor fables nor Scudder.) The plates for the AI at the back are much less fractured here than they are in the 1910 printing.

1882/1910 The Book of Fables Chiefly from Aesop. Chosen and phrased by Horace E. Scudder. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company/Cambridge: Riverside Press. $12 from Joyce's Jems at Dulles Antique Show, April, '97.

I had had this book on my want list for some time. I suspect the 1910 date indicates little more than a copyright renewal by Scudder's heir, Grace Owen Scudder. Sixty-five fables. A comparison with Scudder's two Riverside pamphlets of the same year would be interesting. They contain thirty-five and twenty-nine fables, respectively. He says there that he draws upon these and adds others in publishing those. Might the "others" be just a few? Good illustrations from Herrick. T of C pages (9-11) are damaged; 19-20 are mostly torn out. This booklet includes "The Arab and His Camel" (67), the story about the nose in the tent; I had remarked on seeing that in a Classic Comic that I had never elsewhere seen that story as a fable. Well, now I have! AI at the back.

1882? Aesop's Fables in Words of One Syllable. By Mary Godolphin. Illustrated. Hardbound. NY: George Routledge and Sons. $24.94 from Twice Booked, Dover, NH, through eBay, August, '10.

This is one more in a large series of nearly identical books. Routledge published this same book with colorful covers; I have listed those editions under "1883?" and "1887?" Several things distinguish this book. It has a tan cloth cover, with a green illustration of FG. It lists Routledge only in NY. It has the cleanest printing of both text and pictures of all the editions I have found, including those by Cassell. These marks lead me to believe that the book might be the earliest copy I have. Other copies in this family include the Saalfield editions I have listed under "1904?" and "1905?" The title-page continues to display a fox speaking with a leopard. A good find!

1883 Aragk (Fables). Agha Mgrdeech Sanasarian? Hardbound. Haygagan Heesnag Arag? $20 from Yektan Turkyilmaz, Durham, NC, July, '04. 

16+180 pp. Armenian Fables. 3½" x 4_". Until I find someone who can read Armenian, I will have to be satisfied with limited knowledge about this very old book. The cover, between the one-word title and the date of 1883, features a simple design of flowers, perhaps augmented by butterflies and a beehive. The spine has a stamp on which one could write the book's title. Readers of Armenian, where are you when I need you?

1883 Fables by Mr. John Gay. With a memoir by Austin Dobson. NY: D. Appleton and Company. $20 from Biermaier, July, '94.

This small book with bowed covers seems a standard presentation of Gay's sixty-six fables. The two unusual points about the book are Dobson's twenty-nine page memoir and the frontispiece portrait of Gay by Sir Godfrey Kneller.

1883 Fables de La Fontaine. Édition illustrée de 75 planches a l'eau-forte par A(uguste) Delierre. Tome Premier. Paris: A Quantin, Imprimeur-Éditeur. $112.50 from Dad's Old Book Store, Nashville, April, '96.

Great binding and marbled endpapers. T of C for this volume at the end of this volume includes notation of illustrations. Quinnam (71) describes the work this way: "An elegant, expensive edition printed on heavy paper and illustrated with delicately engraved pastoral scenes, not humorous or original, but very pleasant--the trees especially.... Classical borders surround the illustrations and many other ornaments adorn the book." Quinnam refers to original watercolor drawings added later (1889) to the title and half-title pages; they are missing. I agree that the grasses and trees are wonderfully portrayed. Among the best illustrations in this volume are III 1 (MSA), III 6 ("The Eagle, the Sow, and the Cat"), III 14 ("The Lion Become Old"), IV 2 ("The Shepherd and the Sea"), IV 11 (FM), and VI 13 ("The Villager and the Serpent"). There is some pencilling on the back of the frontispiece and on the title-page of Book V. The top of the spine is chipped. The illustration for II 11 (LM) is slightly out of place; it faces 73. A wonderful treasure!

1883 Fables de La Fontaine. Édition illustrée de 75 planches a l'eau-forte par Auguste Delierre. Tome Second. Paris: A Quantin, Imprimeur-Éditeur. $112.50 from Dad's Old Book Store, Nashville, April, '96.

See my comments on the first volume. I now have caught the pattern: every book has six illustrations, the life of La Fontaine contains two, and there is a frontispiece--for the total of seventy-five. Among the best illustrations in this volume are VII 1 ("The Heron"), VIII 6 ("The Secret"), VIII 23 ("The Torrent and the River"), X 3 (TT), XI 6 ("The Wolf, the Fox, and the Well"), and XII 4 ("The Two Goats"). I believe that the illustration for XI 8 is facing 252 and so is slightly out of place. This volume is again a wonderful treasure!

1883 Fables de La Fontaine, Volume 1.  Moreau le jeune. Paperbound.  Paris:P. Rouquette.  $60.76 from Le-Livre, Sablons, France.  May, '19.

1883 Fables de La Fontaine, Volume 2.  Moreau le jeune. Paperbound.  Paris:P. Rouquette.  $60.76 from Le-Livre, Sablons, France.  May, '19.

1883 Fables de La Fontaine, Volume 2.  Illustrations by Moreau le jeune, engraved by Milius.  Hardbound.  Paris: P. Rouquette.  $50 from pabooklady through Ebay, Feb., '19.

1883 Fünfzig Fabeln für Kinder. Von W. Hey. Mit Bildern von Otto Speckter. Paperbound. Gotha: Friedrich Andreas Perthes. DEM 120 from Antiquariat Delibrium, Münster, Germany, July, '99.

Bodemann #277.8. I am particularly happy to find Bodemann's listing because, in the absence of a printed publication date in the book, I could not be sure what anniversary this publication celebrated. Like its companion (Noch Fünfzig Fabeln für Kinder), this is a fragile little landscape-formatted booklet 6" x 5¼". Its cover is creased vertically down the center. The standard images and verses, numbered together one story to a page, are preceded by a preface to parents (dated here still 1833) and followed by an appendix of similar poetry (e.g., "Für die kranke Mutter," 57) and proverbs. Some titles are underlined lightly in blue pencil. The title-page is inscribed "Odilia Merz" and has other markings, including R.B.P." The illustrations are well preserved. Perhaps that helps to explain why I was ready to pay so much for these booklets!

1883 Madras Readers: The Second English Book.  L Garthwaite.  Second edition.  Paperbound.  Madras (Chennai), India: Madras Readers English Series:  Government Book Depot.  $28.39 from Abbey Antiquarian Books, Blockley, UK, through ABE, April, ‘21. 

1883 Noch fünfzig Fabeln für Kinder. Von W. Hey. Mit Bildern von Otto Speckter. Paperbound. Gotha: Friedrich Andreas Perthes. DEM 120 from Antiquariat Delibrium, Münster, Germany, July, '99.

Bodemann #277.8. I am particularly happy to find Bodemann's listing because, in the absence of a printed publication date in the book, I could not be sure what anniversary this publication celebrated. Like its companion (Fünfzig Fabeln für Kinder), this is a fragile little landscape-formatted booklet 6" x 5¼". The standard images and verses, numbered together one story to a page, are followed by a twenty-two-page appendix of poetry and prayers. The illustrations are well preserved. Perhaps that helps to explain why I was ready to pay so much for these booklets!

1883 Kriloff's Original Fables. Translated by I. Henry Harrison. Hardbound. London: Remington & Co. $20 from an unknown source, July, '99.

Harrison mentions in the preface that he is aware that Ralston's translation of Krylov into English already exists, but it is in prose "and I am of the opinion that the spirit of Kriloff cannot but evaporate in prose" (v-vi). He makes a point of not translating all the original fables; he leaves twenty-two of them untranslated. Of Krylov's thirty-eight borrowed fables, Harrison translates seven, to give the reader a sense of what he does with borrowed material. The result is that there are 149 fables here. One of the gifts of this work lies, I believe, in the tables the author has compiled. Before the fables there is a chronological table (xiii) showing translated fables, both original and borrowed, as well as omitted fables original and borrowed. There is then a classification of fables (xix). This list is done, surprisingly, with an eye more to lessons than, say, to characters. A list of sources for the borrowed fables then follows (xxiii). At the end of the book there is an AI sorted by characters. I read and enjoyed the first ten fables. Where Harrison translates a fable which Krylov borrowed, he makes pointed comments after the text on Krylov's improvement of his source. This nice book once belonged to a Congregational Church Lending Library.

1883 Some of Aesop's Fables with Modern Instances. Shewn in designs by Randolph Caldecott. From new translations by Alfred Caldecott. Engravings by J.D. Cooper. First edition. London: MacMillan and Co. $100 from Blackwell's Rare Books, Oxford, July, '92.

Compare with my copy of MacMillan's first American edition of the same year. Blackwell's salespeople were unaware that they had this book, and I discovered it just as the store was about to close. By comparison with the New York edition, this copy has less strong presentations of Caldecott's art but also shows less foxing. Both editions add wonderfully to the collection. Careful review of Alfred Caldecott’s texts has been enjoyable in 1996. They promise to be and are faithful to Halm’s Greek as far as I can tell, being away from the library on sabbatical; at the very least they are very consistent with Handford’s translations. Two exceptions stand out. In his DLS the wind takes off the skin and thus reveals the ass, and all the men cudgel the ass. "The Horse and the Stag" cuts out the revenge on the stag. In trying to get revenge on the stag, the horse simply gets a master. The illustration shows a deer still standing in the background. Do not miss Alfred Caldecott’s comment in his introductory note that in several instances (which he enumerates) the Greek text was not followed because "in the collaboration the Designer and Translator have not been on terms of equal authority; the former has stood unshakeably by English tradition, and has had his own way."

1883 Some of Aesop's Fables with Modern Instances. Shewn in designs by Randolph Caldecott. From new translations by Alfred Caldecott. Engravings by J.D. Cooper. First American edition. Inscribed Christmas, 1883. NY: MacMillan and Co. $75 from Bookhouse, Arlington, April, '92.

The engravings of Caldecott's drawings are here of course in black-and-white, and they are excellent! I just showed a number of these in class yesterday! A wonderful addition to the collection. By comparison with the London first edition of the same year, this copy has some stronger, darker presentations of Caldecott's art but shows more foxing.

1883 The Book of Fables. Uncle Bentley's Series. No author or illustrator acknowledged. Large size, with six colored illustrations. A toy book. Original price $.12. Cincinnati: Peter F. Thomson. $15 from Eva Arond, Lexington, April, '89.  Extra copy with different cover in poor condition for $20 from Richard Cunningham, Cato, NY, Sept., '98,

The illustrations are bright, simple, and well preserved. The best are of TB (with a cub!) and of the ass and the little dog. The cover with its many animals is curious; does it depict a particular fable? The versions and illustrations do not always agree. Flesh and cheese compete, for example, in FC. And to which fable does the illustration of the lion, fox, and dead donkey belong?

1883 The Book of Fables: Containing Aesop's Fables. Complete, with text based upon Croxall, La Fontaine and L'Estrange.  With Copious Additions from other Modern Authors.  Profusely illustrated by Ernest Griset.  NY: John B. Alden.  $30 from H. Ted Lesher, Palm Coast, FL. 

Again, I thought I was picking up a good second copy of a book where my first copy may have been in only fair condition.  And this book is very close to one that I have listed under the same title and publisher in 1885.  As I read through that description, I began to realize that this book is different.  First, it lists its publication date as 1883, not 1885.  Secondly, it has a red cover.  I believe that a difference like the color of the cover may be attributable to what the publisher happened to have in stock that day.  Two other differences merit mention.  The "Finis" page promised in the list of illustrations does occur here as it had not there.  And this book has as its frontispiece "The Mastiff and the Cur," not "The Blind and the Lame."  See my further comments on that 1885 edition. I first found this book in July, 2003 at the Old Tampa Book Company.  Now I have found this superior copy from Ted Lesher.  It has been in his family for many years.

1883/87 Some of Aesop's Fables with Modern Instances. From new translations by Alfred Caldecott. Shewn in designs by Randolph Caldecott. Engravings by J.D. Cooper. Hardbound. London: MacMillan and Co. $100 from (more) Moe's, Berkeley, Dec., '99.

Compare this fine copy, though with a highly flexible blue cover, with the first edition four years earlier from MacMillan in London and with the first edition four years earlier from MacMillan in New York. The illustrations here are very well done. The book is inscribed "H.C. Hudson, Christmas 1887." The good people at Moe's brought the price down to the point where I could take it. I love the work of both Caldecotts here!

1883/1978 The Caldecott Aesop. Twenty Fables Illustrated by Randolph Caldecott: A Facsimile of the 1883 Edition by Alfred Caldecott. With an Introduction by Michael Patrick Hearn. Dust jacket. (Original: London: MacMillan.) NY: Doubleday. $12.95. One extra copy without dust jacket.

Lovely stuff, though the pictures are sometimes so bound to the contemporary social and political setting that it is hard for us to see the point. DLS is particularly good, with a skillful "modern instance." Valuable introduction traces the history of illustration of the Aesopic fable.

1883? Aesop's Fables in Words of One Syllable. By Mary Godolphin. NY: George Routledge and Sons. $7.50 at Delavan booksellers, Dec., '86.  Extra copy with faulty pagination from an uknown source before Sept., '00.

This book has the same text as the 1895 title mentioning the same author. However the order of the stories (about one hundred) and of the illustrators is different. This edition has a cock/dog frontispiece and a fox and leopard on the title page. The approximately ten dark full-page illustrations all look like Griset; at least one (159) is signed. Page 146 gives "The Blind and the Lame." Page 9 presents the three foxes and grapes found in Golden Days (1903?). In 1997, I have now had a chance to read through Godolphin's texts critically, and I find them to tend toward drastic results. Thus the fox in the well dies, and the wolf eats the shepherd boy who had cried "Wolf!" Godolphin has excellent morals, often proverbial; sometimes the moral is in fact another fable. The second copy here is in better shape but has an anomaly. Through a printer's error, 5-8 come before the beginning T of C! I will keep it in the collection. The extra copy is inscribed in 1883, the good copy in 1885. Finding the extra copy thus made me change the date of this entry!

1883? Funfzig Fabeln für Kinder, bound with Noch Funfzig Fabeln für Kinder, both Nebst einem ernsthaften Anhange. Von W. Hey. In Bildern Gezeichnet von Otto Speckter. Hardbound. Gotha: Friedrich Andreas Perthes. DM 90 from Kunstantiquariat Joachim Lührs, Hamburg, July, '98. 

I believe that this book might be Bodemann 277.8. The title-page of the first volume does not indicate "Neue Ausgabe" or "Neue Zeichnungen." But in fact the illustrations seem to be those, not of the first edition of each volume (1833 and 1837, respectively) but of the "Neue Ausgabe" that started in 1852. Thus the crow faces left and the background now presents a strong picture of a housefront with porch. The snowman in #3 leans back as four children pelt him with snowballs. True to Bodemann's description of #277.8, the pages are printed on both sides. Except for "Noch," the two title-pages are identical. Whereas Perthes had done some editions in the meantime in Hamburg, both of these are again set in Gotha. Pagination, fresh in both cases, is only in the two appendices. After the appendix in the second portion comes the "Nachschrift an die Eltern." Bodemann describes this as a "Neudruck als Jubiläumsausgabe" and dates it to 1883. Though this book has had heavy usage, it may have some of the best prints of the illustrations among all my Hey/Speckter volumes.

1883? Old Wives' Fables.  Edouard Laboulaye.  With two hundred and twenty-five illustrations.  Hardbound.  London: George Routledge and Sons.  £34.99 from Chrislands.com through World of Rare Books, May, '14.

1883? The Book of Fables: Containing Aesop's Fables. Complete, with text based upon Croxall, La Fontaine and L'Estrange. With Copious Additions from other Modern Authors. Based upon Croxall, La Fontaine and L'Estrange. Profusely illustrated by Ernest Griset. Hardbound. Chicago: National Library Association. $10 from Clare Leeper, July, '96.

This book is bibliographically almost a perfect match for one I have listed under 1883, published by John B. Alden in New York. Let me list their differences. This book has the same size page, but is almost twice as thick. Not only is the paper quite thick; the illustrations are so poor as to be near indistinct. The frontispiece of "The Mastiff and the Cur" is printed upside-down and without a page reference. The publisher here is National Library Association in Chicago. This copy has boards, a paper spine, and leather corners, whereas that has an embossed front-cover showing FK. Are the page plates the same for that book and this? Perhaps worn down?

1883? The Fables of La Fontaine. Translated into English Verse by Walter Thornbury. With Illustrations by Gustave Doré. Part I. First edition? London and NY: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin. $20.25 at Aardvark, San Francisco, Aug., '94.

A beautiful edition with a partially missing spine. I picked up this pair of volumes thinking that it was just another Cassell edition of the Thornbury translation. Then I noticed in Hobbs (100) that the first English edition, praised for its generous format even over the original French, was by Cassell, Petter, and Galpin. A library inquiry revealed that, at least in the University of Michigan's library catalogue, the publishing firm's last listing by this name is in 1883. Hobbs' listing of the presumably first English edition is in 1868. So this edition seems to fall in a fifteen year period between 1868 and 1883. The closest comparison in my collection is the 1875? Cassell edition, which includes Oudry illustrations. This edition has two colors on its title page, borders around pages of text and partial-page illustrations, and one signature whose paper is darker (49-112). It belonged to Captain T. Lockhart. Its T of C plates seem the same as those in the 1875? edition but give different page numbers, since the fully-illustrated pages here have blank backs but are counted fully. The title page and T of C here serve for both parts. This is a treasured find!

1883? The Fables of La Fontaine. Translated into English Verse by Walter Thornbury. With Illustrations by Gustave Doré. Part II. First edition? London and NY: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin. $20.25 at Aardvark, San Francisco, Aug., '94.

See my comments on the first volume of this beautiful set. No title page (or indication on Part I's title page that this is a two-part set). Pagination continues from Part I.

1883? Three Hundred Aesop's Fables. Rev. George Fyler Townsend, M.A. With one hundred and fourteen illustrations (illustrator not named, but the illustrations are those in the 1885 version, i.e., by Harrison Weir). NY: McLoughlin Bros. Second copy with green cover inscribed in 1883 for $15.75 from St. Croix Books, Stillwater, MN, Nov., '92. And a thinner extra of the green second copy with a different spine and no title pages, a gift of Maureen Hester from Renaissance for $6, Aug., '87.

Much better runs on the illustrations than in my 1885 version. All three of these copies have the back of the book imprinted with the same indented design as the front, but without either the gold or the black ink. At last (1992) the chance inscription gives a terminus ante quem for dating this edition.

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1884 A Graded Spelling-Book. Being a complete course in spelling for primary and grammar schools in two parts by H.F. Harrington. NY: Harper & Brothers. $4.88 at Another Story Used Books, Worcester, Nov., '97.

This book has been through plenty of wear! In particular, it has a good deal of interior pencilling. Nine fables are featured in the first book. The most unusual of them is "The Oak and the Willow" (#129 on 58), where the willow takes the place usually reserved for the reed.

1884 Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by Gustave Doré, Ernst Griset, John Tenniel, and A. Delierre (NA). Hardbound. NY: R. Worthington. $10 from Harry Alter Books, Wilkinsburg, PA, March, '98, through Interloc.

This book seems identical with the edition of the same name that I have listed under 1896 from Donohue, Henneberry, and Co. Let me repeat most of what I say there. This large-format book may be the best example in my collection of eclecticism and "borrowing" of established illustrations in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century book publishing. At least three great Aesopic artists are represented here, and the only clue to them lies in the occasional signature within a plate. (Note that many of the Tenniels here are signed by the engraver, Howland). The full-page illustrations are not printed on the back, though both front and back count as pages. Delierre is the originator at least of 127's view of MSA; Tenniel and Griset's work on the same fable is mixed together on 129. The text appears in two columns. New to me is "The Ant and the Chrysalis" (141). Index on 160. The cover features FG and BF vividly colored. The spine here is already split and frayed. The book's front cover is bowed, and the book has experienced significant water damage. Despite all that, it is still a lovely book!

1884 Aesop's Fables: A New Revised Version From Original Sources. With Upwards of 200 Illustrations by Harrison Wier (sic), John Tenniel, Ernest Griset and Others. No editor acknowledged. NY: William L. Allison Company. $5.95 at Brattle Bookshop, Jan., '89.

A really curious book. Lots of illustrations from various people, including Doré. On 80-81 and 166-7 pictures appear from two different artists for the same story. On 218 there is an illustration without its story. Weir's name is misspelled on the title page. There are good Tenniel illustrations on 121 (the cook and the dog) and 235 (the thief's mother). Compare with 1848 versions: add "revised" and drop "chiefly" and the acknowledgement of the editor. The text seems to be a partially abbreviated and emended version of the "Croxall, LaFontaine, and l'Estrange" text used, e.g., in the 1920 Burt edition. My, what publishers get away with!

1884 Aesop's Fables: A New Revised Version From Original Sources. NA. With Upwards of 200 Illustrations by Harrison Wier (sic), John Tenniel, Ernest Griset and Others. Hardbound. NY: Gladstone Series: Syndicate Trading Company. $15 from Book Baron, Anaheim, CA, by mail, Oct., '98.

This book reproduces almost identically the book published the same year by William Allison Company. It has the same misspelling of Weir's name on the title-page. This book adds "R. Worthington" under "Copyright 1884" on the back of the title-page. This book has less definition in its illustrations, and the paper is more brittle. It also has a more ornate cover and binding. See my extensive comments on the Allison edition.

1884 Fables by Walter Brown. With Cuts by Thomas Bewick. Apparently first edition. Hardbound. London: S. Grosvenor. £42 from Abbey Antiquarian, Cheltenham, England, June, '98.

Bodemann 361.1. As she says, this is the first edition of the text. Forty-one original prose fables. Brown does not offer morals, for the reader "often would draw a much better moral than would generally be added." There are twenty-one pleasing cuts at the ends of fables, taken from various of Bewick's works. The criterion for choice, says Bodemann, is the fit of the picture's theme to the application of the fable to human affairs. Sometimes it is hard for me to see the fit. Among the most interesting fables for me are "The Buzzard and the Weasel" (8); "The Fox and the Gamekeeper" (22); "The Dog and Boys" (37); "The Two Friends and the Countryman" (58); "A Lion and other Animals" (63); "The Rabbit and the Mole" (65); and "The Fox that had lost his Brush" (66). In these I did not know how the fable would come out. For me, Brown is mostly good evidence that it is hard to write a good fable. Many of his are too simple or predictable for me. Women come off poorly in several of these fables, in which they need men to straighten them out. Is that a sentence fragment I read on the bottom of 28? One of the loveliest and largest cuts is of an old man reading a book (35).

1884 Fables composées pour l'éducation du Duc de Bourgogne par Fénelon. De la Mothe Fénelon. Paperbound. Paris: Les petits Chefs-d'Oeuvre: Jouaust: Librairie des Bibliophiles. 50 Francs from a Buchinist, Paris, August, '01.

There are twenty-eight prose fables here, indicated by the closing T of C. This edition is surprisingly well preserved. Other editions I have found by Fénelon seem to have thirty-nine prose fables.

1884 Fabulae Aesopicae Collectae. Ex recognitione Caroli Halmii. Lipsiae: In aedibus B.G. Teubneri. $15 by mail from B & B Smith, Feb., '96.

As Smith's advertisement had said, "wraps crudely repaired." No cover. The preface is dated 1852. I have several Teubner editions, but I think it would take several more to fill in the tradition that starts (here?) with Halm and leads forward to their most recent editions. This edition includes 426 fables, with an AI at the back. This copy has had a history. It is punched with two holes for insertion into a binder. It also was part of some library, but is stamped "withdrawn." I find no apparatus criticus, but there are notes on many fables in the preface.

1884 Last Fairy Tales. Édouard Laboulaye; Authorized Translation by Mary L. Booth. Hardbound. NY: Harper & Brothers. $20 from Greg Williams, Philadelphia, Jan., '99.

This eclectic collection of twenty-seven stories includes two that are listed as fables. "The Wolf and the Goat" (221) is an expansive story of some nine pages. It is subtitled "A Mediaeval Fable." The wolf presses the goat to farm a piece of his land. The goat resists in vain, knowing that the wolf is a powerful and perhaps an unfair lord. At the first harvest, the wolf proposes to come back the next day and take all the grain the goat has put together and to leave the goat only the straw. The goat goes to two mastiffs she nursed and asks for their help. They come early the next day and hide. Renard accompanies the wolf, sees the dogs' tails, warns the wolf of possible danger, and then leaves the scene, to watch what will happen. After the wolf has put all the grain on his cart, the dogs attack him, wound him severely, and leave him for dead. Renard chuckles over the wolf's pain: "The pain of others was his delight" (227). The wolf's household laughs at him as he returns home injured. He takes five months to heal. When he returns to the goat then, she summons the dogs. The wolf leaves and never returns. "This mediaeval fable is a new version of the Wolf and the Lamb. But the wolf has had the upper hand long enough, and here the lamb, or, in other words, the goat, has its turn" (229). I have seldom seen so explicit a declaration of the reversing of a fable's intent. "Falsehood and Truth" (331-337) is described as "An Old Spanish Fable." In old times, Falsehood and Truth once decided to live together and did so well. Falsehood suggests dividing a tree that they plant, with truth getting the underground part--and so in effect going underground--while falsehood gets the branches. Falsehood perches in the branches and harangues people. Finally the wind blows the tree over, falsehood is crippled, and truth emerges and begins rebuking people for their weakness and credulity. Falsehood gets people to stone her, drive her underground, and seal the spot with a large stone. A friendly hand writes this epitaph: "Here lies Truth, slain not by disease, but by the cruel world, that nought might reign in it but Falsehood and Disloyalty." "Falsehood, lame and squinting, reigns..to this very day." There are helpful line-drawings throughout the book.

1884 Neues Fabelbuch: Goldnes ABC der Guten Sitten in ausgewählten Fabeln, Sprüchen und Sprichwörtern für die Kinderstube. Ernst Lausch und Franz Otto. Illustrations by Flinzer, Richter, Rostosky, and Baibler. Dritte, gaenzlich umgearbeitete Auflage. Hardbound. Leipzig/Berlin: Das Illustrirte Goldne Kinderbuch XI: Verlag und Druck von Otto Spamer. $46.04 from Better World Books through eBay, April, '09.

I am surprised not to find this book in Bodemann. The first edition of this book was done by Spamer in 1868. His "Vorwort" speaks of the addition especially of Krylov to this third edition. Bodemann #350.1 presents the colored frontispiece of this edition and refers to many of the same fabulists whose work is represented here. Spamer was one of the publishers of that book of contes, fables, maxims, and proverbs. This may be a much smaller version of that book. The "ABC" feature of the book comes in the alphabetical listing of the main virtue presented by the fable, starting with Arbeit, Arbeitsamkeit, and Arglist. Just after that T of C, there is a two-page list of the fabulists represented here: Aesop, Bidpai, Boner, Bürger, Chamisso, Florian, Gay, Gellert, Gleim, Götz, Hagedorn, Hebel, Hey, Hoffmann, Kerner, Krylov, Lachambeaudie, La Fontaine, Lambein, Lausch, Lessing, Lichtwer, Locman, Michaelis, Nicolay, Pfeffel, Phaedrus, Rückert, Sachs, Schoppe, Spitta, Vogt, and Weitze. If the virtue is not enough to list at the top of each page, there are more virtues listed at the bottom of each page. Thus, for the first fable, there is "Arbeit" at the page-top and "Emsigkeit - Fleiss - Tätigkeit" at the page-bottom! There are some eighty-two illustrations, regularly close to a half-page in size. The FC illustration on 7 is fine! So is "Blinder Eifer" (29), also the theme of the colored frontispiece. "Wolf, Fox, and Monkey" is another fine illustration (65). TMCM on 183 is unusual. All of the illustrations are on the right-hand page. I recognize almost all of these fables.

1884 Selections from Aesop's Fables. Versified by Mrs. Clara Doty Bates. Illustrated by Garrett, Lungren, Hassam, Barnes, Sweeney. Boston: D. Lothrop. $50 at Old Children's Books in New Orleans, June, '87.

Prose versions followed by Bates' long poetic versions surrounded with art. Might individual pieces have appeared individually in children's magazines? Childe Hassam is the best known illustrator, but his work here on TMCM is only okay. The best illustrations are of FS and FK. A valuable book, even though it is not to my taste. This edition has a different cover from the other printing of the same year, uses better paper, and gives the publisher's address and acknowledges the printer on the title page. Both show an error in the title of the prose version: "The Lark and the Farmer" should have a plural for the bird.

1884 Selections from Aesop's Fables. Versified by Mrs. Clara Doty Bates. Illustrated by Garrett, Lungren, Hassam, Barnes, Sweeney. Boston: D. Lothrop. $28 at Bookhouse, Arlington, Oct., '91.

Identical with the other printing of the same year, though in better condition, except for cheaper paper, a different cover, and omissions on the title page of the publisher's address and acknowledgement of the printer. Might the illustrations actually come out better on this cheaper paper? See my comments there.

1884 Selections from Aesop's Fables (Cover: Aesop's Fables).  Mrs. Clara Doty Bates.  Garrett, Lungren, Hassam, Barnes, Sweeney.  Hardbound.  Boston: D. Lothrop.  $35 from Douglas Brown, Baytown TX through Ebay, Feb., '20.

1884 The Fables of La Fontaine. With 25 original etchings by A. Delierre. Translated from the French in a version revised from that by Robert Thompson. London: J.C. Nimmo and Bain. $150 from First Folio, Buchanan, TN, at Rosslyn Book Fair, March, '92.  Extra copy in poor condition for $10 from Serendipity, Dec., '99.

Big, impressive, lavish. I had not known of this translator or this artist before. The engravings are ambitious and picturesque but ultimately unsuccessful. The best of them is the beautiful gilt cover (also at 229) of TT. Other typical illustrations include "The Frog and the Rat" (87) and "The Heron" (143). I have not yet checked out the translation, which the introduction calls rare. AI at back. I fear that this book serves more to fill out the tradition than to show some creative development.

1884 Three Hundred and Fifty Aesop's Fables. Literally Translated from the Greek by the Rev. George Fyler Townsend, M.A. With One Hundred and Fourteen Illustrations, Designed by Harrison Weir, and Engraved by J. Greenaway. "Caxton Edition" imprinted on cover. Hardbound. Chicago and NY: Belford, Clarke, and Co. $12.50 from Karen LaVigne, North St. Petersburg, FL, through Ebay, June, '99.

See my other "Caxton Edition" copies from 1885 and 1886. This one is notable for its paper which is not only foxed but brown with age and in part even brittle. 288 pages, including fables and an AI, as in all Belford copies. No advertisements at the back.

1884 Three Hundred and Fifty Aesop's Fables. Literally translated from the Greek by Rev. George Fyler Townsend, M.A. One hundred and fourteen Illustrations designed by Harrison Weir and engraved by J. Greenaway. "Home Edition" imprinted on cover. Inscribed in 1886. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott and Co. Gift of Igor Kniazev, Aug., '92.

Mr. Kniazev saw the Georgetown magazine article, got my phone number from the university, and called to offer this book. It is very helpful because it gives me a firm first date for this book. Of several versions of this work, the only dated one I have had is the Belford "Caxton Edition" of 1885. Townsend/Weir's Three Hundred Aesop's Fables appeared in 1860, as I learn from my favorite private collector's bibliography. Townsend seems not to be mentioned in Quinnam, Hobbs, or McKendry. Enjoy the Lippincott endpaper advertisements here.

1884/1900 Queer Stories for Boys and Girls. Edward Eggleston. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons. $4.80 at Dan Behnke, Chicago, March, '93.

This little collection of stories written for juvenile publications contains a last section of "Modern Fables" (177-86). The section contains three didactic, pointed animal stories. Do not miss the author's frustrated introduction. It seems that these stories have been the kiss of death. Some appeared in two books which went up in the Chicago fire of 1871. Others were published, but the publisher immediately went bankrupt and pawned the plates, which the author eventually had to buy back! Pirated editions have appeared. Oh my, oh my...!

1884/1900 Select Fables of Phaedrus, Edited for the Use of Schools. By A.S. Walpole. Hardbound. Elementary Classics. Printed in Glasgow. London: Macmillan and Co. $10 from B & B Smith, Booksellers, Mt Airy, MD, through Bibliofind, March, '98.

My biggest question about this little book is "How does it relate to Nall's edition in the same series?" This book was first published in 1884, while Nall's was first published in 1895. If they are for different levels of students, I am surprised that they are in the same series of "Elementary Classics." Here is Carnes' description: "A short introduction outlining all that is known of Phaedrus’ life is followed by a selection of 29 fables (pp. 1-20) for school use, from the Müller edition (1877, q.v.), with fairly extensive annotations of a grammatical and stylistic nature, outfitted with exercises from re-translation into Latin. The notes often contain references to other versions of the fables, together with the occasional critical commentary, and complete Latin-English glossaries, and an English-Latin vocabulary with exercises." Carnes mentions a second edition of 1896, but there is no indication of that here. This book seems to indicate that this printing at least is a reprinting of the 1884 edition.

1884/1908 Select Fables of Phaedrus. Edited by A.S. Walpole. Hardbound. Printed in Glasgow. London: Elementary Classics: Macmillan and Co. $15 from B&B Smith Booksellers, Mt. Airy, MD, June, '99.

This is a typical small-format school text of Phaedrus, including exercises and vocabulary both from and into Latin. The twenty-nine fables here are those contained in Siebelis' Tirocinium Poeticum, and the text is that of Lucian Mueller. The notes are sometimes surprisingly critical of Phaedrus. The exercises seem almost to summarize each fable; I gather the student is supposed to translate this English back into Latin. This book was reprinted five times after its first printing.

1884/1929 Aisopeion Mython Synagoge: Fabulae Aesopicae Collectae. Ex Recognitione Caroli Halmii (Carl Halm). Exemplar Photomechanice Iteratum. Hardbound. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner. $28 from Peter Solon, Fullerton, CA, through eBay, Nov., '06.

Here is a good, clothbound version of Halm's work. It is apparently a later photomechanical printing of the 1884 edition. Teubner's advertisements for "Neuerscheinungen" pasted in at the rear of the book include several 1928 editions, and so I guess at 1928 as the date for this printing. This copy was sold by G.E. Stechert and Company in New York. It has stamped on the verso of its title-page "Printed in Germany." On the title-page itself is "Best.-Nr. 1347." I will quote some of my comments from my 1884 copy. The preface is dated 1852. I have several Teubner editions, but I think it would take several more to fill in the tradition that starts with Halm and leads forward to their most recent editions. This edition includes 426 fables, with an AI at the back. I find no apparatus criticus, but there are notes on many fables in the preface.

1884? Selections from Aesop's Fables. [On cover: Select Fables.] Versified by Mrs. Clara Doty Bates. Accompanied by The Standard Translations from the Original Greek. Illustrated by Garrett, Lungren, Hassam, Barnes, Sweeney. London: Pictorial Literature Society. $25 on the Internet from Blue Mountain Books & Manuscripts, Catskill, NY, August, '97.

This book is nearly identical with the two Lothrop versions of 1884. See my comments there. Let me list the differences. The cover and the pre-title-page give Select Fables as the title. There are brown and white decorative endpapers. Before and after the book proper, there are two pages of advertisements for Wells & Coverly Clothiers in Troy, NY. The frontispiece is of "The Cat's Court of Appeals" (featuring the cat, the rabbit, and the weasel adjudicating over house-theft). Where the Lothrop editions on the back of the title-page give a date, this edition gives a picture of a cat in a rocking chair eyeing a mouse on the floor. The T of C, like that in the Lothrop editions, is unusual for giving artists but no page numbers. Of course, there are no page numbers! The condition is, as the bookseller's description points out, only fair.

1884/94? Selections from Aesop's Fables [On cover: Select Fables.] Versified by Mrs. Clara Doty Bates. Accompanied by the Standard Translations from the Original Greek. Illustrated by E.H. Garrett, F.H. Lungren, F. Childe Hassam, George Foster Barnes, M.J. Sweeney. Hardbound. Printed in London: Pictorial Literature Society. $35 from Walk a Crooked Mile Books, Feb., '98.

This book is almost identical with one already listed under this date and publisher. See my comments there. How is it different? It has lost the loose endpapers at both ends matching the inside front and back covers, respectively. It drops the strange advertisements for Wells & Coverly Clothiers. On the front of the frontispiece-page, where that copy had simply "Selected Fables," this book features, of all things, Heighway's pre-title page for his edition of 1894 with Jacobs! Where the back of the "Contents" page there had been blank, here it has Heighway's two scenes of FS embellished with a heavy border. Text-boxes for the fables there were curiously grayed. Here they have no background color. The last story, FK, is completely lost here. Like all the copies of this book that I have seen, this book is fragile and wounded.

1885 Choix de Lectures in Prose et en Vers extraites des classiques Français ou Leçons Abrégées de Littérature et de Morale. Par Mgr Daniel. Illustrations par Girardet et al. Nouvelle Édition. Hardbound. Paris: Librairie Hachette. $5 in exchange with Clare Leeper, July, '96.

This was the very first of the books in Clare Leeper's collection. It is a curious reader, since in each of its two parts -- prose and verse -- it includes first fables (or fables and dialogues), then diverse subjects and then religious subjects. Its author is the "Ancien Évêque de Coutances." Even in 1885, our culture would not have tended to include religion so extensively in a reader. The fable section in prose has several items from Fenelon. Pages 191 to 228 have a number of fables from La Fontaine. The illustrations look as though they are taken chiefly from Girardet. The book is in poor condition. Not only is it disintegrating, but also a number of hands have practised their penmanship on its pages. Here is a little evidence of the serious place fables have taken in at least French culture. 

1885 Cinquante Fables. Extraites de La Fontaine, Florian, Aubert, Le Bailly, etc., etc. Bibliothèque Illustrée des Petits Enfants. No editor or illustrator acknowledged. Paris: Librairie P. Ducrocq. $5 from Imagination Books, Silver Spring, Oct., '91.

A surprise sitting on the kids' shelf. Actually fifty-one fables from seventeen fabulists, most brief and illustrated with nice vignettes. The best art is of the ass and the thieves (13), GGE (28), the travellers and the thieves (39), and the two mules (43). Is it just recognition or the better choice of subjects that perks me up when I come to LaFontaine's fables? Pencil notes. AI at the back.

1885 Fables and Allegories for Young and Old. No author or illustrator. Philadelphia: Charles Foster. $15.

Intricate and lovely designs in a melange of fables, most of which seem overworked. The book is not in good shape.

1885 Fables and Proverbs from the Sanskrit, Being the Hitopadesa.  Translated by Charles Wilkins.  With an Introduction by Henry Morley.  First Edition.  Hardbound.  London: Morley's Universal Library #30:  George Routledge and Sons.  £4.99 from Newton Art and Antiques, London, through eBay, Oct., '14.  

1885 Fables de J. de la Fontaine. Avec des notes et une préface par Décembre-Alonnier. Illustrées de 100 gravures par J. Desandré et W.-H. Freeman. Paris: Bernardin-Béchet et Fils. $7.50 at De Friedesche Molen, Amsterdam, Dec., '88.

A handy little volume of the complete fables. The engravings are very nicely done, but most lack sparkle. The best are of the monkey and dolphin (120) and the miser's hole (135). Identical with Urbino (1870) and Bernardin-Béchet (1875) except for the cover, publisher (in the case of the Urbino edition), printer, and date.

1885 Fables de La Fontaine. M. Félix LeMaistre. Édition illustrée de gravures sur bois d'après les dessins de Staal. Hardbound. Paris: Garnier Frères, Libraires. $4.24 from Mystic Seaport, Charlotte, NC, through eBay, April, '10.

This book seems identical with two others for which I guessed a date of 1910. I will include comments on made on them. Here the printer's acknowledgement at the bottom of the final page is "Paris.--A. Quantin Imprimeur, 7, rue Saint-Benoit. [1053]." Full text of the fables. There are several illustrations per book. Most are smaller replications of Grandville; I believe that one can generally start to catch the difference from Grandville by watching how much is included around the edges. Grandville's larger scenes included more detail. Six of the illustrations are simply different from Grandville's: LM (II 12), "The Ass and the Dog" (IV 5), "The Doctors" (V 12), MM (VII 10), "The Cobbler and the Financier" (VIII 2), and "The Old Man and the Three Young Men" (XI 8). On some I cannot find Staal's signature. All but two of these (IV 5 and V 12) are signed, sometimes along with Staal, by an "Emouard." There is an AI at the back. Half-leather. Marbled endpapers. This book is in very good condition. Besides that, it turned out to be a real bargain! 

1885 Fables de La Fontaine, Vol. I, avec l'Éloge de la Fontaine par Chamfort. Dessins d' Émile Adan gravés à l'eau-forte par Le Rat. Hardbound. Paris: Librairie des Bibliophiles: D. Jouaust. $17.50 from Heartwood, Charlottesville, VA, May, '98. Extra copy for $25 from Titles & Tales, Littleton, NH, by mail, April, '98

Pretty little books with part-calf and part-marbled covers, lovely marbled end-papers, and place-marking ribbons. Le Rat's six illustrations here are I 19 Boy and Pedant, II 17 Peacock and Juno, III 1 MSA, IV 18 Old Man and Sons, V 11 Fortune and the Child, and VI 21 Young Widow. Le Rat's work is familiar to me from the four-volume Jaoust edition of Elizur Wright's translation in 1881. The same pattern that has been destroying those volumes--drying of leather spines after one hundred years--is starting to bother these volumes. Since they have differently designed covers and spines and varying quality of illustrations, I will keep both pairs in the collection. Notes and T of C at the back.

1885 Fables de La Fontaine, Vol. II, avec l'Éloge de la Fontaine par Chamfort. Dessins d' Émile Adan gravés à l'eau-forte par Le Rat. Hardbound. Paris: Librairie des Bibliophiles: D. Jouaust. $17.50 from Heartwood, Charlottesville, VA, April, '98. $25 from Titles & Tales, Littleton, NH, by mail, April, '98.

See my comments on Vol. I. Le Rat's six illustrations here are VII 9 MM, VIII 2 Cobbler and the Financier, IX 9 Oyster and the Litigants, X 10 Fish and the Flute-playing Shepherd, XI 8 Old Man and the Three Young Men, and XII 14 Love and Folly. Notes, Glossary, AI, and T of C at the back. The notes and T of C are just for this volume, while the glossary and AI cover both volumes.

1885 Fables de Phèdre Anciennes et Nouvelles.  Léopold Hervieux.  Paperbound.  Paris: Hachette et Cie.  €40 from Librairie Picard, Paris, August, '14.  

1885 Faules de Isop, Filosof Moral y de Altres Famosos Autors.  Hardbound.  San Gervasi:   Estampa de Torras.  $81 from Monroe Bridge Books, Greenfield, MA, through abe, July, '15.

1885 The Book of Fables: Containing Aesop's Fables. Complete, with text based upon Croxall, La Fontaine and L'Estrange. With Copious Additions from other Modern Authors. Profusely illustrated by Ernest Griset. NY: John B. Alden, Publisher. $12 from Ed Chesko, Delavan, Dec., '95.

This book's closest relative is the edition by the same name in 1880 from the American Book Exchange. See my comments there. Its other close relative is the "Arlington Edition" by Hurst which I have listed under 1899?. With the former it shares the smaller, thinner format. It even has, like it, a slip-sheet between the frontispiece and the title-page. This edition has a lively embossed image on its blue-green cover of a stork eating a frog. Inscribed in (18?)"'87." The placement of the illustrations seems umimportant in these editions. What the "List of Illustrations" (7-8) shows is not where one finds the illustrations but where one finds the stories that go with the illustrations. The "Finis" promised in the list is lacking. "The Blind Man and the Lame Man" shows up as the frontispiece here. The engravings for FK (53) and CP (127) occur twice. If you keep looking under rocks like this book, you find a great deal!

1885 The English Spelling-Book. Accompanied by a progressive series of easy and familiar lessons. William Mavor. Illustrated by Kate Greenaway. Engraved and printed by Edmund Evans. London: George Routledge and Sons. $17 at Bookhouse, Arlington, April, '92.

A wonderful little treasure in terrible condition; the book has no front cover and is falling apart! But at last I get to include some Kate Greenaway in the collection. The book moves from letters to syllables of growing length to words of two and then three syllables. Pages 78-84 present seven fables, six with Greenaway's brown ink illustrations. The fables and their illustrations show a predilection for human subjects. The book moves on to such things as words of nearly the same sound, rules for young shopkeepers, and prayers.

1885 Three Hundred and Fifty Aesop's Fables. Translated by Rev. George Fyler Townsend, M.A. One hundred and fourteen Illustrations designed by Harrison Weir and engraved by J. Greenaway. "Caxton Edition" imprinted on cover. Chicago and NY: Belford, Clarke, and Co. $5.

The paper is drying. Pages 77-80 are lost. There are great advertisements after the last pages.

1885 Two Fables of Aesop With Designs on Wood. By Thomas Bewick. Taken from The Fables of Aesop printed by Ward in London in 1885. Menomonie, WI: 75 hand-set books printed and bound at Vagabond Press of Lloyd Whydotsk. Signed; #42. See 1818/85/1966.

1885/1900 A First Greek Reader. With notes and vocabulary by Charles M. Moss. New Edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. $.25 at Georgetown University Library, Oct., '91.

A nice book of Greek texts as I knew them in my undergraduate days: big print, nice slant, lots of help. Apparently out of nowhere, amid the historical tales, we find FK (21). There is also the story (34-5) of the fox getting the bear to use his tail to catch fish. Thank God for library sales!

1885/1970 Kalilah and Dimna or The Fables of Bidpai. An English Translation of the later Syriac Version after the Text Originally Edited by William Wright, with Critical Notes and Variant Readings. Preceded by an Introduction, Being an Account of Their Literary and Philological History. Ion G.N. Keith-Falconer. Original: Cambridge, England. Reprint: Amsterdam: Philo Press. $37.50 from Carl Sandler Berkowitz, Feb., '95.

This 1970 reprint of the 1885 original is a very careful scholarly translation. It works from Wright's Syriac and so corrects Knatchbull's 1819 translation based on De Sacy's original Arabic from 1816. Note that Jacobs reprinted North's first English translation just three years later in 1888: one would love to know what transpired between Jacobs and Keith-Falconer! This copy happens to contain some very careful marginal notes in pencil (and green highlighting), including especially fable-titles, up to 27 and again a few from 117 on. Do not miss the great Latin title on 19: "Meretrix qua(e) fistulam ano viri imposuit"! Most sections follow the story as I know it from Ramsay Wood and others, including the portions on the lion and the ox and on the crow and his friends. See the T of C on xi and Keith-Falconer's summaries and comments on each of the stories (xxvi-xxxviii). Two long sections are relatively new to me: "Dimnah's Defence" (63-108) and "The Story of the Wise Bilar" (219-47). Keith-Almoner rejects the former, as far as I can understand, as not belonging to the original, as less interesting than any other part of the story, and as preposterously long. In it Dimna is vexed and sorry for what he did; the leopard overhears his confession (64). The mother of the lion prosecutes Dimnah. Dimnah, who is very wordy, tells four stories in his defense, all of low quality: "The Painter and the Unfaithful Woman" (76), "The Ignorant Physician" (93), "The Wife Who Covered Her Loins and the Wife Who Did Not" (97), and "The Two Parrots and the Hawk" (104). Dimnah defends himself adeptly in order to escape punishment. Kalilah counsels confession to Dimnah in prison, goes home, and dies, but yet another overhears Dimnah's confession to Kalilah in prison. In the end both overhearers come forward and Dimnah is sentenced to imprisonment without food. "The Story of the Wise Bilar" (219-47) is summarized well on xxxi-xxxiii. It contains a long interchange between the king and Bilar, in which Bilar is testing the king, who had rashly ordered Bilar to execute his favorite wife, before revealing to the king that he has kept her alive. Here the tortoise and ape (158), not the crocodile and monkey, deal with the heart of the latter as medicine. The versions are often wordy. There is even a nice ribbon with which to mark your place.

1885? Aesop's Fables. Translated by Rev. George Fyler Townsend, M.A. Illustrations designed by Harrison Weir and engraved by J. Greenaway. Chicago: M.A. Donohue. $7 at Time Traveller, June, '87. Second copy almost identical but with grey, larger cover and different advertisements in the back for $7.50 from Keith Pajot at Renaissance, Jan., '90.

Identical with the various editions of Three Hundred and Fifty Aesop's Fables. Better paper. Better illustrations. No pages missing. Advertisements in the back. I will keep it in the collection.

1885? Aesop's Fables. Literally translated from the Greek by Geo. Fyler Townsend, M.A. With nearly one hundred illustrations from designs by Harrison Weir. "Peoples Edition" on the cover. Does not include Krilof's fables. NY: The American News Company. $8.95, Jan., '88.

This book is identical with another entry I put in the same year except that this edition has a different cover (dark blue with some gold tint) and does not include Krilof at the end. Otherwise it is an exact duplicate.

1885? Aesop's Fables. Literally Translated from the Greek. By Geo. Fyler Townsend, M.A. With Nearly One Hundred Illustrations from Designs by Harrison Weir. Hardbound. NY: Peoples Edition: The American News Company. $5 from Clare Leeper, July, '96.

This copy of the Peoples Edition has a different colored cover (brown cloth instead of blue) and has better runs of the illustrations, and so I will include it in the collection. Like it, this book stops dead at 257 with no mention of Krilof. There is an AI at the beginning, followed by a preface.

1885? Aesop's Fables. Literally translated from the Greek by Geo. Fyler Townsend, M.A. With nearly one hundred illustrations from designs by Harrison Weir. "Peoples Edition" on the cover. Includes Krilof's fables, separately paginated. NY: The American News Company. $1.50 at Constant Reader, Summer, '86.

Some day it would be fun to do exact comparisons of all these Townsend editions. This one follows the order in the McLoughlin edition for its pictures for the first twenty pages or so, while varying the non-illustrated fables set around them. It also includes the fables of Krilof, separately paginated, at the end and a life of Aesop at the beginning.

1885? Fairy Land Tales Told Long Ago. Many texts versified by Clara Doty Bates. Various illustrators. NY: F.M. Lupton Publishing Company. $31.50 from Glenn Books, Kansas City, May, '93.

This large-format book with cheap paper presents a potpourri of children's texts and illustration from various genres, with four full-color inserted pages of dressed up children not related to the texts. The black-and-white illustrations suffer throughout from being printed on poor paper. Late in the book we arrive at ten fables, with "Hop o' My Thumb" and "Jack and Jill" interspersed. They are generally identical to ten of the twelve fables found in Selections from Aesop's Fables (1884) published by Lothrop. Seven of the ten keep the prose texts that all had in Lothrop, but they do not simply repeat Lothrop's plates for those. "The Larks and the Farmer" includes a full-page illustration independent of--even foreign to?--the copious other illustrations for this fable here. It changes, for example, the number of young larks. The problem of congruence with story occurs in two inserted pages for TMCM. These three pages were not in the Lothrop edition. Otherwise the illustrations follow the texts well. One can identify the illustrators here most easily by looking at the Lothrop edition's T of C page. Bates amplifies and develops fables so that they occupy five or six pages each. Thus young ants sing, go to school, and use wheelbarrows. The best of the texts may be FS. The most famous illustrator here is Childe Hassam for TMCM. In this version, the country mouse wants to join the town dance in progress!

1885? Original Fables and Sketches. By Mrs. Prosser (Eleanor B.). Hardbound. Printed in London. London: The Leisure Hour Office. £6 from Abbey Antiquarian, Winchcombe, UK, by mail, Sept., '98.

There are seventy-five moralistic tales here. They seem to be at least largely the same as the seventy-three tales I count in Fables for the Young Folks from the American Tract Society, which I have dated to "1900?" I did not find the selection that I read any more fetching this time than I did last! This volume adds eighteen items in a second section "Tales and Sketches" beginning on 94. There are four full-page black-and-white illustrations here, none of them relating to the fables, as far as I can tell. They face the title-page and are on 96, 157, and 221.

1885? Original Fables and Sketches.  By Mrs. Prosser (Eleanor B.).  Hardbound.  London: (The Leisure Hour Library): The Leisure Hour Office.  $27 from Olmstead Books, Oct., '18.

1885? The Fables of Aesop. (J.B. Rundell). With forty-five illustrations by Billinghurst and others and ten original colored plates. Heighway (NA). Hardbound. NY and Boston: Caldwell's Juvenile classics: H.M. Caldwell Company. $25 from Clare Leeper, July, '96.

This is an unusual volume. Be careful! It borrows the cover, title-page format, and ten colored illustrations from another version by the same publisher and even in the same series (Three Hundred Aesop's Fables). But the texts and the other illustrations are different. The texts here are the basic JBR collection that usually travels under a title like The Book of Fables: Containing Aesop's Fables. Complete, with text based upon Croxall, La Fontaine and L'Estrange. With Copious Additions from other Modern Authors. As in the fullest version of that collection, a second section of "Later Fables" is included. The order of some of the texts may have changed, perhaps to fit with illustrations. The basic illustrations that usually accompany that set of texts come from Ernst Griset. But here the illustrations are taken from two other artists. First, there are some forty-five taken from Percy Billinghurst. I have searched in vain for another edition that takes forty-five -- rather than seventy-five or a hundred -- of Billinghurst's illustrations. Then, for fun, there is a scattering of the illustrations of Richard Heighway, as on 96, 148, and 200. Both of these sets of full-page, black-and-white illustrations are done on heavier paper. Because the ten colored images can be hard to find, I will list them here: the quack frog (? -- frontispiece); LM (42); the fox and the woodcutter (64); the ass and his master (70); the woodsman and his axe (78); the goat (120); the calf and the dog (142); the turkey-cock and her young ones (168); a village scene (184); and Aesop, the cock, and three men (230). Here is one more time where I was fooled into thinking that a unique book was just a duplicate of one which I already had. T of C at the beginning, Editor's Preface, and a Life of Aesop. Sixteen pages of advertisements at the end.

1885? Three Hundred Aesop's Fables. Literally translated from the Greek by the Rev. Geo. Fyler Townsend, M.A. With one hundred and fourteen illustrations by Harrison Weir. Hardbound. London: The Excelsior Series: George Routledge and Sons. £8 from Rose's, Hay-on-Wye, June, '98.

Routledge first printed fifty of Weir's illustrations with a Townsend translation of 300 fables in 1865, and in 1867 expanded the book to include 114 illustrations. See my comments on that edition under 1867. Routledge produced a number of derivative editions, apparently always staying with 300 fables, while others (like Donohue) added some Croxall texts for a total of 350 fables. Here is one of Routledge's follow-up volumes, this one distinguished by being in the Excelsior Series, as the cover and front end-papers proclaim. This is a tight book with some foxing but good runs on the illustrations. In pagination and layout it is a nearly exact match for the 1867 edition. Both the Ludgate and NY addresses have changed on the title page, for example, but little else is different. One can see the breakup of a printing plate on the last number at the lower right on the last page (224). The "5" there is losing its top line. The spine, as is typical for these Weir editions, reads only "Aesop's Fables" without any mention of a number. Check my comments on the similar copies under "1885?/1900?"

1885? Three Hundred Aesop's Fables. Literally translated from the Greek by the Rev. Geo. Fyler Townsend. With 50 illustrations by Harrison Weir. London: George Routledge and Sons. $5 at Baltimore Antiquarian Fair, Sept., '91.

The transmutations on this book keep multiplying! This particular copy, in very poor shape, is closest to my 1885?/95? edition of same title, but is smaller, mentions only London, and places the fifty illustrations differently--though it lists them, in the illustration list at front and AI at the back, on plates whose print is identical. Many pages of advertisements at the back. The frontispiece is missing and the cover separated.

1885? Three Hundred Aesop's Fables. Literally translated from the Greek by the Rev. George Fyler Townsend. With 50 illustrations by Harrison Weir. Hardbound. London: George Routledge and Sons, Limited. $15 from Hawthorne Blvd. Books, Portland, July, '00.

Here is the fifth version I have found of this book by Routledge! It is closest to that listed under "1885?/90?" but differs from it in several ways. The cover here presents an illustration in blue and orange of a young man sitting on a table and reading a book. If there ever was a frontispiece, it is gone. New York is not mentioned as one of the locations for Routledge. The format of this book (5 1/8" x 7 3/8") is slightly larger than the format of that red-covered book. While the title-page is typeset differently, the rest of the book appears to be done from the same plates as that book. The inside front-cover features a bookdealer's mark from K. Kawase, with plenty of Oriental script. The end-paper facing it has a nicely-designed chop mark. The fables are surrounded by the usual preface, life of Aesop, and list of illustrations before and AI after. Neither of these books seems to follow the pagination-scheme which Bodemann describes for the first edition in 1865.

1885? Three Hundred Aesop's Fables Literally Translated from the Greek (And One Hundred Picture Fables with Rhymes). Rev. George Fyler Townsend, M.A. With six full-page colored plates and one hundred and fourteen woodcuts designed by Harrison Weir. Hardbound. NY, London, and Manchester: George Routledge and Sons. From Clare Leeper, July, '96, who paid $85 for it to Cellar of Books, Eugene, OR.

This is a double book, though the original title-page makes no mention of the second volume that is bound with it. Compare with a Donohue, Henneberry edition by the same title (1885?) and a Caldwell edition of the same title (1885?/1900). This edition does the math better than some similar editions on how many colored pictures there are. It also gets Townsend's middle name right. The second volume's title-page includes "By Otto Specter. With four full-page colored plates and one hundred wood-cuts."

1885? Three Hundred Aesop's Fables Literally Translated from the Greek (And One Hundred Picture Fables with Rhymes). Rev. George Fyler Townsend, M.A. With six full-page colored plates and one hundred and fourteen woodcuts designed by Harrison Weir. Hardbound. NY, London, and Manchester: George Routledge and Sons. $6.75 from From Clare Leeper, July, '96.

This copy with a gray and red cover is identical otherwise with a blue and red covered double book already listed here. As in that book, the first title-page makes no mention of the second volume that is bound with it. Compare also with a Donohue, Henneberry edition by the same title (1885?) and a Caldwell edition of the same title (1885?/1900). This edition does the math better than some similar editions on how many colored pictures there are. It also gets Townsend's middle name right. The second volume's title-page includes "By Otto Speckter. With four full-page colored plates and one hundred wood-cuts." This copy is missing two pages (81-82), which have been xeroxed and inserted.

1885? Three Hundred Aesop's Fables and One Hundred Picture Fables. With five full-page colored plates and two hundred and fourteen wood cuts. Designed by Harrison Weir. NY: George Routledge and Sons. $20 at Jackson Street Booksellers, Feb., '93.

A strange combination of two books bound together. The Three Hundred portion is identical with my Routledge 1885?/1904 edition; both have 114 illustrations, though that one has different full-page illustrations. Townsend is not acknowledged here as editor. The Speckter section is identical with my 1858 and 1879? editions; the illustrations are not printed as well as they are in Picture Fables (1858). The author (Hey), translator (Dulcken), and engravers (Brothers Dalziel) are no longer acknowledged. Here is a conundrum: the frontispiece of a town street scene is a colored version of the black/white frontispiece of Picture Fables (1858). So: did Speckter do all the colored illustrations? If so, the title page quoted in the first portion of this entry is misleading, to say the least. The other four colored illustrations are of LM (48); the woodman and the fox (144); the calf and the dog (224); and three men, Aesop, and a cock (Speckter section, 84). There is an index for Three Hundred on 221-4. The book is in excellent condition. There is an infinite regress set up by the binding's design, which pictures a boy reading this book with its picture of a boy reading this book....

1885? Three Hundred and Fifty Aesop's Fables. Translated by Rev. George Fyler Townsend. One hundred and fourteen Illustrations designed by Harrison Weir and engraved by J. Greenaway. Chicago: Donohue, Henneberry. $10 from Keith Pajot of Renaissance, Jan., '90.

Identical with the Belford edition but in better shape. The pages have unfortunately browned. "The Thief and His Mother" (95) would be great in a better copy. There is a great illustration of DLS (211).

1885? Three Hundred and Fifty Aesop's Fables. Rev. George Fyler Townsend. With one hundred and fourteen illustrations, designed by Harrison Weir and engraved by J. Greenaway. Hardbound. Chicago: Donohue, Henneberry. $10 from an unknown source, Feb., '11.

I have a copy of this book from Keith Pajot of Renaissance, which I found in 1990. Now, twenty-one years later, I find another copy. I am trying to keep any book in the collection which has the slightest difference from another. This book has just that: the slightest difference. Whereas that title-page spoke of Donohue, Henneberry & Co on "407 to 425 Dearborn St., Chicago," this title-page speaks of "407-429 Dearborn Street." It does not mention Chicago. The firm swallowed another couple of businesses in the meantime! And, in the meantime, the "8" on the last page's "288" has become a bit broken. This is a well worn copy with a blue cloth cover, impressed with the same design as that red-covered copy. As I mentioned of the Renaissance copy, this book is identical with the Belford edition. "The Thief and His Mother" (95) would be great in a better copy. There is a great illustration of DLS (211). I have no idea where I found this book or was given it!

1885? Three Hundred and Fifty Aesop's Fables. Rev. Geo. Fyler Townsend. One hundred and fourteen illustrations designed by Harrison Weir. Chicago: Donohue Brothers. $6 from Charles Garvin, Portland, July, '93; this copy has a tan cover. Extra copy for $10 from the Eucharistic Missionaries, June, '87; this copy has a simple red cover, good paper, satisfactory illustrations, and advertisements in the back. Another extra copy for $3.50 with an embossed grape cover and poorer paper.

The same as the 1885 Belford and Donohue editions of the same name, except that the title page is printed differently and Greenaway is not mentioned.

1885?/87? Three Hundred Aesop's Fables. Literally translated from the Greek by the Rev. Geo. Fyler Townsend. With 50 illustrations by Harrison Weir. Hardbound. London: George Routledge and Sons. $30 from Old Erie Bookstore, April, '99.

Once again I bought a book that I thought I had already, and it turns out to be different. In this case, this book is very much like two others that I already have. All share the same publisher, title-page, and printing plates. I have guessed at "1885?" for the first and "1885?/90?" for the second. With the first, this book shares a smaller format (about 4½" x 6½") and pages of advertisements at the end. This book is in much better condition than that. That book has a brown/red cloth cover with "Aesop's Fables" in gold in a central circle. This book has a remnant of a child's picture pasted onto a green cover with a title in gold above the picture. The second book by comparison is larger in format (5¼" x 7¼") and has an ornate red cover with Weir's WC illustration done in gold in a panel. The cover gives not only the title and Townsend's name but adds "Every Boy's Library." That book has much larger margins, especially toward the binding. It shares with our book the colored frontispiece (perhaps formerly also in the "1885?" copy but now lost) of the wolf standing before the goat on the roof. This book begins the fables on 9 and so is 22 pages off from that book, which begins the fables on 31.

1885?/90? Three Hundred Aesop's Fables. Literally translated from the Greek by the Rev. George Fyler Townsend. With 50 illustrations by Harrison Weir. London and NY: George Routledge and Sons. $12 at Tolbooth Books in Edinburgh, July, '92.

This lovely little book in fine condition is very close to the Townsend/Weir Three Hundred that I have put at 1885?/1895?, but there are several differences. Slightly smaller in its dimensions, this volume has a bright red and gold cover with one of Weir's illustrations (WC) featured in a banner. The cover identifies this series: "Every Boy's Library." There is a fine colored frontispiece (unique among Weir's books?) of the goat on the roof above the wolf. The paper is high quality and the runs of the Weir illustrations are the best that I have seen. These two versions differ from my other Three Hundred versions by using only fifty of Weir's illustrations and acknowledging that he did them. List of illustrations at the front, AI at the back.

1885?/95? Three Hundred Aesop's Fables. Literally translated from the Greek by the Rev. George Fyler Townsend. With 50 illustrations by Harrison Weir. London and NY: George Routledge and Sons. $5.95 at Brattle Books, June, '91.

My, how the late nineteenth century pumped out the Aesops! This one differs from my two other Three Hundred versions by using only fifty of Weir's illustrations (very well done here) and acknowledging that he did them. List of illustrations at the front, AI at the back. All the texts seem to be presented in this edition, but not in the same order as in the others. In a series of $.60 children's volumes.

1885?/1900? Three Hundred Aesop's Fables. Literally translated from the Greek by the Rev. Geo. Fyler Townsend, M.A. With one hundred and fourteen illustrations by Harrison Weir. London: George Routledge and Sons. $9.35 tightly bound in green cover from Bargain Bookstore, San Diego, Aug., '93. Extra copy with same cover and spine designs but in reddish brown for $11.25 from Antiques And..., Hastings, March, '94.

I cannot believe that I have found yet another version of this book--in two different forms! I did not know how distinct each was when I was buying them. Closest to the 1885?/1904? Routledge version, except that the present volumes lack the four colored pictures prominent in the other. The other parallel book is from McLoughlin (1883?). The many other versions all have 50, not 114, illustrations. The good copy was originally sold in Salt Lake City. The extra copy's binding has cracked at 48. Both copies have nice engravings.

1885?/1900? Three Hundred Aesop's Fables. Rev. George Fyler Townsend, M.A.. With one hundred and fourteen illustrations designed by Harrison Weir and engraved by J. Greenaway. Hardbound. London: George Routledge and Sons. $15 from Powell's, Portland, July, '08.

This copy is nearly identical with one I had found at Bargain Bookstore, San Diego, in 1993. As I note there, many other versions have 50, not 114, illustrations. Unlike some similar versions from Routledge, this -- like that from Bargain Bookstore -- does not have four colored pictures. This version's difference is that it twice specifies its printer, "R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor" -- first on the verso of the title-page and then on the bottom of the last AI page, 224. This version has firm paper, though not as firm as that in the Bargain Bookstore copy. Finally, this version lacks the frontispiece of an old man and a youth. It does have marbled boards for covers, with a leather spine and cover-corners.

1885?/1900? Three Hundred Aesop's Fables. (And One Hundred Picture Fables with Rhymes bound behind it without acknowledgement at the book's beginning.) Literally Translated from the Greek by the Rev. Geo. Tyler (sic) Townsend. With one hundred and fourteen woodcuts designed by Harrison Weir and ten original colored plates. Caldwell's Juvenile Classics. NY: H.M. Caldwell Company. (Rear title page continues: by Otto Speckter. With Four Full-page Colored Plates and One Hundred Wood-cuts.) $25 from Yesterday's Memories, June, '93. And an extra copy with the plates rearranged for $40 from Venice Antiques, March, '95.

This is a strange book. Its closest relative is Three Hundred Aesop's Fables and One Hundred Picture Fables (1885?). But this edition's title page does not acknowledge the presence of the second book. It does reproduce the five colored plates and five more. Those listed there are found here as the first frontispiece (LM), 96 (the fox and the woodcutter), 202 (Aesop, the cock, and three men: what fable is this?), the second frontispiece (a village scene), and 20 of the Speckter section (the calf and the dog; see 109). The new illustrations are of the woodsman and his axe (36), the ass and his master (88), the quack frog (170, excellent; the latter two match Griset's black-and-white works on 121 and 125 in McLoughlin's Aesop Fables [1900?]), the turkey-cock and her young ones (50; see 51), and the goat (70; see 71). The printing of Weir's work is better than usual. The spine is weak. Note the misspelling of Townsend's middle name and the listing of ten colored plates on the first title page (true for the whole volume) and of four in the Speckter section (true of that section). The yellow cover presents the book's third LM illustration.

1885?/1904 Three Hundred Aesop's Fables. Literally translated from the Greek by the Rev. Geo. Fyler Townsend, M.A. With four plates printed in colours, and one hundred and fourteen illustrations by Harrison Weir. London: George Routledge and Sons. $38 at Marchpane, Cecil Court, July, '92.

Closest to the McLoughlin (1885?) versions of the same title, this volume differs by its red cover with a girl holding a bird (Aesopic?), its four colored illustrations by Weir, and its excellent prints of the illustrations. The preface is much longer, the life of Aesop slightly larger. The pagination of the fables is ten pages short throughout, since this book starts its fables on 1 while that starts them on 11. There are colored illustrations of the woman and the hen (frontispiece), the wild boar and the fox (82), the game-cocks and the partridge (170), and the ass and the horse (202).

1885?/1910? Aesop's Fables. Literally translated from the Greek by Rev. George Fyler Townsend, M.A. With illustrations designed by Harrison Weir and engraved by J. Greenaway. Fairy Book Library. Chicago: M.A. Donohue. $12 at Yesterday's Memories, June, '93.

Identical with the first 184 pages of the edition I have listed under "1885?." This edition presents an unusual example of one book created by cutting off another. The engravings are very inky. The spine is falling apart. There is only one page of advertisements at the back.

1885?/1910? Three Hundred Aesop's Fables/One Hundred Picture Fables (Cover: Aesop's Fables: Colored Illustrations). Rev. Geo. Tyler (sic) Townsend/Otto Speckter (sic). Harrison Weir/Otto Speckter. Hardbound. Philadelphia: David McKay. $20 from Clare Leeper, July, '96.

This book is similar to one edition published by Donohue, Hennebery and to two by Routledge (all listed under "1885?"). The difference is that this McKay volume uses the front title-page to announce both books that are bound together here. Notice the error in Townsend's middle name. Notice how the title-page presents Speckter, who is an engraver: "With Rhymes by Otto Speckter"! The internal title-page says "One Hundred Picture Fables with Rhymes by Otto Speckter." That global reference could be read accurately. The frontispiece color-illustration is missing here, the illustration at 96 has separated from the binding, and the front cover is becoming separated. The black-and-white illustrations seem less vigorous than in the Routledge copies. Should one assume that this McKay edition is a knock-off using the Routledge plates?

1885?/2010 Three Hundred Aesop's Fables: Illustrated Facsimile Edition. Literally translated from the Greek by the Rev. Geo. Fyler Townsend, M.A. With one hundred and fourteen illustrations by Harrison Weir. Paperbound. Rockville, MD: Wildside Press LLC. AUD$26.49 from The Nile.au.com, through eBay, Nov., '10.

Here is a recent "print upon demand" copy of Townsend's famous edition, with a lively cartoon LM illustration on the cover. This copy does an excellent job with the Weir illustrations. There is little inside the book to indicate its derivative character -- perhaps only three lines on the last page. I suppose there is value in reprinting such a book and charging almost $30 for it.

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1886 Aesop's Fables in Words of One Syllable. By Mary Godolphin. Printed in the Learners' Style of Phonography, or Phonetic Shorthand. By Isaac Pitman. First edition. London: Fred. Pitman. Sold with The Phonographic Teacher: Pitman's Shorthand or Phonography, London: Isaac Pitman and Sons, 1890. $35 by mail from Harold M. Burstein, Nov., '93.

A handy little paperbound booklet comprising thirty-seven fables done, apparently, in straightforward fashion. I tried comparing the book with my 1919/30 Graded Readings in Gregg Shorthand, but I could find only one common story (MM). When I checked to see if the text was the same, I discovered of course that Pitman and Gregg have different systems. Here is another treasure on the unusual side. This is the second of four Pitman-Godolphin pamphlets I have from various years. In this one, the London publisher is Fred. Pitman at 20 & 21 Paternos Row, E.C., and the Bath publisher is Isaac Pitman & Sons, Phonetic Institute. There is also a New York publisher: Fowler & Wells Co. The price is still sixpence, and there are still 48 pages.

1886 Alte und Neue Geschichten von den Lieben Tieren, Lehrreich und Ergötzlich für Jung und Alt, Poetisch Dargestellt. Von J. Fabulator. Hardbound. Hildesheim: J. Kornacher. DM 40 from Wolfenbüttel, July, '01.

There are forty fables here on 141 pages. The book's approach seems somewhat standardizing. Fables and other similar stories are put into five-line rhyming stanzas (aabbc ddeec). I am not sure that it necessarily helps a fable to be put into a standardizing verse scheme like this one. And what is the purpose of the circumlocution in the title: "Old and New Stories of the Dear Animals, Full of Learning and Amusement" written by Fabulator? Why not just come out and call the texts fables? The script is Gothic throughout. There is a T of C on 143-44.

1886 Bewick's Select Fables of Aesop and Others. Texts by Oliver Goldsmith? Thomas Bewick. Essay on fable by Oliver Goldsmith. Hardbound. London: Bickers and Son. Anonymous gift, Jan., '10.

This book seems to be the third reprint of Bewick's work to have appeared about the same time. I have copies from Bickers in 1871 and Longmans in 1878. As I mention there, the simple wood engravings are lovely. Good examples are TT (7) and DS (87). This is a reprint of Bewick's 1784 edition, as the title-page points out. It should not be confused with Bewick's 1818 classic work The Fables of Aesop, and Others, with Designs on Wood. There is a tripartite AI at the back corresponding to the three parts of the work: "Fables Extracted from Dodsley's"; "Fables with Reflections in Prose and Verse"; and "Fables in Verse." The title-page also points out that the life of Aesop and Oliver Goldsmith's essay upon fable. The spine is becoming loose. Foxing. A few annotations. The book formerly belong to L.C. Elger. Inserted is an article from The Listener of 5 December 1946 on Thomas Bewick.

1886 Choix de Fables de J. de La Fontaine. Illustrations by Gustave Doré NA. Hardbound. Paris: Bibliothèque des Écoles et des Familles: Hachette. £18 from Thornton's of Oxford by mail, Nov., '98.

Ninety-two fables with the head-pieces and tail-pieces of Doré but none of his full-page illustrations. The front cover is separating. T of C at the end. The red leather and gilt pages all around are the most remarkable features of this book.

1886 Fables.  James H. Aveling.  Hardbound.  London: Longmans, Green, and Co.  $4.67 from Zubal Books, Cleveland, through ABE, Dec., '16.

1886 Fables and Proverbs from the Sanskrit, Being the Hitopadesa. Translated by Charles Wilkins. With an Introduction by Henry Morley. Second Edition. Hardbound. London: Morley's Universal Library #30: George Routledge and Sons. $20 from David Morrison Books, Portland, OR, July, '00. Extra copies for $19.95 from Richard Strignano, Oneonta, NY, through Ebay, Sept., '00 and for $17.50 from The Archives Book Shop, East Lansing, MI, Sept., '00.

After spending significant time on the third edition, published in 1888, I am happy to find that I also have three copies of the second edition. The first copy is in the best condition. Its front cover is starting to separate. It has the same green cloth cover and smooth white spine with gold print as one of the copies of the third printing. The cover of the second copy is plain green cloth, with gold lettering on the spine. It belonged to Dweight Edwards Marvin. There are in it frequent pencil lines next to paragraphs. The third copy is covered in gray cloth with no markings or words other than a label reading "265." Its paper is very brittle. Otherwise that book is in good condition. I will keep all three in the collection. See my extensive comments under the third edition.

1886 Fables de Florian.  Dessins d'Émile Adan.  Avec une Préface par Honoré Bonhomme.  Limited edition of 245.  Hardbound.  Paris: Petite Bibliothèque Artistique:  Éditions  Jouaust.  €50 from Librairie de l'Avénue, August, '14.  

1886 Fables de Florian.  Dessins d'Émile Adan.  Avec une Préface par Honoré Bonhomme.  Limited edition of 270.  Paperbound.  Paris: Petite Bibliothèque Artistique: Éditions Jouaust.  $24.01 from Le Beau Livre, Les Bains, France, through Abebooks, Oct., '23.

1886 Les Fables de La Fontaine Filtrées. Aurélien Scholl. Illustrations de E. Grivaz. First edition, limited printing. Paperbound. Paris: E. Dentu. €150 from Librairie La Poussière du Temps, Dec., '04.

Here is a worthy member of this collection! Twenty-two of La Fontaine's fables are "filtered" into modern times. Each is accompanied by a serious black-and-white illustration protected by a slipsheet. In the first of the fables, the crow from FC answers the fox that he has already learned the lesson from losing an earlier cheese. In CA, the worm turns. The grasshopper does dance, so successfully that she becomes rich, while the ants' nest is flooded. The ant asks the passing grasshopper for a gift. What did you do when you were rich? "I gathered and hoarded." "How charming. Die now!" The banker gives Grégoire the shoemaker 100 ecus. With it Grégoire buys a machine that turns out shoes by the hundreds. Discounts mean more customers. Now he has hired a hundred cobblers, and they are all singing. The result for the financier? He moves! The thief breaks into the house where a man is disappointed at his wife's coldness. "Come into my arms and I will protect you." She escapes and runs off with the thief! This illustration is particularly well done. The farmer's daughter falls in love with the declawed and toothless lion. Bodemann's correct. The illustrations present a picture of modish life in late nineteenth-century Paris. They are a serious contribution to the La Fontaine tradition. I am glad that this book made it into Bodemann. It deserves it! 

1886 Les Fables de La Fontaine pour Bebe.  Emile Guérin.  After Oudry. Hardbound.  Paris: Bibliothèque de Bébé: Théodore Lefèvre et Cie.  $40 from Thyl Eulenspiegel, Olympia, WA, through eBay, March, ‘18.

1886 Les Fables de La Fontaine pour Bébé.  Émile Guérin.  Illustrations after Oudry.  Hardbound.  Paris: Bibliothèque de Bébé: Théodore Lefèvre et Cie.  $25 from Raymond Kostrzewa, Lambertville, NJ, through eBay, May, '18.

1886 Mistura Curiosa. Being a Higgle Piggle of Scotch, Irish, English Ginger, Golfing, Curling Comic Serious and Sentimental Odds and Ends of Rhymes and Fables by F. Crucelli (identified by hand on the title page as Dr. J. A. Sidey, a Monk of St. Giles) with illustrations by Charles A. Doyle and John Smart. Edinburgh: Maclachlan and Stewart. $50 from Beauregard Books, Baton Rouge, Feb., '92.

A truly crazy book! Verse throughout, including plenty of romantic poetry set to well known "airs." Lots of idiomatic Scots dialect, and plenteous references to curling. The illustrations are fetching but too tiny. The title page is a wonder of palindromic art on its own. The six fables elaborate their stories over several pages, with at least one illustration each. They include "The Bear and the Bees" (12), "The Wolf and the Child" (40), FG (64, with a very good illustration), "The Sheep and the Crow" (106, differently told: there is no reference to an eagle or lamb), TH (122, which features several young hares), and FC (162, in which the fox offers lozenges and the crow speaks at first without losing the cheese). This last fable ends with a nice pun: "For to that cheese he had no right/Unless it had been left." The book's spine is unfortunately weak.

1886 Phaedri Augusti Liberti Fabulae Aesopiae. Recognovit et praefatus est Lucianus Mueller. Hardbound. Leipzig: Teubner. $11.05 from Don Nash, Plymouth, MA, through eBay, August, '05.

This book seems to reproduce the one which I have listed under 1876, right down to the page count. I will repeat my comments from there. This is one of the many printings under Number 620 in Carnes' Phaedrus bibliography. Here is Carnes' description: "One of the most successful editions of Phaedrus, a school edition, by Müller (1836-1898), with a short introduction `De Phaedri vita et scriptis' in three parts: an introduction to Phaedrus, recognition of his debt to the Dressler edition, together with an overview of Phaedrus' metrics. The third part deals with textual questions and emendations, especially where they differ from Dressler. Grammatical notes and glosses, a much reduced text as compared to Müller's critical edition (Müller 1877)." I emphasize that there are no comments or elucidations after or beneath the text. It is indeed much reduced when compared with his important Teubner text of 1877. xiv + 66 pages.

1886 Römische Fabeldichter: 2. Bändchen: Aesopische Fabeln des Phädrus. Metrisch übersetzt und mit Anmerkungen begleitet von Dr. H.J. Kerler. Paperbound. Zweite Auflage. Stuttgart: Römische Dicht. 25: J.B. Metzlersche Buchhandlung. DM 5 from Antiquariat Friedrich Welz, Heidelberg, August, '01.

This pamphlet comprises Books 3-5 of Phaedrus. It thus picks up where the translations in Pamphlet 24 B left off. And its pagination picks up at 113, at the very point at which that edition left off. However, this book has several elements not found there, especially the extensive Anmerkungen (162-202). Notice that the cover and title-page here mention the metric translation and the comments, neither of which was mentioned in the other pamphlet. This book gives a printer and a date of publication, neither of which are found there. I had guessed at 1880 for that pamphlet's date. Two things I mentioned there still apply to this pamphlet. First, it is amazing that it still exists! Secondly, the list of available translations of classical authors, found on the inside front cover and both sides of the back cover, is impressive.

1886 The Fables of Jean de La Fontaine. Translated into English Verse by Walter Thornbury. To which is added an essay on his life and works; also, the life of Aesop, the Phrygian. Profusely illustrated by Gustave Doré. The Art Edition. Philadelphia: Pictorial Publishing Company. $50 from Greg Williams, June, '97.

Compare this with the "Amies Standard Art Edition" I have listed under "1880?." See my comments there. This edition changes publishers (but not city) from Amies to Pictorial and the cover stock from olive to dark blue. It also adds printer's numbers at the bottom of e.g., xiii and xlv. It avoids the problem that the Amies edition had with 665. The back cover of this book is identical with the front, except that it has no gold or silver inlay. The book is in the running for two prizes in my collection: the best cover and the greatest weight!

1886 The Marvelous Library, No. 45: Aesop's Fables. Thomas James, not acknowledged. Paperbound. Philadelphia, PA: Franklin News Company. $20 from Jeannine Williams, Middletown, NY, through eBay, Dec., '12.

Here is a curious piece of preserved ephemera. It is a 16-page oversized (8¼" x 11⅝") pamphlet with a thread binding. After its masthead -- including a single number price of five cents -- and a title, Aesop's Fables, there is a long three-column series of Thomas James' 1848 fables and morals. Nothing but page headers and numbers relieves the series! My estimate would be that there are some 160 fables presented here. The back cover features advertisements for only two things: Ziegler and Company Publishers and Franklin News Company, which have the same address in Philadelphia. My, where Aesop does not show up!

1886 The New Franklin Second Reader.  Loomis J. Campbell.  Hardbound.  NY/Chicago: Washington State Edition: Sheldon and Company.  $6.50 from Hawthorne Blvd. Books, Portland, June, '03.  

Previously, I had found the third reader, listed under the same date.  This well used copy of the second reader contains "The Cat and the Rat" (14), LM (21), "The Fox and the Rabbits" (33), "The Two Goats" (142), and "The Bear and the Kettle" (170).  In "The Cat and the Rat," a new development interrupts the usual dialogue about waiting to eat the rat until he is larger; that is, a dog shows up, and the cat runs away.  LM has two illustrations, one slightly overlaid on the other; this may be the simplest text version of LM I have seen.  "The Fox and the Rabbits" is all talk; the rabbits dismiss the fox when he has asked them out to find turnip tops.  The two goats cooperate with each other, one by lying down, to negotiate the narrows; this fable is well illustrated.  Many pages are either torn or soiled.  "The Bear and the Kettle" is a good, simple story that is new to me.  The bear wandering into the empty hut burns first his nose, then his hands, and then his feet as he deals with the kettle of boiling water.  Then he roars and so alerts the townsfolk, who come and shoot him.

1886 The New Franklin Third Reader. By Loomis J. Campbell. No illustrator acknowledged. NY: Sheldon and Company. $2 in Omaha, Nov., '89.

Simple old kids' reader with two fables unillustrated: SW (79) and TH (103).

1886 Three Hundred and Fifty Aesop's Fables. Literally Translated from the Greek by the Rev. George Fyler Townsend, M.A. With One Hundred and Fourteen Illustrations, Designed by Harrison Weir, and Engraved by J. Greenaway. "Caxton Edition" imprinted on cover. Hardbound. Chicago and NY: Belford, Clarke, and Co. $10 from Jacque Mongelli, Warwick, NY, through Bibliofind, Oct., '98.

See my other "Caxton Edition" copies from 1884 and 1885. 288 pages, including fables and an AI, as in all Belford copies. No advertisements at the back. The illustrations here are typically ink-heavy and have bled. The cover design has changed to include a quotation from Carlyle: "May blessings be upon the head of Cadmus, the Phoenicians, or whoever it was that invented books." Inscribed in 1886 and again in 1959.

1886/96 Les Fables de La Fontaine pour Bébé. Éditeur Emile Guérin. Illustrations after Oudry. Oversized. Cloth spine. Bibliothèque de Bébé. Paris: Théodore Lefèvre et Cie. $40 from Abbey Antiquarian Books, Winchcombe, UK, June, '00.

Here is a beautiful oversized (12½" x 10") book containing twenty-two color plates after Oudry. They really are striking. As the description from Abbey points out, the subtle coloring is very close in appearance to hand coloring. Do not miss the clothes on the shepherd capturing the crow who thinks that he is an eagle. Another excellent specimen is "L'Huitre et les Plaideurs" towards the end of the book. The color brings Oudry's work alive! Each left-hand page except the last is a full-page illustration, while each right-hand page contains text. Cloth spine and pictorial boards. On the cover children stand with animals around a pastoral bust of La Fontaine.

1886/1903? Les Fables de La Fontaine pour Bebe.  Emile Guérin.  Illustrations after Oudry.  Canvas bound.  Paris: Bibliothèque de Bébé: Théodore Lefèvre et Cie.  $40 from Thyl Eulenspiegell, Olympia, WA, through Ebay, March, '18.

1886/1903? Les Fables de La Fontaine pour Bebe.  Emile Guérin.  Illustrations after Oudry.  Canvas bound.  Paris: Bibliothèque de Bébé: Théodore Lefèvre et Cie.  $14 from Arroyo Seco Books, Pasadena, CA, through Biblio, Nov., '20.

1886/1973 1,000 Quaint Cuts. Reprint edition. Andrew White Tuer. Dust jacket. Original: London: Field & Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, etc. Reprint: NY: Art Direction Book Company. $55 by mail from Oak Knoll, Nov., '95.

The cuts really are quaint. Notice the wonderful, sharp detail in Mother Hubbard, for example, on 1-2. There may be three fable illustrations on 70-71. There are nothing but fable illustrations on 150-61. It is certainly a shame not to have notes, for many of these woodcuts illustrate fables of which I am not aware. "Hercules and the Carter," DM, and "The Farmer and the Snake" seem to be particularly popular. Are those the two servant-girls killing the rooster on 155? Among my favorites are the gentleman monkey (159), "the master's eye" (160), and the goat at the barber's shop (161). A very nice book.

1886? California State Series of School Text-Books: Second Reader. No authors or illustrators acknowledged. Compiled under the direction of the State Board of Education: Inscribed in 1895. Sacramento: The State Printing Office. $12.50 at Book Alley, Pasadena, Feb., '97.

Nine standard fables well told. FC (41) has a good text but no illustration, and DM (74) has no illustration but a good contemporary parallel for a child. "The Cats and the Cheese" (133), "The Fox and the Goat" (139), "FS (156, with two lovely silhouettes), "The Larks and the Farmer" (195, with a mother lark that laughs when she hears on the second day that the farmer will bring his uncles and cousins), LM (201, with mice that knowingly play on top of the lion and a lion that is caught months later), "Making a Cat's Paw" (224, about chestnuts in the fire), and FWT (262), all with black-and-white illustrations. There is also a fable-like story of a clever fox who sends sticks down the river before he comes after the ducks with stick-camouflage (110).Good condition.

1887 Aesop's Fables: A New Revised Version From Original Sources. With Upwards of 200 Illustrations by Harrison Wier (sic), John Tenniel, Ernest Griset and Others. No editor acknowledged. On cover: "Franklin Edition." Inscribed in 1886. NY: Worthington Company. $17.50 at Eric Cline, Santa Monica, Aug., '93.

Almost identical with the 1884 Allison edition. This book has a different cover and no gilt edges. See my extensive comments there. The next in this tradition then is the thinner Phoenix edition of 1892. I think this is my first experience of a book that was inscribed before it was published!

1887 Aesop's Fables in Words of One Syllable. By Mary Godolphin. Illustrated. Hardbound. NY/London: George Routledge and Sons. $18.07 from Jim Knickerbocker, Hilliard, OH, through eBay, Nov., '06. Extra copy for $40 from Walnut, May, '12.

This is the fourth similar book, and I have two copies of it. Because both are in relatively poor condition, I will keep both in the collection. Of the similar books, two have noticeably different covers and come from different publishers. This one differs only slightly from another in much poorer condition. That has a blue canvas binding that is deteriorating. This has a red canvas binding that is still intact. The interior difference lies in the British placement of Routledge. There it was "London: Broadway, Ludgate Hill." Here it is "London, Glasgow and Manchester." The Knickerbocker copy is inscribed in 1903. I will excerpt my comments from the other version. This is a fascinating book. It presents the originals off of which Saalfield editions I have listed under "1904?" and "1905?" work. The page-count and layout in fact is exactly the same as in the "1904?" edition, but one finds here the original illustrations from which the copies there are made. The comparison between Weir and his imitations makes for one of the most fascinating contrasts I have seen in fable illustration. For a title-page, this edition uses the same that Routledge had used in a smaller-formatted edition that I have listed under "1883?" Routledge was the publisher of Weir's fifty illustrations for Three Hundred Aesop's Fables in 1865 and of additional illustrations for a later edition of the same book in about, says Bodemann, 1890. There are many signed Weir illustrations here. There are also Griset illustrations, even signed (e.g., FS on 59). This book turns out to be at a fascinating crossroad in Aesopic publishing history! 

1887 Fables and Folk Stories. Horace E. Scudder. Part I. Riverside Literature Series #47. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. See 1882/87/90.

1887 Fables and Folk Stories. Horace E. Scudder. Part II. Riverside Literature Series #48. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. See 1882/87/90.

1887 Fables de La Fontaine: A Selection. Louis M. Moriarty. With illustrations by Randolph Caldecott. Hardbound. London/NY: MacMillan's Illustrated Primary Series of French and German Readings: MacMillan and Co. $5 from an unknown source, July, '11.

Here is a textbook from the late nineteenth century. It features seventy-one fables with grammatical observations, vocabulary, and sixty pages of notes. Perhaps the most surprising feature of the book is a section titled "Exercises" offering something very like a translation of fifty of the fables "intended for practice in re-translation" (187). This exercise forms a third step in teaching a modern language after translating into English and reading or reciting. At least many of the small illustrations accompanying the fables are taken from Randolph Caldecott's larger illustrations, though not from his "modern instances."

1887 Favole di Esopo. Illustrate Artisticamente da 160 Disegni di E. Griset. Hardbound. Roma: Edoardo Perino. $45 from Capt. Tinkham's Emporium, Searsport, ME, through Ebay, Dec., '03.

This is a large (8" x 11½") book with a crumbling spine. I find the (hand-?) colored frontispiece of FS by Griset priceless. Many of the illustrations here are as distinct as I have seen them; the tendency for Griset's illustrations is that they are too dark. There are 419 numbered fables here. Besides the large and even full-page illustrations, there are many excellent smaller illustrations. Not all of the illustrations seem to me to be Griset's. Those that I do not immediately recognize as Griset's include "L'Albero e gli Spini" (137), "Il Lupo ammalato" (297), "Il Pastore derubato" (449), "Gli Asini ed il loro ritratto" (456), and "Il Cacciatore, la Volpe e la Tigre" (465). It looks as though this book came out in sixty segments, each costing five centavos.

1887 Lessing's Fables.  Edited, with Notes by Francis Storr.  Third Edition.  Hardbound.  London: Rivington's Educational List:  Rivingtons.  $11.25 from Orin Schwab Books, Providence, UT, through abe, July, '14.  

1887 Lessing's Fables in Prose and Verse. Edited with Grammatical and Explanatory Notes and a German-English Vocabulary. E.L. Naftel. Hardbound. Printed in England. London/Paris/Boston: Librairie Hachette & Cie. $7.50 from Sharon Westrom, Missoula, Montana, through Ebay, May, '99.

This will prove a very helpful little volume. It includes three books of thirty, twenty-nine, and thirty fables respectively in prose and then seven fables in verse. The texts are supplemented by an introduction, notes, especially on vocabulary and grammar, and a vocabulary.

1887 Reynard the Fox After the German Version of Goethe.  Thomas James Arnold.  With Sixty Illustrations from the Designs of Wilhelm von Kaulbach and Twelve India Proof Engravings by Joseph Wolf.  #3 of 400 printed for America.  Hardbound.  Boston: Roberts Brothers.  $77 from Argosy, New York, August, '16.

1887 The Baby's Own Aesop. Being the Fables Condensed in Rhyme with Portable Morals. Pictorially pointed by Walter Crane. Engraved and printed in colours by Edmund Evans. Rhymed version of W.J. Linton. First edition. London and NY: George Routledge and Sons. $75.63 at Meandaur, June, '93.

At last I have the Routledge first edition. How wonderful! The colors are excellent. The early pages are a delight, featuring, e.g., owls with spectacles on the title page. The illustrations are differently colored and differently arranged on different pages. Good texts include "The Cock and the Pearl," WL, "The Fox and the Mosquitoes," and DLS. Good illustrations include those of Hercules and the waggoner, FC, the man that pleased none (the best of all), the peacock's complaint, the trumpeter, the bat, and the lion in love. The errata slip is missing, but then that fact is in itself an erratum.

1887 The Baby's Own Aesop.  Being the Fables Condensed in Rhyme with Portable Morals.  Pictorially pointed by Walter Crane.  Engraved and printed in colours by Edmund Evans.  Rhymed version of W.J. Linton.  London: Frederick Warne and Co.  $60 at Laurie, Nov., '92.  Extra copy for $40 once owned by the Meadow Lawn School of East Meadow, NY, at Green Apple in San Francisco, Aug., '88.

1887/1966 The Fables of Avianus. Edited with Prolegomena, Critical Apparatus, Commentary, Excursus, and Index by Robinson Ellis. Original Oxford edition of 1887 photographically reproduced by Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, Hildesheim. $20 at Black Oak, Berkeley, Dec., '86.

A comprehensive and helpful edition of the fourty-two metric fables of Avianus, which followed closely on an 1883 edition of Babrius by Rutherford. A spot check finds the fables easily understood and the commentary helpful.

1887/1981 The Baby's Own Aesop. Being the Fables Condensed in Rhyme with Portable Morals. Pictorially pointed by Walter Crane. Engraved and printed in colours by Edmund Evans. Rhymed version of W.J. Linton. London and NY: George Routledge and Sons. 1981 reproduction by Holp Shuppan, Tokyo. De Slegte, Amsterdam, Dec., '88.

Wonderful pictures in a variety of color schemes and combinations. "The Man That Pleased None" is my favorite. The rhymed morals presume knowledge of the story.

1887? Aesop's Fables in Words of One Syllable. By Mary Godolphin. Hardbound. NY/London: George Routledge and Sons. $9.99 from Richard Marting, Fountain Valley, CA, through Ebay, Oct., '99.

This is a fascinating book. It presents the originals off of which Saalfield editions I have listed under "1904?" and "1905?" work. The page-count and layout in fact is exactly the same as in the "1904?" edition, but one finds here the original illustrations from which the copies there are made. The comparison between Weir and his imitations makes for one of the most fascinating contrasts I have seen in fable illustration. For a title-page, this edition uses the same that Routledge had used in a smaller-formatted edition that I have listed under "1883?" This copy is inscribed at Christmas in 1888. Routledge was the publisher of Weir's fifty illustrations for Three Hundred Aesop's Fables in 1865 and of additional illustrations for a later edition of the same book in about, says Bodemann, 1890. There are many signed Weir illustrations here. There are also Griset illustrations, even signed (e.g., FS on 59). This book in poor condition turns out to be at a fascinating crossroad in Aesopic publishing history!

1887? Im Reich der Fabeln - Eine auswahl der besten Fabeln und Parabeln. Für die Jugend zusammengestellt.  A.H. Fogowitz.  Hardbound.  Reutlingen: Druck und Verlag von Robert Bardtenschlager.  €12.98 from Gebrauchtbücherlogistik H.J. Lauterbach, Oct., '18.

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1888 Aesop's Fables Complete. Illustrated by John Tenniel. Hardbound. NY: John B. Alden. $10 from Bluestem Books, Lincoln, NE, Jan., '13.

This is a no-nonsense book of 87 pages with an AI on 3-4. The AI marks the illustrated fables with an asterisk. I note thirty-one of them, done two or three to a page. The translator is not noted, and a quick sample check did not come up with a standard answer. Generally, there are three or four fables to a page. There is no introduction. I wonder what "complete" means. 

1888 Aesop's Fables in Words of One Syllable with Illustrations. By Mary Godolphin. Illustrations by Ernest Griset, not acknowledged. Hardbound. NY: One Syllable Series: Cassell & Company. $14.99 from Ralph Hughes, Bolivar, OH, through Ebay, Jan., '00.  

This is a fascinating book in poor condition, lacking even a back cover. Its front cover, a pictorial red board, shows a circular image of FK. At its bottom is "Copyright 1888 O.M. Dunham." That name does not show up in my records. The book is basically the book of the same title I have listed under "1895" as published by A.L. Burt. The texts and the T of C are exactly the same. However, this edition removes all the Billinghurst illustrations. For some it substitutes Griset illustrations. This edition adds a list of illustrations on vii. The paper seems thicker and quite brittle. Cassell was usually involved, I believe, in books of higher quality than this.

1888 Aesop's Fables in Words of One Syllable with Illustrations. By Mary Godolphin. Ernest Griset NA. Hardbound. NY: One Syllable Series: Cassell & Company. $24 from Lance Nielsen, Farmington, NY, through eBay, July, '10.

Here is a second copy, slightly different and again in poor condition, of a book already in the collection. Its front cover, a pictorial red board, shows a circular image of FK. At its bottom is "Copyright 1888 O.M. Dunham." This differs from the first copy on the title-page and its verso. Instead of "Cassell and Company, Limited: New York, London, Paris and Melbourne," we have "New York: Cassell and Company: 104 & 106 Fourth Avenue." On the verso the same change occurs within a framed box. At the page's bottom we find not "Press W. L. Mershon & Co., Rahway, N.J." We do find "The Mershon Company Press, Rahway, N.J." This copy does have a back cover. I wrote of the first copy that the book is basically the book of the same title I have listed under "1895" as published by A.L. Burt. The texts and the T of C are exactly the same. However, this edition removes all the Billinghurst illustrations. For some it substitutes Griset illustrations. This edition adds a list of illustrations on vii. The paper seems thicker and quite brittle. Cassell was usually involved, I believe, in books of higher quality than this.

1888 Aesop's Fables in Words of One Syllable by Mary Godolphin. Printed in the Learners' Style of Phonography, or Phonetic Shorthand. By Isaac Pitman. Pamphlet. London: Isaac Pitman & Sons/Bath: Phonetic Institute. £6 from Abbey Antiquarian, June, '98.

This is the third of the four different dated Pitman-Godolphin booklets I have found. Here the London publisher is Isaac Pitman & Sons at 1 Amen Corner, Paternoster Row, E.C. And the Bath publisher is Phonetic Institute. There are also New York and Boston publishers listed: Fowler & Wells Co. and W.B. Hickox, respectively. This booklet is slightly larger in format than the other three, with a slightly stronger cover than the others. The price is still sixpence. The 48 pages include the title-page, a T of C, and thirty-seven fables. The cover has been repaired.

1888 Fabelen en Gedichtjes. Door J. J. A. Goeverneur. Met 24 Plaatjes naar Otto Eerelman. Hardbound. Leeuwarden, Netherlands: Hugo Suringar. € 45 from Richardson Books, Oosterhout, Netherlands, Jan., '13.

It is disappointing to open this book and find it, apparently, a Dutch translation of Wilhelm Hey's work, with the pictures transformed from those of Otto Speckter. I am disappointed because I do not think that those texts are fables. This is a fine little book for period interest because of the colored illustrations modeled after those of Speckter. The fables, with their illustrations, finish after 44, and then there are some 27 pages of poems without illustrations. The book is small in format: 4¾" x 5¾". 

1888 Fables and Proverbs from the Sanskrit, Being the Hitopadesa. Translated by Charles Wilkins. With an Introduction by Henry Morley. Third Edition. Hardbound. London: Morley's Universal Library #30: George Routledge and Sons. £4.50 from an unknown source, Extra copy for $4 from Sharon Farrow, Ft. Dick, CA, through Ebay, Dec., '00.

Wilkins seems to date his translation to 1787. Perhaps the first edition of this book by Routledge was in 1885, when Morley signs his introduction. There is a T of C at the beginning, listing all the fables; it is especially helpful since the fables are not titled within the text. This translation seems never to use verse, but it does use archaic English forms like "thou" and "knoweth" when translating the proverbial verses. The introductory lines for a fable are put into italics. There are frequent footnotes at the bottom of the page. The four books here are roughly equal in length. In this version, there is no carrying of the rat by the crow when they move residence to be with the tortoise (63). The monkey sits on a piece of timber while "his lower parts hung within the slit" (107). He dies from the event. One of the stories I have noticed in reading several versions of the Hitopadesa lately is "The Lion, the Mouse, and the Cat" (124). A lion bothered by mice gets a cat and feeds him well. Once the cat gets rid of the mice, he is so neglected that he dies. The story is used typically by Damanaka to show Karattaka why they need to keep the lion worried and thus should not resolve his fears about the bull immediately and simply. In some other versions, it is a prostitute who discovers the monkeys who are making noise with a stolen bell. Here it is a "poor woman" (128). In this version, it is clear that the bull raises questions about the jackals' handling of provisions in the presence of the lion's visiting brother (129). The brother recommends that the bull, not the jackals, be put in charge of provisions in the future, and the lion accepts his advice. Here is clear grounding for the enmity felt by the jackals towards the new favorite. The Hitopadesa's misogynism is here: "Women are never to be rendered faithful and obedient" (140-141). Here two visits from Damanaka to the lion and one to the bull are enough to cause an immediate confrontation. Chapter III on "Disputing" pits geese against peacocks. The ambassador/scout of the former is a booby, a tropical seabird like a gannet. At first the peacock king loses because he does not attend to the wisdom of his minister, the vulture. Then he follows the vulture's advice, besieges the geese, and wins. Sarasa the cock, the goose-king's general, protects his king's life and escape, even in defeat. I enjoy here again the story about the stupid husband who lurks under the sofa to catch his wife in infidelity. She senses him there in the midst of love with her paramour and begins proclaiming his virtues. Here he actually gets up with the sofa on his head and dances for joy (186)! I am struck again by the story of Veera-vara, who sacrificed his son and himself for his new king (205). The fourth chapter is difficult for me here. I have trouble finding the story in the midst of quotations flying back and forth. I believe that the peacock and goose kings make peace and return happily to their home territories. My two copies have different covers. The larger combines a leather spine with gray cloth, while the smaller has red cloth. The red cloth has bled onto the endpapers. I will keep both in the collection.

1888 Fables in Verse. By Martha F. Thompson. Haverhill, MA: Martha F. Thompson. $20 from Harold Burstein, Fall, '92.

A large pamphlet in very delicate condition. There are seventeen fables on twenty-eight pages in padded verse for children. The paper covers are loose. No T of C or index. Reading these fables, I am reminded of Linda Schlafer's talk on drilling good behavior into little children. The morals range from "Obey your mother" to "Do not judge by clothes" to "Do not go too far from home." Analysts today might have special fun with #10, "Little Mabel's Walk," the point of which seems to be that it is best to be generous, e.g., to bring flowers to the orphan. The next fable, "The Grasshopper's Feast," promises that if you are friendly, you will be invited to parties.

1888 La Fontaine et Les Fabulistes, Vol. II. Par M. Saint-Marc Girardin. Nouvelle édition. Hardbound. Paris: Calmann Lévy, Éditeur. €20 from Chapitre.com., July, '04.

This second volume came out some six years after the first. Since we are dealing here with a "nouvelle édition" of an existing work, I wonder what curious history lies behind the delay. This second volume, by contrast with the first, has a T of C at the back. The first three chapters (14 through 17, with their numbering continuing on from the first volume) deal with subjects in the fables of La Fontaine: the picture of human life; the destiny of man and of the diverse professions; and the censure of society and of the individual. Chapter 17 deals with Rousseau's judgement of La Fontaine, while Chapters 18 and 19 treat of La Fontaine as a philosopher and his view of the soul of animals. Chapter 20 asks if the condition of animals is above that of humans in the views of La Fontaine and Rousseau. Girardin treats next Boileau and the "school of La Fontaine" in the seventeenth century. Succeeding chapters deal, respectively, with contemporary fabulists with La Fontaine and fabulists of the eighteenth century. Desbillons, Aubert, and Le Bailly get a chapter of their own. After chapters on British and German fabulists in the eighteenth century, there is a final chapter on the nineteenth century. Girardin calls Desbillons the second-best fabulist of the eighteenth century (after Florian), even though Desbillons wrote in Latin. People were conversant with and enthused by Latin in the eighteenth century. Girardin finds Desbillons' Latin superb; his French, by contrast, is "gêné et pénible" (something like "disturbed and painful")! At the end of this volume there are five notes. The cover of both volumes is stamped "Lycee de la Rochelle," where this volume was given as a second-prize in Greek to a student. The student got a matching pair of volumes for two different prizes. The book was purchased from A. Foucher's Librairie in La Rochelle. 

1888 Original Fabeln. Von Mrs. Prosser. Hardbound. Melbourne and Sydney: George Robertson & Company. AUD 60 from Serendipity Books, Nedlands, Australia, March, '98.

"Aus dem Englischen Uebersetzt mit Genehmigung der Verfasserin." Here is the German translation of Original Fables, perhaps from 1873. A check of the first and last stories indicates that this translation follows the order of the original exactly. The "Profuse Illustrations of Ernest Griset, Harrison Weir, Noel Humphreys, and other eminent Artists" are not here. A small-format illustrated book needing 248 pages in English needs 392 as a larger-formatted unillustrated book in German! There is an AI at the front. I will repeat some comments I made on that edition. "Mrs. Prosser" is not in Bodemann. My favorite private collector has one copy of Mrs. Prosser, and that is dated to 1878 and is also from the Religious Tract Society. I count two hundred twenty-one "items" here. I have read five or six. They remind me of the poorest in the Aesopic collections. That is, they are either belabored or transparent. I did not find among them one where I would say, as I sometimes say with Aesop's, "Now there is a story worth remembering!" I can find nothing in Fabula Docet, Hobbs, Quinnam, McKendry, or Snodgrass.

1888 Our Little Men and Women. March, 1888. Volume IX, Number 3. Monthly. Boston: D. Lothrop Company. $8.50 at Old New York Book Shop, Atlanta, April, '94.

This magazine is well worn. After a page of advertisements and a picture of a cat in winter, we come to a two-page verse version of SW ("An Old Fable Versified") by J.B.F. Rhyming couplets carry supposedly message-hungry little readers to the finish.

1888 Parables from Nature. (Spine: Parabels [sic] from Nature.) By Margaret Gatty. With a memoir by her daughter Juliana Horatia Ewing. Illustrated by P.H. Calderon, W. Holman Hunt, Otto Speckter, G.H. Thomas, John Tenniel, etc. First series. London: George Bell and Sons. $35 by mail from Bowie, Seattle, May, '94.

The opening life and tribute by her daughter are affectionate testimony. In all, Gatty published five series of parables, originally apparently all done with her own illustrations. I read four of the seventeen stories here. They are predictably hard to swallow. In the first, a dying butterfly asks a caterpillar to care for her eggs. The caterpillar asks around, wanting to learn how to care for them. She cannot believe the lark's answer, namely that they will be caterpillars and that she will be a butterfly. The lesson of trust is then applied again to her death as a butterfly.... The second gets into long disquisitions on the injustice of some bees working while others are queens. In the third, a dying mother bird sends her young off to the Unknown Land to be found by trust and obedience. In the fourth seaweed, a zoophyte, and a bookworm experience how foolish it would be to limit one's belief to the bounds of one's own powers.

1888 The Fables of Bidpai. The earliest English Version of the Fables of Bidpai: The Morall Philosophie of Doni by Sir Thomas North. Now again edited and induced by Joseph Jacobs. First edition. Limited to 500 copies. Bibliothèque de Carabas. London: David Nutt. $96 from Abracadabra, Oct., '92. Extra copy in poorer condition for £19 at Skoob, London, May, '97.

It is wonderful to be able to put my hands on this first English Bidpai. The text and orthography are archaic. There is a long T of C on lxviii-lxxx. After an extensive introduction, Jacobs offers a pedigree of Bidpai literature inserted at lxxx. Quinnam points out that the illustrations here (eleven woodcuts) are reproductions of the early illustrations. There is also a gravure frontispiece. Neither copy is numbered.

1888 The Fables of Florian. Fully illustrated by J.J. Grandville. Translated from the French by Gen. J.W. Phelps. NY: John B. Alden. $20 in trade with Linda Schlafer, from Margolis and Moss, Santa Fe, May, '93. Extra copy missing the title page and inscribed in 1893 for $5 at Renaissance, May, '88.

T of C at the beginning. Fifty-one fables, preceded by a useful introduction to Florian (1755-94). "Two Travellers" (14) is often presented as Aesopic. Grandville's illustrations are always wonderful. One of the best here presents a great child's face in the looking glass on 28. Florian's fables seem to me to be on the preachy side.

1888? 101 Neue Fabeln. Herausgegeben von Frida Schanz. Illustriert von Fedor Flinzer. First edition? Hardbound. Leipzig: Ambrosius Abel. DM 85 from Antiquariat Fritz Keller, Stuttgart, August, '98. 

This book has the earmarks of matching Bodemann #369, the first edition of Schanz's work. The publisher's name seems, by the third edition, the next edition to be mentioned there, to have changed to include "Müller." Also, at latest the third and subsequent editions seem to have listed their edition on the title-page, and there is no listing of an edition here. Bodemann's note seems to indicate that this is the octavo, which lacks the six aquarelles found in the quarto. Though I cannot find the six aquarelles, I do find six full-pages on heavier paper interpolated along the way in this very nice book. The page count of 124 also fits with her account of the octavo. A long list of fellow authors appears on the title-page, including Julius Sturm and Johannes Trojan. If there was a frontispiece, it is now lacking. The authors are noted both in the beginning T of C and at the end of each individual fable. This copy shows some pencilling, e.g., on 17 and facing 24. Perhaps the cleverest illustration is that of the dog smoking a cigarette (26). I have read most of the first fifteen fables. Many are rather predictable. Several strike me as engagingly clever. The shark, e.g., laughs at the ostrich for eating stones, and then dives down to eat shoes, nails, and half of a sail (6). A caterpillar's idea of mind-expanding travel is to eat the next branch clean (16)! One fable from Sturm presents a mouse in winter begging a hamster for something to eat. The answer is "Not today. Ask again tomorrow." The mouse dies before tomorrow can come. A suicidal nightingale laments the loss of light (19), and a glow-worm answers "I will illumine you." I took notes on those stories which I read while waiting in a doctor's office. I have included those notes in this edition of the book. I also have a sixth edition, in slightly larger format, listed under "1910?". Pages 7-10 are missing.

1889 Fables of La Fontaine. Translated from the French by Elizur Wright, Jr. With Illustrations from Designs by J. J. Grandville. Hardbound. NY: Worthington Co. Gift of Elizabeth Willems, Nov., '98.

Identical internally with the 1879 Knox version. Even the gold stamp on the cover is the same, though the cover's background design is different. Note the 1879 James Miller copyright (facing the preface) that it shares with the Knox version. See my comments there. The cover here is warped from water damage. Liz found this book at Pages of Time Bookstore in Bar Harbor, Maine.

1889 Fables of La Fontaine.  Translated from the French by Elizur Wright, Jr.  With Illustrations from Designs by J. J. Grandville.  Hardbound.  NY: Worthington Co.  Gift of Elizabeth Willems, Dec., '16.

1889 Grandfather's Stories. Compiled and arranged by James Johonnot. Canvas-bound. Appletons' Instructive Reading-Books, Historical Series. Printed in NY. NY: American Book Company. $7.50 from Junction Antiques, Monticello, MN, June, '98.

Five fables begin this reader: "The Wolf and the Kid," FS, TMCM, BF, and "Spot and her Friends." There is a verse rendition of the first of these. Two things save the kid here; the kid, as regularly, peeps through the window to see who knocks, and a hunter comes by to shoot the wolf. BF is five lines of verse. I do not think a reader could learn the story from this brief rendition! The last of these stories is new to me. It is a verse story by Phoebe Cary about a calf named Spot. The farmer asks one morning who shut the barn door. Apparently all the animals think that this was a bad thing to do. They always make Spot, who happens to be away, take the blame, and so they blame her now. When she comes back, the farmer congratulates her for doing the right thing. All the animals proclaim her a hero, and she answers "Boo!" I do not know what "Boo!" means here. There are from one to three simple illustrations per fable. This book is in fair condition at best.

1889 Masterpieces: Pope, Aesop, Milton, Coleridge, and Goldsmith. With notes and illustrations, edited by H.S. Drayton. Aesop section illustrated by Tenniel. NY: Fowler and Wells Co. $10 at Pageturners, Omaha, Dec., '92.

A wild find nowhere near where fables might usually show up in this store. The second section of this five-part book is almost identical with the 1870 and 1873 booklets Aesop's Fables Illustrated. The only difference I can discern is that Wells has become Fowler and Wells. Even the mutilated last number in the T of C is the same here as there. The general introduction claims "By the addition of the witty sayings of the sage of Lydia something of a classical flavor is imparted to the collection." I suspect that the fact that they had the plates around may have been an even greater reason! The paper and illustrations are superior here to the four copies I have of the 1870 and 1873 editions.

1889 Parts of Nala and Hitopadeca in English Letters. Prepared by Charles Rockwell Lanman. Hardbound. Printed in Halle on the Saale, Germany. Boston: Ginn and Company. $7.50 from Powell's, Hyde Park, Dec., '97.

This short Sanskrit text contains the first five chapters of the Nala-episode from the Maha-bharata and the preface and nineteen fables of the Hitopadesa. It reprints the first forty-four pages of Lanman's Sanskrit Reader. The book consists of text alone without notes. There is an annotation on 4 that a line is missing. Some pages are torn. The book has a stamp that shows that it was formerly in the West Baden College Library. The detached title-page also contains the name of a Jesuit, Chle [?] Christopher, S.J. This book has thus come into Jesuit hands at least three times in its century-plus of life. This is the first book in Sanskrit in the collection.

1889 The Fables of Aesop as first printed by William Caxton in 1484 Volume I.  Now again edited and induced by Joseph Jacobs.  Hardbound.  London: David Nutt.  $105 from Midway Books, St. Paul, June, '03.  

I had noted this book sitting on Midway's shelf for years.  I once recommended it to the Heffelfinger collection in Minneapolis.  I never realized that it was Joseph Jacobs' own copy.  I am now especially delighted to add it to the collection.  The book has almost no illustrations.  It is helpful for deciphering Caxton's English.  I have three other copies of this book.  Two are original 1889 paperbound copies, from William Allen and Ed Chesko, respectively.  I also have a Burt Franklin reprint.  I comment there: Do not miss the index (225) and especially the synopsis (229).  There is a good "pedigree" of Caxton's Aesop facing 1.  This volume has been largely uncut.  There is a tear at the top of the spine.

1889 The Fables of Aesop as first printed by William Caxton in 1484 with those of Avian, Alfonso, and Poggio, now again edited and induced by Joseph Jacobs. Volume 1. Paperbound. London: David Nutt. $20 from Ed Chesko of Delavan, Nov., '95. Extra copy acknowledging that the edition is limited to 550 copies for $6 at William Allen, '82.

Almost no illustrations. Helpful for deciphering Caxton's English. The two volumes from William Allen were early finds, and I have watched them deteriorate on the shelf for thirteen years. How nice now to find a set in better shape! Strangely, the Chesko set, which had belonged to the Beloit College library, seems to have lost the page acknowledging the limited edition.

1889 The Fables of Aesop as first printed by William Caxton in 1484 with those of Avian, Alfonso, and Poggio, now again edited and induced by Joseph Jacobs. Volume 2. Paperbound. London: David Nutt. $20 from Ed Chesko of Delavan, Nov., '95. Extra copy for $6 at William Allen, '82.

Contains a good transcription into more readable text of Caxton's version. Helpful for deciphering Caxton's English. The Ryland frontispiece-engraving of Aesop as a shepherd is otherwise unknown to me.

1889/1970 The Fables of Aesop as first printed by William Caxton in 1484 with those of Avian, Alfonso, and Poggio, now again edited and induced by Joseph Jacobs. Volume 1: History of the Aesopic Fable. Hardbound. Same as Volume 1 of preceding entry. NY: Burt Franklin. $20 from publisher. Extra copy for $9 from Booksellers Row, Sept., '93.

Do not miss the index (225) and especially the synopsis (229). I am eager to try some of Jacobs' scholarship. There is a wonderful "pedigree" of Caxton's Aesop facing 1.

1889? Aesop's Fables in Words of One Syllable. By Mary Godolphin. Illustrations by Ernst Griset (not acknowledged). Hardbound. NY: Hurst and Co. $31 from Memories Antiques, Piedmont, SC, through Ebay, Jan., '00.

Once again a book that I thought was simply a better copy of another turns out to have its own niche in this collection. This book is very similar to a book of the same title by the same publisher, which I have listed under "1890?" When I looked a little more closely, a number of differences appeared. I list them separately to make it easier to keep track of the differences. This book is slightly smaller in format, but uses the same plates as that book, with a few exceptions in the art that I will note. It has a frontispiece, which features some geese, a young girl standing on a stump, a mature man with a backpack, and a castle in the background. What, one might ask, does this scene have to do with fables? As I note under the "1890?" edition, these plates duplicate the text plates used in Routledge's edition of Godolphin that I list under "1883?" The paper here is much stronger and, like the whole book, in better condition. Of the six black-and-white illustrations mentioned there, the frog image has moved from 28 to 6, where it fits the facing story "Boys and Frogs." The illustration for "The Blind Man and the Lame Man" has moved to 146. This book is inscribed in 1940, but I believe it was published much earlier. I presume that the "1890?" edition was done as a cheap knock-off of this edition.

1889? Fables de La Fontaine: Texte Collationné d'après les Meilleures Éditions. Gravures de Paul Avril. Hardbound. Paris: P. Arnould. £2.50 from Edward Porter, Rhyddings, Neath, UK, through eBay, March, '13.

Here is a compact little (3½" x 5" x 1") La Fontaine that seems complete. The eBay advertisement claimed only the frontispiece when it spoke of an illustration. The title-page claims "Gravures." The truth lies in the middle: there are two black-and-white illustrations, one before Book I and one before Book VI. They are "The Monkey and the Cat" and "The Lion in Love," respectively. The latter is on the slightly suggestive side! French Wikipedia reveals that the pen name of Paul Avril was adopted by Édouard-Henri Avril, who died in 1928 and was known for his erotic paintings. Not in Bodemann.

1889? Fables de La Fontaine: Texte Collationné d'après les Meilleures Éditions.  Gravures de Paul Avril.  Hardbound.  Paris: P. Arnould.  $10 from Raven Used Books, Boston, July, '16.

1889? Fables de La Fontaine: Texte Collationné d'après les Meilleures Éditions.  "Gravures de Paul Avril."  Hardbound.  Paris: Ernest Flammarion.  £15 from Ocean Arts, North Devon, UK, Sept., '18.

1889? Imagerie Artistique: 20 Fables de La Fontaine.  H. Vogel, Gaston Gélibert, Mangonot, Godefroy, Etienne-Maurice-Firmin Bouisset,  (Anatole Paul?) Ray, Job (=Jacques Marie Gaston Onfroy de Breville), and Gustave Fraipont.  Canvas bound.  Paris: Maison Quantin.  $40 from Brattle Book Shop, Boston, Jan., '03.

1889? Imagerie Artistique: 20 Fables de La Fontaine.  H. Vogel, Gaston Gélibert, Mangonot, Godefroy, Etienne-Maurice-Firmin Bouisset,  (Anatole Paul?) Ray, Job (=Jacques Marie Gaston Onfroy de Breville), and Gustave Fraipont.  Canvas bound.  Paris: Maison Quantin.  €23.70 from Gisa Hinrichsen, Wingst, Germany, through Zvab, June, '18.

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