Creighton University

This twelve-page leaflet magazine (7½" x 10¾") along with another of its numbers was one of many pleasant surprises on this European trip.  I found it at the last of the many bookstores I visited in the gallery on Rue de la Madeleine.  The pleasant owner found these two issues.  I enjoy the update on La Fontaine so much that I hunted on the web.  I found about six of these colored cover illustrations, all apparently done between 1900 and 1902.  I even found another issue that I was able to order online.  This issue's illustration is FS.  The upper panel shows the stork agape at the meal she is supposed to eat.  A rabbit servant looks on as the fox in a gentleman's coat smirks.  In the lower panel an outdoor meal with table cloth and duck servant has two characters saying something.  The stork asks the bewildered fox "You are not hungry then?"  Two crows ask Master Fox if he would not like cheese!  The fox himself scratches his head, wondering what to do with food inside a huge narrow-necked flask.  The verso of this cover has a discussion of the fable, signed by G.C.  This issue is dated December 21, 1901.

This twelve page leaflet magazine (7 1/2" x 10 3/4") along with another of its numbers was one of many pleasant surprises on this European trip.  I found it at the last of the many bookstores I visited in the gallery on Rue de la Madeleine.  The pleasant owner found these two issues.  I enjoy the update on La Fontaine so much that I hunted on the web.  I found about six of these colored cover illustrations, all apparently done between 1900 and 1902.  I even found another issue that I was able to order online.  This issue's illustration is "Les animaux malades de la peste."  La Fontaine had the animals turning on the poor mule as scapegoat for all their crimes.  In this playful adaptation, we see a monkey as the doctor giving animals shots.  Christophe has fun with all the actions surrounding the central encounter with the hypodermic needle.  Mice nurses carry in their sick comrade on a stretcher.  Frightened young rabbits cling to their mother's skirts.  Four crows in tophats look down from the top of the doctor's bookcase.  A frog escapes with his arm bandaged up.  An aproned stork assists.  Is that a nurse snake beneath the ape doctor's feet?.  A comment below reads "Not  everyone died…."  This issue is dated March 15, 1902.

This twelve page leaflet magazine (7½" x 10¾") is the one I found available online after returning home from Europe with numbers 108 and 120.  I found reference online to about six of these colored cover illustrations, all apparently done between 1900 and 1902.  This issue's illustration is "Conseil tenu par les rats."  La Fontaine has all the mice of Ratopolis dressed up for this council meeting, and the proponent of the great idea even holds the bell in his paw.  Again Christophe has fun with the actions surrounding the central encounter.  Various mice gesticulate.  Is one even sleeping?  Page 244 has a discussion of the fable, signed by Christophe.  This issue is dated April 21, 1900.