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Le jeu des fables

1815? Le Jeu des fables, ou fables de LaFontaine mises en action. Avec figures coloriées et découpées, dessinées et gravées par Lambert ainé. Paris: Lambert. Received in trade from June Clinton, March, '93.

This set includes a small oblong booklet with fifteen of La Fontaine's fables and a concluding set of as many pictures. These latter give the pattern for use of a postcard-sized background-board with several small pocket-like openings for inserting figures--like the peacock and elephant here. There were originally some thirty-three figures, of which seventeen still remain in this set. Four of the scenes can still be reproduced entirely: 1, 2, 8, and 12. The figures are enclosed in a marbled envelope the same size as the booklet. There is a slip-case for the whole ensemble. My favorite private collector gives a date of 1820 and makes the publisher Alph. Giroux.