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Aesop's Fables > Books of Fables > Individual Books > 1960 to 1964

• 1960
• 1961
• 1962
• 1963
• 1964

1960 A Bedtime Treasury of Children's Stories. Edited and with an introduction by Margaret C. Farquhar. Compiled by Oscar Weigle. Illustrated by Ann Wolf, Crosby Newell, William Wiesner, Art Krusz, Irma Wilde. NY: Grosset & Dunlap. $3.50 at Bluestem, Lincoln, NE, Dec., '92. Extra copy for $3 from Second Chance, April, '93.

A nice fat book on cheap paper with lots of different kinds of stories. Very simple monochrome art. Thirteen fables are given together on 85-98; they all come from Little Folk's Fables from Aesop by McLoughlin (1940). Each here but one ("The Mice in Council") gets one page and one illustration. Four other fables follow later: TMCM (360), TT (417), "The Gold in the the Orchard" (420), and "The Larks in the Cornfield" (428). "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" (85) is told differently: the wolf tries to make his voice sound like that of a lamb, and his voice wakes up the dog. TMCM is also different: the mice trade visits to see who is better off. The country mouse is caught and tells the cat a tale. Multi-colored end-papers have art that is smaller but better for TMCM and TT. It would be hard to hate any book that ends with "The Young Lady from Niger"!

1960 Aesop with a Smile. Ernestine Cobern Beyer. Drawn by Vee Guthrie. First edition. Dust jacket. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Chicago: The Reilly & Lee Co. $35.00 from Sister Brute Books, Stockton, CA, Sept. ,'98.

Red cloth boards. Nineteen fables on 48 pages. Witty rhyming-couplet versions for children. In "The Lioness" Mrs. Rabbit claims "at least twenty-two" children. "(You see, though I have a far greater amount,/Twenty-two is as high as I know how to count)" (8). The ant pitied the grasshopper "But he died before she'd time to bid him stay" (11). Country mouse Timmy had scarcely hung up his hat in town when he scented a cat and left (15). Guthrie goes a step further than the text in WS when the traveller is pictured in a body of water (19). A mischievous breeze blows out the boastful candle on purpose (24). This text pits a pine against the reed (25). Among the best of Guthrie's black-and-white illustrations are those of the sleeping hare (28) and the crane's legs at the fox's door (32). Beyer has the father frog in OF say "I'll equal that monster or bust" and adds, with italics, "And he did!" (36).

1960 Aesop's Fables. Told by Valerius Babrius. Translated by Denison B. Hull. Decorations by Rainey Bennett. Clear plastic dust jacket. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. $10 at Constant Reader, Jan., '91. Extra copy of the hardbound for $7 from Jackson Street, October, '94.

The decorations are just that There is no intent to involve narrative in the picture. The rhyming verses are pleasing and not overly long--e.g., on the 2W. It might be fun to work Babrius into a lecture as a particular kind of story teller.

1960 Aesop's Fables. Told by Valerius Babrius. Translated by Denison B. Hull. Decorations by Rainey Bennett. Paperbound. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. From unknown sources, July, '83.

The decorations are just that There is no intent to involve narrative in the picture. The rhyming verses are pleasing and not overly long--e.g., on the 2W. It might be fun to work Babrius into a lecture as a particular kind of story teller. This copy, which sold for $2.95, was apparently a 1977 printing. See "1960/74" for a different printing at a different price. 

1960 Aesop's Fables (Hebrew).  Salomon Span.  Illustrated by Bezalel Shatz.  Dust-jacket.  Hardbound.  Jerusalem: Bialik Institute.  $65 from Haggadah613 through Ebay, Oct., '06.

1960 Aesop's Fables: The Dog in a Manger. Edna Johnson. Illustrated by Stanley J. Woods. Paperbound. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. £ 3 from The London Bookworm, through choosebooks.com, Sept., '06.

This sixteen-page pamphlet seems to be in a series with Aesop's Fables: The Wolf and the Dog, for which I had guessed a publication date of 1950. Both use Caxton's text. The telling of the fable is straightforward. The simple illustrations alternate between beige-and-blue duotone and black-and-white. They serve the story well. The story itself is unusually drawn out. The dog goes through several activities, including first confronting a dog threatening to eat his food and later blocking the cows at the barn door. This pamphlet was previously owned by the Ilford Committee for Education, with a connection to Downshall Infants' School Seven Kings. Now the question I asked about the first booklet comes back: Might there be still others in a series with this booklet?

1960 Belling the Cat and Other Stories. Retold by Leland B. Jacobs. Illustrated by Harold Berson. A Golden Beginning Reader. NY: Golden Press. $3 at Renaissance, June, '96. Extra copy for $.85 at Cameron's, Portland, Aug., '87.

A small-format kids' book also including "The Little Red Hen" and "The Rabbit's Mistake." I like this cat with yellow eyes and red fez. A nice text for children. Five pages on BC.

1960 Belling the Cat & Other Stories.  Leland B. Jacobs.  Illustrated by Harold Berson.  Dust-jacket.  Hardbound.  NY: A Golden Beginning Reader: Golden Press.  $10 from Blue Cypress Books, New Orleans, August, '18.

1960 Cinderella Hassenpfeffer and Other Tales Mein Grossfader Told.  Dave Morrah. Fourteenth printing.  Hardbound.  NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.  See 1946/60.

1960 Danny Kaye's Around the World Story Book. Various illustrators. NY: Random House. $4.95 in NY, Jan., '90.

A delightful book, with some wonderful illustrations and lots of well told stories. The U.S. is represented in part by four funny stories from Bierce (21) with fine illustrations. Three from Aesop (97) are told loosely after Caxton and James. "The Shade of the Donkey" is presented on 198 as Chinese.

1960 De fabelwereld. Samengesteld en ingeleid door Halbo C. Kool. Pen-and-ink drawings by Alfons van Heusden? Dust jacket. Amsterdam: N.V. de Arbeiderspers. $7.50 at De Slegte, Dec., '88.

Good representative collection in Dutch of Dutch and other fabulists, including, e.g., plenty of Ambrose Bierce. The lively sketches include "The Blind and the Lame" (76), "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" (138), and "The Donkey and the Dog" (168).

1960 Der Wolf und das Pferd: Deutsche Tierfabeln des 18. Jahrhunderts. Herausgegeben von Karl Emmerich. Mit sieben Kupfern von Grandville und Chodowiecki. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Erste Auflage. Berlin: Verlag Rütten & Loening. DM 12 from Dresdener Antiquariat, Dresden, August, '01. Extra copy without a dust-jacket for DM 35 from Bücherwurm, Heidelberg, July, '98.  

Here is a nicely put together East German anthology of German fables of the eighteenth century. One of its first curiosities is that the spine says only "Der Wolf und das Pferd," while the cover says only "Deutsche Tierfabeln des 18. Jahrhunderts." Emmerich writes a long introduction (5-24). I find twenty-six fabulists here. Those with the largest representation include Hagedorn, Gellert, Lichtwer, Lessing, Kazner, Pfeffel, and Fischer.

1960 Enid Blyton's Aesop's Fables. Retold by Enid Blyton. Pictures by Grace Lodge. First printing. Paperbound. Edinburgh & London: Enid Blyton Little Story Books, #21; "Old Thatch" Series: W. & A.K. Johnston & G.W. Bacon, Ltd. £2.99 from Fiona McIntosh, Pershore, Worcestershire, UK, through eBay, Oct., '06.

The existence of this little book surprised and surprises me. I already have two editions of Aesop's fables by Blyton. They are listed under "1925?" and "1999". There seems to be no relation between those texts and these. Here, for example, MSA is told without any reference to the miller's wife (6). Thre are thirteen fables on 62 pages. This small (4¾" x 6¼") booklet lacks its back paper cover and is fragile.

1960 Ésope: Fables. Texte établi et traduit par Émile Chambry. Deuxième Edition. Paperbound. Collection des Universités de France publiée sous le patronage de l' Association Guillaume Budé. Paris: Societé d' Édition "Les Belles Lettres." See 1927/60.

1960 Fables and Fantasias. By Jerome Salzmann. Illustrated by the author. #141 of 150 copies. NY: The Ron Press. $35 from Oak Knoll, Nov., '92.

Critical and thoughtful little fables mixed in with other materials. Salzmann should be included in a survey of recent fable humorists. Some of the fables risk being intellectually cute. There are nice designs along the way. Among the best are "The Fortunate Elephant" (#1), "The Twins of Destiny" (pleasure and pain, #7), "The Eclipse" (#13), "Doom on the Moon" (typical, #23), "The Flight of the Moth" (#30), "The Decline of the Devil" (à la Bierce, #33), and "M. Polo & Co." (#34).

1960 Fables de la Chine Antique, Tome II. Illustrations de Fong Tse-kai. Hardbound. Peking: Editions en Langues Etrangeres. $12 from Second Story Books, Rockville, MD, Jan., '11.

This book is half of the larger-format canvas-bound predecessor of the identically named paperback book I have listed under "1980/84." The first text here is on 79 there. The order of texts changes slightly from time to time. The illustrations are the same. The cover picture here is the mirror-opposite of the cover picture there: a man sits before a fire over which a spitted turtle is roasting. There is a curious difference in names, whether of people or places. Thus "L'Homme Qui Avait Peur des esprits" (3) starts there "Au sud de Xiashu vivait un homme nommé Juan Shuliang." The author is listed as Xunsi. Here, some twenty years earlier, the sentence reads "Au sud de Sciacheou vivait un homme nommé Kiuan Siun-liang." The author is listed as Siun Tse. Here the title is pasted onto the gray paper cover in a lovely vertical red stripe. See my comments there and in the paperback Spanish and English versions of the book.

1960 Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrations de (W.) Cremonini. Hardbound. Milano: Albums Cristal: Editions Fabbri. 160 Francs from a Buchinist, July, '01.

This book, along with a larger-format book of the same title by the same artist and publisher one year later, must be involved in some curious history. This book is almost 10" by almost 10½". Did Editions Fabbri produce one set of books in this format--"Albums Cristal"--one year and then create a new series with new art in a different format just one year later? Perhaps the later work was not a member of a series. In any case, three of the nineteen fables there are among the ten fables here, with different illustrations: TH, TMCM, and AD. Among the best of some very good illustrations here are those showing the eagle and a lamb (5), the dead frog from OF (16), and the ant who was helped by the dove on 26. The versions of La Fontaine are in prose here; in the version of a year later they are in the original verse. It is easy for me to be enthusiastic about Cremonini's work. There may be two fables here that are not from La Fontaine. "Le Courage du Lievre" is about a rabbit who boasts that he has no fear--until a dog barks and the rabbit runs in terror. "Le Taureau et le Renard" is about a clever fox that gets rid of the insects on his body by putting a straw in his mouth and getting into the river. He descends further and further into the river, and the insects in his body move up to his head and then onto the straw. Once he has them all on the straw, he throws it far away.

1960 Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrations de Félix Lorioux. Hardbound. Beuchet et Vanden Brugge: Imprimerie Moderne de Nantes. $4.75 from Book House on Grand, July, '94. Extra copy for $2.50 from J. Crowley, Montclair, NJ, through eBay, Oct., '07.

Ten fables in a squarish hardbound edition that includes a colored illustration for each fable and some black-and-whites besides. This book seems a clear partial reprint in smaller format of of Marcus' 1949 edition with the same title. Notice that the books share the same printer: Beuchet et Vanden Brugge. The mystery here is that this book adds three fables that do not appear in the larger earlier work: "Le Coq & le Renard," "Le Coche et la Mouche," and DW. And the full-page illustration for TH is reversed. The partial-page colored illustrations there tend to become black-and-white here. Among the best colored illustrations here are those for GGE, "Le Coche et la Mouche" (even sharper on the book's back cover), FS, and "Le Héron." A very nice book. The bottom of the spine is wounded. Now, in 2008, I have a second copy with an even more wounded spine. I will use it particularly for shows to students, since it represents very good foreign art work and heavy usage of a book.

1960 Fables de La Fontaine. Précedées de la vie d'Ésope, accompagnées de notes nouvelles. Illustrations de Karl Girardet. Tours(?): Mame. See 1901/60.

1960 Fables de la Fontaine. Illustrations de Guy Sabran. Hardbound. Printed in France. Paris: La Bibliothèque Rouge et Bleue: Éditions G. P. $5 from Francine Juneau, Montreal, through Ebay, Oct., '02.

This is a large-format (10½" x 7¾") children's reader and picture-book of some 36 pages. It has experienced significant wear as a library book; it has a standard library hard-cover. It offers one or two lively, colorful, expressive illustrations for each of its twelve fables: GA, Le Coche et la Mouche, LM, AD, FC, WL, TH, Le Héron, Le Lion et le Moucheron, MM, TT, and TMCM. Some of the best of these show the frozen blue cicada on its back (7) and the huge rich wolf pitted against the simple lamb (17). The second picture for WL deals beautifully in shadow, with a drop of blood running from the wolf's mouth (18). A very pretty milkmaid looks upward while she is still balancing the pail on her head (30). The book is stamped "Retiré de la Collection de la Bibliothèque de la Ville de Montréal." I am delighted to have the book in its retirement.

1960 Fables de La Fontaine, No. 1.  Paperbound.  Livre-Disque: Philips.  $12 from Jean-Claude Côté, Remouald, Quebec, Canada, May, '15.

1960 Fables Mises en Vers, Tome I. Jean de La Fontaine; Texte établi et présenté par V.-L. Saulnier. Paperbound. Paris: Bibliothèque de Cluny: Librairie Armand Colin. $8 from Azio Media, Shallotte, NC, April, '11.

"Bibliothèque de Cluny" is a series of some fifty or sixty French and international classics. This is a standard paperback of the first six books of La Fontaine's fables, with an introduction at the beginning and notes, sources, models, and a T of C at the back of the book. No illustrations.

1960 Fables Mises en Vers, Tome II.  Jean de La Fontaine; Texte établi et présenté par V.-L. Saulnier.  Paperbound.  Paris: Bibliothèque de Cluny:  Librairie Armand Colin.  $15 from Ex Farrago Books, Portland, OR, March, '15.  

1960 Fables in Slang and More Fables in Slang.  George Ade.  Illustrated by Clyde J. Newman.  E.F. Bleiler.  Paperbound.  NY: Dover.  See 1899/1960.

1960 Fables in Slang and More Fables in Slang. George Ade. Illustrated by Clyde J. Newman. Introduction by E.F. Bleiler. NY: Dover Publications. See 1899+1900/60.

1960 Fables, Tales, and Stories/A Captive in the Caucasus. (Cover: Fables, Tales, Stories after Lev Tolstoi.) L.N. Tolstoi. Compiled and adapted with Notes and Vocabulary by E. Vladimirsky and V. Zaitsev. Easy Russian Series. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. $.75 at Second Story, May, '92.

A helpful little pamphlet. Pages 9-17 contain twelve "Fables and Tales," of which at least eight are Aesopic. The notes are helpful for identifying characters and stories. The limited vocabulary at the back is easier to work with than a whole dictionary. A nice little find.

1960 Folklore and Fables: Some Tales from Western and Eastern Nigeria.  J.A. Danford, S.A. Fuja, and Cyprian Ekwensi.  Paperbound.  Lagos, Nigeria: Information Division of the Ministry of Information, Lagos, Nigeria.  See 1953/60.

1960 Four, Four, and Four/Fur, Fin, and Feather Fables. Philip White. Cover by Jim Spanfeller. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Richmond, VA: The Dietz Press. $4, Dec., '98.

The "fours" of the title refer to three sections of four fables each. Each fable gets one right-hand page for the combination of text and a simple black-and-white drawing. The fables are actually told as chreiai, anecdotes about named animals in particular places. Thus Ringtail the monkey lost his tail to a shark when he played one too many pranks on board ship and slipped overboard. These children's stories are simplistic and very correct. Thus a dog in Hawaii was named "Poki" (because he liked to poke his nose into strange places) by a newcomer to the islands who did not know that "poki" was a word for "cat." But the dog did not know it either, so the dog spent a happy life. Moral: "It doesn't matter what your name is as long as you are glad to be you." I do think this is the first time that I have heard of building a fire under a jackass to make him move! Tropical is written "trophical" and stubbornness "stubborness." I could not wait to finish this book!

1960 Happy Hours in Storyland. Volume 2 of The Bookshelf for Boys and Girls. Prepared under the Supervision of the Editorial Board of the University Society. NY: The University Society, Inc. See 1955/60.

1960 Hundertfünf Fabeln. Rudolf Kirsten. Hardbound. Zurich: Logos-Verlag. 20 CHF from Harteveld Rare Books, Fribourg, Switzerland, March, '07.

It is a joy to run into a book of clever fables and nothing else. These fables take on the challenge of the fable form well. I will cite some examples of good ones here. The eagle asked the peacock and the lark to check out the nightingale. When they returned, the peacock said that the look of her awful dress had so overwhelmed her that she did not even hear her song. The lark responded that her song had been so charming that she forgot to pay attention to her dress (10). The mouse said to the wounded eagle "Console yourself with us. We too cannot fly." The eagle answered "You do not know the longing for altitude" and died (11). The lazy dung-beatle says to the industrious ant "Your hard work has neither sense nor purpose. You will die just like me." The ant answers "Ask my posterity. And besides, there is a difference between dying as a dung-beatle and dying as an ant" (18). The rat-mother asks the attacking cat "How can you take my children, since you yourself are a mother?" The cat answers "Just for that reason. My kids love eating rat" (21). Fox, bear, and wolf pleaded with the lion to help them against a snake that they could not overcome. He did. As he lay exhausted and wounded, the three fell upon him and consumed him along with his victim (49). A frog tells the fly he has caught that the fly's sense and purpose is to be eaten. As then a stork consumes he frog, the frog screams "What injustice!" (63). "There are too many singers. No wonder that the many melodies produce only a lot of noise." So say all the birds, and each one thinks that the others need to be silent, so that people can hear only his voice. With a few exceptions, these fables come one to a page. I like them a great deal! T of C at the beginning.

1960 Jean de la Fontaine: Fables. #6323 of 8000. Hardbound. Printed in Switzerland. Lausanne: La Guilde du Livre. CHF 45 from Altstadt Antiquariat, Fribourg, Switzerland, through Advanced Book Exchange, Sept., '00.

This is, as one might expect, a spectacular volume for two things. First is the excellent binding. The original red leather has golden lettering on its pliable spine. The second curious feature lies in the pasted-in black-and-white engravings. I find it surprising that the source(s) of these is not acknowledged. Are these copies of famous illustrations of the fables? "The Ape and the Dolphin" is from Gouget; it is reproduced in McKendry (67). Might some or all of the others be from the same edition? I find about thirty-two illustrations after the oval frontispiece of La Fontaine. Among the best are these: "The Eagle and the Owl" (158), "The Young Widow" (184), "The Coach and the Fly" (204), and "The Acorn and the Pumpkin" (272). The illustration for "The Animal in the Moon" (219) is loose. The T of C at the end lists only books except for the individual fables in the appendix, but there is an AI right after it. This edition is too late for Bassy and does not appear in Bodemann.

1960 Jean de la Fontaine: Fables.  Gouget.  #2763 of 8000.  Hardbound.  Lausanne: La Guilde du Livre.  €20 from a Buchinist on the Seine, August, '14.  

1960 La Fontaine: Fables. Illustrations de André Jourcin. Hardbound. Paris: Collection Belles Lectures: Éditions Bias. See 1954/60.

1960 La Fontaine: Fables. Odette de Mourgues. First printing. Paperbound. Great Neck, NY: Barron's Studies in French Literature: Barron's Educational Series. $0.93 from an unknown source, June, '89.

This is an earlier paperback edition of a hardbound book I have in its 1967 edition from Edward Arnold. Its spine is losing its hold on the pages. I will add what I wrote there. This is a short and helpful little work, perhaps too taken with literary history, but it certainly helps us to hear something about that in assessing La Fontaine. Unfortunately, frequent French passages are not translated. De Mourgues wants to situate La Fontaine in history: that is a hard task because he stands out. There seems to be little around him. "He wrote at the time when French poetry offered the maximum advantages from the point of view of technique and of poetic traditions and the maximum difficulties from the point of view of subject-matter, themes, imagery and vocabulary" (8-9). La Fontaine's particular quality is maturity. Precieux poetry was the one kind of poetry alive when La Fontaine was writing: "poetry written for a group of sophisticated people in order to give them a delicate intellectual pleasure, without any danger of upsetting the peaceful civilized atmosphere of the group" (14). "The study of man is the basic subject of the Fables" (17). La Fontaine accepted the limitations which his age set on subject-matter. "Plaire et instruire" is not as easy as it may seem! "In real life men behave like animals" (20). "There is no pity, no security anywhere" (22). "The image of man which emerges from the general picture is that of a deceitful, greedy and cruel being" (23). The moralist is not primarily concerned with practical teaching, but his purpose is to see men and society as they are. He is not a reformer but he need not be a cynic. A moralist is necessarily a pessimist. The picture of politics and society in La F remains a general one, going far beyond his age. He shows no indignation, no bitterness. We watch the tragedy of the world from the point of view of the gods. But to this La Fontaine adds a rich blend of sympathy, tenderness, and irony. One last value enters this mix: solitude. Plaire: The fables are stories and most critics of La F have viewed him primarily as a story-teller. A first obvious characteristic of his poetry and story-telling is its naturalness. A second is wit. And for him wit is associated with serious and important subjects. There is a long section on poetic sacrifice. La Fontaine leaves out a lot that he knows that the reader needs to supply. Something classic about saying more with less. Critical analysis then of OR and "The Rat and the Oyster." There is a lot here in 62 pages.

1960 La Fontaine' in Masallari. Orhan Veli Kanik. Fourth printing?  Paperbound. Istanbul: Dogan Kardes Yayinlari. $20 from Alp Gencata, Istanbul, Turkey, through eBay, Jan., '05.

This is a simple, 64-page pamphlet with modest black-and-white illustrations in varying styles, perhaps borrowed from other editions. I like particularly the illustration of the hunter running from the lion, to the amusement of the shepherd (51). In DS (61), it is a bird that the dog has in his mouth, and we can see the bird that he sees in the water. The front cover ranges various anmals in color around the title against a yellow background. There is no T of C. 

1960 Les Fables de la Fontaine. Illustrations de C. Cambier. Paperbound. Paris: Albums - Puzzles Djeco: Djeco Éditeur. €12 from La Libre Errance, Marché Dauphine, Saint-Ouen, June, '09.

Here is a twelve-page book presenting two fables. Apparently there is a series of three books. One other volume in the series presents FC and OF, while another offers FS and "The Cat, the Weasel, and the Little Rabbit." In TMCM, after a full two-page colored spread presenting the city meal, there is a single page illustrating the disturbance in their meal. Facing this page is a black-and-white version of the same picture ready for coloring. Finally there is a connect-the-dots picture of the country mouse heading for home. For GA, there is first a lively single page presenting the singing cicada followed by a two-page colored spread of her pleading with the ant in winter. Perhaps the most colorful picture of the lot follows: the ant sends the cicada away. That picture is then repeated on the facing page in black-and-white for coloring. The final page is a connect-the-dots picture of the not-very-happy ant. A young former owner of this book has done the two connect-the-dots pictures. The back cover has an engaging picture of the cicada in her rags sitting on a log in a snowy scene, while the ant stands before the door and may be chastising her from a distance.

1960 Let's Learn To Read: Fables Retold.  Jenny Taylor and Terry Ingleby.  Illustrated by Esmé Eve.  Paperbound.  London/Glasgow: Story Reader 4:  Blackie and Son.  €.99 on eBay from hugo monkey, Gateshead, UK, July, '14.  

1960 Midway, Number 4. A Magazine of Discovery in the Arts and Sciences. Editor: Felicia Anthenelli Holton. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. $7.50 from Turtle Island, Jan., '92.

This magazine issue contains Denison Hull's introduction to his 1960 Babrius translation modified as an article: "But Aesop Never Wrote a Thing!" (110-17), including translations of seven fables. There are deletions in the third paragraph and at the end of this short article, made presumably to adapt it to its new surroundings.

1960 Schöne Fabeln für jung und alt.  Steinhöwel, eight colored by Asta Ruth.  Paperbound.  Frankfurt am Main: Ullstein Buch Nr. 305: Ullstein Taschenbücher-Verlag.  €9 from Hassbecker's Buchhandlung, Heidelberg, June, '19.

1960 Stories and Legends of Two Worlds. Based on Greek Mythology. By George Dorcheff. Illustrated by Stina Nagel. Dust jacket. NY: Exposition Press. $4 at Book Discoveries Nashville, April, '96. Extra copy without dust jacket for $2.75 at Chimney Sweep Books, Santa Cruz, Aug., '89.

A strange, talkative adaptation of Greek mythology to American mountain folklore, heavy on devils, guardian angels, and magic. There is no explanation of the background or method. Simple illustrations. SW (94) is vintage Aesop, but set in the Great Smoky Mountains. The traveller takes off all his clothes and jumps into a stream. "The Fox and the Turtle" (65) includes a variation of the traditional "The Fox and the Crab." Some stories are recognizable Greek myths; "The King Has Horns" is, for example, "Midas' Ears." The funniest is "The Old Lady and the Devil."

1960 Story Train.  Marjorie Pratt and Mary Meighen.  Illustrated by Carol Critchfield, Don Dennis, Frank Hulefeld Associates.  Hardbound.  Syracuse: The Prose and Poetry Series: L.W. Singer.  $3 from Milwaukee, June, '18.

1960 Story Wagon. The Prose and Poetry Series. By Marjorie Pratt and Mary Meighen. Illustrated by Carol Critchfield. Syracuse: L.W. Singer. $6 at George Herget, New Orleans, Dec., '92. Extra copy for $1.50 at Renaissance, July, '88.

A children's book with enjoyable colored illustrations of MSA (84). The language is very simple. The ending is great: "Now--the man always walks, the boy always walks, the donkey always walks."

1960 Storyland Favorites. Harold G. Shane and Kathleen B. Hester. Illustrated by Mary Miller Salem. Second printing. Hardbound. River Forest, IL: Gateways to Reading Treasures Co-Basal Literary Readers: Laidlaw Brothers. $1.50 at the Antiquarium, Omaha, Nov., '89.

Here is a second printing of this book in only fair condition. As I wrote of the third printing from the same year, it has a lively and very simple second-grade reader in good shape with vintage 50's art that I like. Five fables. The mouse rides the lion's back out of the net as the hunters approach. " The Cat and the Milk " is their version of CP. SW makes the usual mistake about the bet, which proves who is better. Also TH and FC. A slip in this copy tells us that the book cost $1.59 then. It has not depreciated much in 35 years! 

1960 Storyland Favorites. Gateways to Reading Treasures Co-Basal Literary Readers. Harold G. Shane and Kathleen B. Hester. Illustrated by Mary Miller Salem. Third printing. River Forest, IL: Laidlaw Brothers. $2.25 at Grandma's House, Nebraska City, Nov., '94.

A lively and very simple second-grade reader in good shape with vintage 50's art that I like. Five fables. The mouse rides the lion's back out of the net as the hunters approach. "The Cat and the Milk" is their version of CP. SW makes the usual mistake about the bet, which proves who is better. Also TH and FC. A slip in the Antiquarium copy tells us that the book cost $1.59 then. It has not depreciated much in 35 years!

1960 The Bull with Magic Eyes and Other Chinese Fables. Retold by C.H. Kwock. Cover design by Edmon Yit Tom. First edition. Pamphlet. San Francisco: Jade Mountain Press. $5 from ellenbks, Cumberland, ME, through Ebay, Nov., '00.

This pamphlet distributed by City Lights Books in San Francisco is unpaginated, unillustrated except for the cover design, and originally sold for $.50. A postscript at the back gives a history of Chinese fables, beginning in the fourth and third centuries BC. The final page contains errata. There are sixty fables, two or three complete fables to a page, each with an attribution to author and era. One never needs to turn a page to finish a fable. None of these fables seem to be repeaters from the Western traditions that I know. Among my favorites are "The Good Man and the Wooden Image," the final line of which is "It is so easy to bully a good man!" Another is "How Not to Keep a Secret," which features a man who hides his treasure inside a wall with a sign saying that there is no treasure here. "Relativity" tells of a man who lost a sword overboard and so marked the place in the boat from which he dropped it! "The Fate of the Clever" presents a hunter who imitates animals' sounds in escalating fashion; to drive off the wolf, he imitates a tiger--only to attract a real tiger! In the end, a frustrated bear tears him apart. Finally, "The Compassionate Man" tells of a man who wants to have turtle soup but cannot bring himself to boil the turtle. He thus sets up a rod over a panful of boiling water and gives the turtle a chance at life by walking over the pan without falling in. When the turtle accomplishes the difficult feat, the man says "Bravo! Do it again!" Many parallel traditional Western fables. Thus "The Tiger's First Donkey" shows our "Familiarity breeds contempt" with creatures different from the fox and the lion. Then again, some fables set situations like ours but move in the opposite direction. So the lamb in "The Lamb in a Tiger's Skin" forgets his skin and runs away from a wolf whom he meets.

1960 The Cicada and the Ant (Russian). I.A. Krylov. Illustrator G. Nikolski. Pamphlet. My First Little Books. Printed in USSR. Moscow: State Publishing House for Children's Literature. $1 from Victor Kamkin Books, NY, April, '96.

This 16-page pamphlet for children contains Krylov's poetry for five fables: GA, "The Monkey and the Spectacles," "The Elephant and the Dog," FC, and FG. That is a great selection if one is allowed just five fables. Perhaps the strongest of the illustrations is of the monkey twirling the spectacles over his head (7).

1960 The Right Play for You. Bernice Wells Carlson. Illustrated by Georgette Boris. NY: Abingdon Press. $2.50, Sept., '91.

A simple pedagogical work for those who work with young people. How do you select, adapt, and alter a play? Aesop gives two of the first subjects dealt with: FG (23-24) as a subject involving good pantomime possibilities and SW (26-30) as one that allows for lots of action, including supplemental action by other actors than the principals. Once again, Aesop gets around.

1960 Treat Shop.  Eleanor M. Johnson and Leland B. Jacobs.  Illustrations by Tom Sinnickson.  New enlarged edition.  Hardbound.  Columbus, OH: Treasury of Literature -- Student Series:  Charles Merrill Books, Inc.  $11 from Syndi Bierman, Willow Grove, PA, through eBay, July, '16.

1960 Uncle Frank's Animal Stories. Scotia, NY:Americana Review. $1.50 from Knoxville, TN, April, '00.

The prologue introduces this reproduced booklet of twenty pages, 5½" x 8½", as having appeared in the 1870's. "Of Course," just past the halfway point in the booklet, might well qualify as a fable. Animals in the wood come across a boot and argue over what it may be. The bear says that it is a fruit rind, the wolf a nest, and the goat a long root. The old owl says that it is a boot, and the rest all dispute him vigorously. Then they force the owl to leave the wood. The owl's last words are "It is true for all that." Towards the end of the booklet one finds "How the Lion Loved the Dog," which is a version of Tolstoy's story, with Nero as the lion, Trot as the dog, and the London zoo as the venue. It is perhaps typical of this booklet that the story does not carry through to Trot's death.

1960 Uncle Remus Stories.  Retold by Jane Shaw from the original of Joel Chandler Harris.  Illustrated by William Backhouse.  Hardbound.  London and Glasgow: Wm. Collins and Sons.  £5 from Any Amount of Books, London, July, '22.

1960 Various Fables from Various Places. Edited by Diane de Prima. With Original Illustrations by Bernard Krigstein. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Printed in USA. NY: Capricorn Books: G.P. Putnam's Sons. $10 from Robinart Booksearch, Philadelphia, through Interloc, May, '98.

This is an important anthology of fables. It is organized by geographic territories, fifteen of which are covered. In an epilogue "About Fables," di Prima mentions three factors that help shape the collection. Aesop is not heavily represented here, since we know Aesop well. Fable is hard to define, but she has had no problem proceeding on her "feel" for what is a fable. Above all, her criterion has been delight: "…these stories were chosen chiefly for the delight they gave me. The delight is mostly all I know about them." I find her anthology worthy of the company of such important traditional collections as Jerrold's Big Book of Fables (1912), the Everyman library edition (1913), Cooper's An Argosy of Fables (1921), Komroff's The Great Fables of All Nations (1928), and Barbara Hayes' Folk Tales and Fables of the World (1987). All eight Spanish fables here come from Cayetano Fernandez, and there is nothing from either Samaniego or Iriarte. All the Russian fables come from Krylov. La Fontaine has only three fables, perhaps for the same reason for which Aesop has only ten. Let me mention several among those that are new to me and good. The conceited monkey can find no one to praise her sufficiently, and so she humbly approaches the pig, who lacks all vanity. Whatever she says, the pig answers "Grum, grum" (Spain, 3). In the Gesta Romanorum (20), the story about testing one's wife with a lie about laying an egg becomes a story about voiding a crow! A weasel and hyena hunting encounter two men hunting. The weasel immediately hides. The hyena sees the men and thinks "Here is meat." The men see the hyena and think "Here is meat." The hyena and men kill each other, and the weasel comes out of his hole and thinks "Here is meat" (61). The toad bets the rat that he can do more than the rat (66). He walks through a crowd of men, who let him pass because they fear what touching him might bring. The rat tries to do the same and is promptly attacked. Among the best of the illustrations are those of the fox confessing to the wolf (130) and of the dancing apes (143). I wonder if there was a large-format publication of this book. It would do more justice to Krigstein's art.

1960 Various Fables from Various Places. Edited by Diane de Prima. With Original Illustrations by Bernard Krigstein. First paperback edition. A Putnam Capricorn Original. Printed in USA. NY: Capricorn Books: G.P. Putnam's Sons. $25 from Mary Ann Ryan, Bookseller, Portland, OR, through ABE, August, '00.

See my comments on the hardbound version. This paperback seems exactly identical within the covers. The back cover lists the fifteen geographic areas. The front cover offers a typical Krigstein illustration. This one features a tortoise talking into a human's ear.

1960 When Animals Talked: Fables from all over the World. Selected and retold by G.S. Whitehead. Illustrations by G. Berry and G.S. Dixon. Apparent first printing. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. Nottingham: Cultural Publications Limited. £ 1 from Bardic Books through abe, April, '11. 

This book has a strong musty smell! The book has a different -- and good! -- telling of the story of Renard, the bear, and the wood wedges: "Who Likes Honey?" (1-7). "Renard Turns Sheepdog" features the monkey and Renard as shepherds (8-13). This story is new to me. I also read the third story, which is a good extended story about the monkey and fox stealing King Lion's crown, robe, and scepter. They create a harsh and ugly government. King Lion returns to claim his throne, and the clever fox opens the castle to him, claiming to be his true servant. The Lion King uses his help, dismisses the monkey with some punishment and banishes the fox from the court ("The Sham King," 14-24). The fourth story is the "Chanticleer" story. There are several stories here that are typically Renardian: longer than normal fables but including fable material and strategems. Overall, there are nineteen stories, identified by the countries that they come from, including "Dixieland." I think I can perceive the differing styles of the two artists. Compare the illustrations on 10 and 15. I doubt that they came from the same hand. 

1960 Who Ben Kaputen Der Robin? Mein Grossfader's Rhymers Und Fable Tellen. By Dave Morrah. Drawings by the author. First edition. Dust jacket. Garden City: Doubleday. $3 at The Strand, April, '97. Extra copy for $20 at Old Children's Books, New Orleans, Aug., '88.

The germanizing gets old quickly, but there are clever turns on many of the fables: "The Rooster and the Pearl," AL, "The Sick Lion," LS, "The Cat and the Fox," "The Mountain and the Mouse," and "The Jackdaw and the Lamb." The best is "The Rabbits and the Frogs." The illustrations are good, e.g., for MM. This book would be worth people's chuckling over at an exhibition.

1960 99 fables by william march. Edited with an introduction by William T. Going. Illustrated by Richard Brough. First edition. Dust jacket. University, Alabama: University of Alabama Press. $10 at Jackson Street, Oct., '94.

This book represents a genuine surprise. After I have read so many books that promise fables but offer something else, here are real fables! William Edward March Campbell apparently worked over this collection for years and had it refused once by one of the publishers of his other works. Except for a very few that mention Aesop (#1, #97, and #98) and one that deliberately redoes his work (#30), the fables are original. Is it wrong to take #1 and #97 as programmatic? The former concludes "the fable is, and always had been, the platitude's natural frame" (2) and the latter has the Delphians killing Aesop in Going's words "not because of the warming of the oracle and not because his wit was too sharp and biting, but because he told fables--nothing but fables--and he was boring" (xviii). Going places March apart from Ade and Thurber, for his style is purposefully flat and folk-like, and totally apart from the allusive, decorative manner of La Fontaine and Gay. He places him rather with Bierce, for his fables are sharp and ironic (xvi-xvii). I find them tending overall more than I would want toward a scolding tone. But there is also a rich variety of humor, as when the escaped elephant admits that he has been too thin-skinned for life among humans (5). Typical and insightful is "The Peacock and His Bride," where the central character admits that what the two have in common is that "we both love me to distraction" (74). Let me list some other fables worth a special look: #29, 52, 53, 56, 57, 64, 71, 77, 84, and 88. Brough's work is often strong, e.g., on xxiv and 58.

1960/1961 Aesop's Fables.  Denison B. Hull.  Decorations by Rainey Bennett.  Second impression.  Hardbound.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press.  Gift of Paul and Ianthe Swensen, Dec., '21.

1960/64 The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Retold by Katherine Evans. Illustrated by Katherine Evans. Second printing. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Chicago: Albert Whitman & Co. $12.50 from Wonder Book and Video, Frederick, MD, Feb., '02.

This presentation continues Evans' work with Whitman, found also in BS ('62/'66) and MM ('59). This telling of the story does a good job filling out concrete details. Young Peter lived with his poor grandfather, and all they owned was the flock of sheep. As shepherd, Peter looked down from the hill and saw people in the town active working, playing, fishing, and going to market. He ran down the hill and called "A wolf!" Everyone ran to the hill. When they arrived, he laughed and laughed and said it was all a joke. He played the trick successfully a second time a few days later. Not long afterwards, the wolf appeared. This time the town folk did not believe Peter. The wolf killed most of the boy's flock, and the other sheep ran away and were never seen again. The people of the town themselves utter the moral, that a liar will not be believed even if telling the truth. Alternating spreads of black-and-white and colored pages greet the reader.

1960/65 Story Wagon. The Prose and Poetry Series. By Marjorie Pratt and Mary Meighen. Revised by Floy Winks DeLancey. Illustrated by Carol Critchfield and Guy Brown Wiser Associates. Second edition. Syracuse: L.W. Singer: A Division of Random House, Inc. $5 at Half Price Books, San Antonio, August,'96.

The contents are significantly changed from the 1960 edition. I notice that several of the items that remain (including MSA) are still on the same pages: the printer is spared lots of work in changing or remaking plates. The cover has changed its color, illustration, and style. See also my copy of the teacher's edition for the same year.

1960/65 Story Wagon. Second Edition. Teacher’s Edition. By Marjorie Pratt and Mary Meighen. Illustrated by Carol Critchfield and Guy Brown Wiser Associates. The Prose and Poetry Series. Syracuse: L.W. Singer. $6.98 at Cheever Books, San Antonio, August, ’96.

See the first edition of the student’s edition in 1960. This book still has the enjoyable colored illustrations of MSA (84) and the great ending: "Now--the man always walks, the boy always walks, the donkey always walks." This edition adds plenty of suggestions to teachers in the blue pages at the very end of the book (50-54).

1960/66 Storyland Favorites. Harold G. Shane and Kathleen B. Hester. Illustrated by Mary Miller Salem. Hardbound. Printed in USA. River Forest, IL: Gateways to Reading Treasures Co-Basal Literary Readers: Laidlaw Brothers: Doubleday & Company. $12.95 from Donaldson's, San Antonio, August, '96.

This third printing has a new copyright (1966) and a non-pictorial cover different from the LM cover of my copy of the edition copyrighted in 1960. Laidlaw is now a division of Doubleday & Company. See my comments there.

1960/66 Storyland Favorites. Harold G. Shane and Kathleen B. Hester. Illustrated by Mary Miller Salem. 5th printing. Hardbound. River Forest, IL: Gateways to Reading Treasures Co-Basal Literary Readers: Laidlaw Brothers: Doubleday & Company. $4 from Half-Price Books, San Antonio, August, '96.

This fifth printing has a pictorial cover of LM. This may be the cleanest copy of the four copies of this book that are in the collection. Vintage 50's art that I like. Five fables. The mouse rides the lion's back out of the net as the hunters approach. "The Cat and the Milk" is their version of CP. SW makes the usual mistake about the bet, which proves who is better. Also TH and FC. 

1960/67 La Fontaine: Fables. Odette de Mourgues. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. London: Studies in French Literature #4: Edward Arnold. £2 from Waterfield's, Oxford, July, '90.

This is a short and helpful little work, perhaps too taken with literary history, but it certainly helps us to hear something about that in assessing La Fontaine. Unfortunately, frequent French passages are not translated. De Mourgues wants to situate La Fontaine in history: that is a hard task because he stands out. There seems to be little around him. "He wrote at the time when French poetry offered the maximum advantages from the point of view of technique and of poetic traditions and the maximum difficulties from the point of view of subject-matter, themes, imagery and vocabulary" (8-9). La Fontaine's particular quality is maturity. Precieux poetry was the one kind of poetry alive when La Fontaine was writing: "poetry written for a group of sophisticated people in order to give them a delicate intellectual pleasure, without any danger of upsetting the peaceful civilized atmosphere of the group" (14). "The study of man is the basic subject of the Fables" (17). La Fontaine accepted the limitations which his age set on subject-matter. "Plaire et instruire" is not as easy as it may seem! "In real life men behave like animals" (20). "There is no pity, no security anywhere" (22). "The image of man which emerges from the general picture is that of a deceitful, greedy and cruel being" (23). The moralist is not primarily concerned with practical teaching, but his purpose is to see men and society as they are. He is not a reformer but he need not be a cynic. A moralist is necessarily a pessimist. The picture of politics and society in La F remains a general one, going far beyond his age. He shows no indignation, no bitterness. We watch the tragedy of the world from the point of view of the gods. But to this La Fontaine adds a rich blend of sympathy, tenderness, and irony. One last value enters this mix: solitude. Plaire: The fables are stories and most critics of La F have viewed him primarily as a story-teller. A first obvious characteristic of his poetry and story-telling is its naturalness. A second is wit. And for him wit is associated with serious and important subjects. There is a long section on poetic sacrifice. La Fontaine leaves out a lot that he knows that the reader needs to supply. Something classic about saying more with less. Critical analysis then of OR and "The Rat and the Oyster." There is a lot here in 63 pages. 

1960/71 Young Years: Best Loved Stories and Poems for Little Children. Editor: Augusta Baker. Originally illustrated by various people, along with classical illustrations by famous artists. NY: Parents' Magazine Press. $8.95 at Black Star in Chicago, May, '89.

Twenty fables on 144-74 of a large book. The texts are apparently from Jacobs, who is referred to in the "Suggested Reading" on 503-8. They may be revised (see xvi). The illustrations are all blue-on-black; they are taken from various people, including Tenniel, Bennett, and Doré. Compare this book with the later edition of the same book.

1960/1973 Fables, Tales, and Stories/A Captive in the Caucasus. L.N. Tolstoi. Compiled and Adapted with Notes and Vocabulary by E. Vladimirsky and V. Zaitsev. Third edition. Paperbound. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. $5 from Mauricette Magien, Pierrefonds, Quebec, Canada, through eBay, March, '03. 

Here is a third edition of this helpful little pamphlet, of which I already have a first edition. Pages 9-17 contain twelve "Fables and Tales," of which at least eight are Aesopic. The notes are helpful for identifying characters and stories. The limited vocabulary at the back is easier to work with than a whole dictionary. A nice little find. The earlier edition had been done by the Foreign Languages Publishing House; this edition is published by Progress Publishers. The earlier edition belonged to the Easy Russian Series; there is no indication that this publication belongs to a series.

1960/74 Aesop's Fables. Denison B. Hull. Decorations by Rainey Bennett. Paperbound. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. $1 from an unknown source, July, '81.

The decorations are just that There is no intent to involve narrative in the picture. The rhyming verses are pleasing and not overly long--e.g., on the 2W. It might be fun to work Babrius into a lecture as a particular kind of story teller. This copy, which sold for $1.95, was a fourth impression in 1974. See a more recent copy under "1960" for a different printing at a different price. 

1960/74 Le Roman de Renart: Fabliaux du Moyen Age. Adaptées par Jean Sabran. Illustrées par Guy Sabran. Paperbound. Paris: Collection Rouge et Bleue: Editions GP. $4.90 from Marie Gervais, St.-Urbain-Premier, Quebec, Canada, through eBay, Feb., '07.

I like Guy Sabran's visual style very much, and I am happy to encounter it here in Renard, as I had encountered it in GP's "Fables of La Fontaine" in 1952 and 1960. The book offers both full-colored partial-page illustrations and duochrome images. Two of the best of the full-colored illustrations occur at the beginning and near the end. The former of these is the title-page's presentation of Renard the pilgrim standing with a book "Ma Vie" in his arm and talking with two children. The latter image presents Renard's supposed funeral on 34. Renard's encounter with "Chantecler" is shown on 7. Renard lies apparently dead on the path on 17 and is being found by a travelling merchant with his wagon full of eels.

1960/74 Young Years: Best Loved Stories and Poems for Little Children. Editor: Augusta Baker. Various illustrators. Hardbound. Printed in USA. NY: Parents' Magazine Press. Gift of Claudia Spaulding, August, '90.

This 1974 edition seems to reproduce exactly the 1971 copy of the original 1960 edition. See my comments there.

1960/75? Young Years: Best Loved Stories and Poems for Little Children. Editor: Augusta Baker. Originally illustrated by various people, along with classical illustrations by famous artists. NY: Parents' Magazine Press. $8.00 at Claudette's, Brookdale Lodge, CA, Aug., '89.

Almost identical with, and in better shape than, the earlier version of the same book. The cover is slightly different; the title page is no longer garish. This one is boldly proclaimed the "latest version": not much help for bibliographers! Augusta Baker is now "Story Telling Specialist Emeritus." Contemporary artists are now acknowledged on xvi.

1960/76 Fiabe di La Fontaine. NA. Illustrazioni di Beniamino Bodini. III edizione completamente rinnovata. Hardbound. Milan: Gli Aristolibri: AMZ. $8.85 from Cinda Thompson, Vista, CA, through Ebay, Jan., '01.

This book largely reproduces, in both verbatim texts and exactly the same illustrations, Favole di animali: Fiabe di la Fontaine, Fedro e Esopo by the same publisher, which I have listed under 1960/80. See my comments there. This book adds several stories. The typeface seems new. The new stories here include LM, "L'aquila et lo scarabeo," "Il cavallo vendicativo," LS, "I generali dei topi," AD, "Il contadino et la serpe," TMCM, and "Il gatto furbo e un vecchio topo." "I generali dei topi" gets my prize for the best new illustrations (56 and 59). I am surprised how much I still enjoy Bodini's colorful and spirited illustrations.

1960/80 Favole di animali: Fiabe di la Fontaine, Fedro e Esopo. Illustrazione di Beniamino Bodini. Milan: AMZ. $6.25 in Rome, Sept., '83.

Colorful and often useful pictures. I like the one of the ant giving hell to the grasshopper. Good faces too on the fox with and moving away from the grapes. Style is simple but colorful, and the cut of the pictures allows them to be removed from text easily enough. Dog with meat is satisfactory.

1960/2012 Aesop's Fables (Hebrew).  Salomon Span.  Illustrated by Bezalel Shatz.  Seventh edition.  Hardbound.  Jerusalem: Bialik Institute.  $35 from an unknown source, July, '18.

1960? Aesop's Fables.  Translator and Editor: Matityahu Timor.  Illustrations by Ruth.  Dust-jacket.  Hardbound.  Tel-Aviv, Israel: Academia Publishing.  $10 from Dr. Baruch Falach, Netanya, Israel, May, '12.

1960? De Schildpad en de Haas. No author or artist indicated, but covers are signed by "Sabatés." Printed in the Netherlands. Serie Animados. $14.40 at Prince and Pauper, San Diego, Aug., '93.

Large-format pamphlet that includes "Alice in Wonderland." Some delightful children's art, especially for the early views of an angry and exhausted turtle. Curiously, there is no illustration of the rabbit sleeping. After the race, a disrobed victor turtle enjoys relaxing on top of his shell.

1960? Deutsche Fabeln. Auswahl und Bearbeitung von Willy Schüssler. Zeichnungen von Grothe. Hardbound. Naumburg-Saale: UTA-Jugendbücher Band 1: UTA-Verlag. See 1949?/60?.

1960? Die Schönsten Fabeln aus Aller Welt. Ausgewählt und bearbeitet von Waltraut Henschel-Villaret. Illustrationen von Mouche Vormstein. Hardbound. Gütersloh, Germany: Bertelsmann Reinhard Mohn OHG. Gift of André Salem, July, '08.

This book works by geography, presenting first German fables, then European, African, Oriental, Persian, Asian, and Indian, in that order. The author is named after his or her individual work. There is an extensive T of C at the beginning. The frequent illustrations by Vormstein include both colored and black-and-white. The illustrations are vigorous! For TMCM, the book turns to Martin Luther, and Vormstein offers a lively interaction of two feminine mice (10). On this reading I tried and enjoyed both text and pictures for "Johann, der Seifensieder" by Friedrich von Hagedorn (11). It is a fine redoing of La Fontaine's "The Banker and the Shoemaker." Prose and verse are both well represented. This is the third time recently that I have encountered Goethe's "Die Frösche" (30), here with a delightful colored two-page illustration. Among many pleasing illustrations, I am struck by the colored illustration for La Fontaine's "The Rat Who Retired from the World" (107). Here the rat holds a rosary as he sends the pleading feminine rat off empty-handed. Another strong illustration is FS on 151. Finally, there are two fine illustrations for FM (274-77). This book is a treasure for its range, its selections, and its illustrations. Thank you, André!

1960? Es Sprach der Alte Marabu: 12 Lustige Fabeleien von Cefischer. Bilder und Verse von Cefischer. Frankfurt am Main: Heinrich Cobet Verlag. DM 3 at Buchkaiser, Pforzheim, July, '95.

Simple cartoon-plus-rhyme stories each covering two pages. Generally there are three pictured phases and then a six line lesson from the wise bird. The donkey thinks he can become a zebra just by having painted stripes; the mouse gets away from the cat only to run into a mouse-trap; the cow wants the two flowers beyond her reach but will not accept them when they are given to her. Even though each of these stories is somehow new, they all seem to play with standard fable themes and strategies. Might Cefischer be C.E. Fischer? It is very hard to judge the age of this book. I found it on the way to the train station in my brief time in Pforzheim.

1960? Fabeln. Georg Rath. Hamburg: Hans Christians Verlag. $10 from Melvin McCosh, Aug., '94.

Fifty verse fables, about one to a page. I read the first ten and found them good but not a major contribution to the fable tradition. The best of these ten are perhaps "Die Zwei Hunde" (9), "Der Taler und der Penny" (13), and "Der Knabe und die Fliege" (15). I have checked all my German references and resources and can find no reference to Rath. And this booklet seems one of the most "undatable" of all the books I have. The author has published poetry through a publisher in Omaha! There is a T of C at the end.

1960? Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrations de Guy Georget. Paris: Éditions du Pélican Blanc. $8 at Second Story, DuPont Circle, April, '97.

A happy find! I had laid it on the desk, and a woman after me wanted it very much. Sorry! These are some of the best simple colored-art responses to LaFontaine that I have seen in a while. Fifteen fables, each with one or two pieces of perhaps four-color art. They remind me somewhat of Hellé. One favorite of mine is WL. I still find it hard to believe that I found this lovely book for eight dollars!

1960? Fables de La Fontaine.  Illustrated by Mateja.  Hardbound.  Tourcoing: Éditions  Artima.  €6.50 from lapartdesanges through Ebay, Oct., '22.

1960? Fables de La Fontaine: Chocolaterie Clovis.  Paperbound album.  Pepinster, Belgium:  SPRL.  €200 from Albert van den Bosch, Feb., '23. 

1960? Fables de la Jungle. Dr Paul White, Traduit de l'anglais par Mia Denéréaz. Illustrations de Graham Wade. Paperbound. Vennes-Lausanne: Collection Ligue pour la lecture de la Bible. $1.99 from Daleann Erksson, Yellville, AR, through eBay, April, '04. 

Twelve years after I found the original English, I have now found this French translation. And the price is right! Here is some of what I wrote then about the English, which I have listed under "1955/66": "Clever stories heavy-handedly moralized for Christian teaching. For example, a great wall (sin) suddenly appears in the jungle and separates animals from their best feeding territory. A silly monkey chases a coconut into quicksand. Another feeds vultures (bad thoughts) but tells them to go away; of course more vultures return the next day. Yet another chops off a branch while he is perched on it! Two of the cleverest stories are II and III. In the former, a hunter makes a small opening in the top of an oil can and fills the can with rocks and a few peanuts on top of them. His monkey victim will not let go once he gets his fist around a few of the peanuts, and the heavy can becomes his trap. He is clubbed and bagged. In III, a snake has been slithering into the coop through a small hole in the wall to swallow an egg and then break it inside himself as he slithers back out. The clever owner replaces a fresh egg with a hard-boiled one, and the snake is trapped when he reaches the opening. The snake is killed."

1960? Kleine Fabeln.  Kurt Hubbuch.  Illustriert von Rudolf Grundemann.  Hardbound.  Stuttgart: Organisationsbüro Hubbuch.  €11.80 from Antiquariat Buch-Mars, Herner, Germany, through ZVAB, Jan., '16.

1960? La Fontaine 'den Hikayeler. Paperbound. $5 from Ugur Yurtuttan, Etiler, Istanbul, Turkey, Dec., '03.

This is the simplest of paperback books, with 64 pages and a slightly smaller number of fables. The cover has some simple orange monochrome illustrations of various animals and people. I am trusting that this really is a fable book!

1960? Ruelle Chocolate Cards Album.  Complete album of 24 sets of 5 cards each.  €175 from Albert van den Bosch, Antwerp, Dec., '22.

1960? Russian Folk Tales. Introduced (and edited?) by E. Pomerantseva. Illustrated by T.A. Mavrina and K.V. Kuznetsov. Various translators. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. $6.30 from Booksource, Ltd., Swarthmore, PA, through ABE. Extra copy without dust jacket for $2.50 at The Lantern, DC, Oct., '90.

A straightforward collection of Russian folktales. "Fox and Crane" (29) is straight Aesop. "Fox and Wolf" (25) is traditional Renard material. "Axe Porridge" (50) is a version of "Stone Soup." All three are translated by Bernard Isaacs. Simple black and white illustrations.

1960? Selected Fables.  Aesop and Ivan Krylov.  No editor or illustrator acknowledged.  Paperbound.  Israel: Haim (Life) Publishing.  $10 from Dr. Baruch Falach, Netanya, Israel, May, '12.

1960? The Dog and His Shadow: Aesop Fables (Hebrew). Izza. Hardbound. Tel Aviv: Amichai Press. $25 from Abraham Madeisker, Jerusalem, through eBay, July, '04. 

This is one of two Hebrew books found at the same time on eBay. They are roughly similar to Little Golden Books in the USA. For me, the outstanding feature of each lies in the three full-page colored illustrations. Here those picture FS (11), a cat with mice (23, perhaps BC?), and a crow with a mussel (37). There are also nine smaller black-and-white illustrations along the way. From the pictures, I recognize other familiar stories among the twelve presented in this book. These include "The Rich Man and His Friend" (7), "The Woodsman and His Axe" (16), "The Rich Woman and Her Youth" (19), AD (28), "Buried Treasure" (30), GGE (33), "The Apple Tree" (40), and BS (44). There is a T of C at the beginning.

1960? The Fox, the Hare, and the Rooster: A Russian Folk Tale. Translated by Tom Botting. Designed by V. Andriyevich. Pop-up. Paperbound. Moscow: Malysh Publishing House. Canadian $4.99 from Susan Alexander, Toronto, through eBay, Feb., '09.

This pop-up book is in very good condition. Is this good folktale really a fable? It was labeled "Aesop's Fable" in the eBay description. Rooster can do what neither dog nor bear can do: get the squatter fox -- whose home made of ice has melted -- out of hare's warm wooden house. Simple art and nice paper-work!

1960? The Lion Grown Old. Text after Jean de La Fontaine. Illustrations by Jean Giannini. Pamphlet. Printed in Italy. Brighton: Litor Publishers. $3 from Pierre Cantin, Chelsea, Quebec, Canada, Feb., '01.

This sixteen-page pamphlet about 7" x 7½" has lively illustrations inside covers that show a good deal of wear. From the title-page on, the lion has a pince-nez that is slipping off of his nose. He acquires bandages on his paws and body as he goes along. At last he faces the ass and says "I wanted to die. But to suffer your blows is double death." This fable is not presented very frequently. I am surprised to see it get its own booklet here.

1960? The Tortoise and the Hare. Illustrations by Sabatés. Paperbound. London: Sandle's. £12.50 from Unicorn Books, Pinner, UK, August, '02.

Here is a large-format pamphlet that reproduces the fable part of a Dutch version, De Schildpad en de Haas, for which I have guessed a publication year of 1960. As I mention there, it features delightful children's art, especially for the early views of an angry and exhausted turtle. I cannot say whether the English version is the same as the long Dutch prose story, but at least having this English text helps now to make sense of the pictures and to answer the questions I had then about what seemed an unusual presentation of the story. In this English version, there are two tortoises. The "disrobed victor turtle" who "enjoys relaxing on top of his shell" is not really yet a victor. It is, as this version makes clear, "another tortoise who looked exactly like Tubby." He appears along the route. Thus a part of an element from another fable, usually told between a hare and a porcupine, shows up here; there many porcupines are used to confuse the hare, while one substitute appears here. In this version, Horace the hare thought "If slow old Tubby has time to rest then I will, too!" And so he went to sleep. Several illustrations from the fuller Dutch version are skipped here. As I suggest, they may complicate the story further. 

1960? The Wild Donkey: Aesop Fables (Hebrew). Izza. Hardbound. Tel Aviv: Amichai Press. $25 from Abraham Madeisker, Jerusalem, through eBay, July, '04. 

This is one of two Hebrew books found at the same time on eBay. They are roughly similar to Little Golden Books in the USA. For me, the outstanding feature of each lies in the three full-page colored illustrations. Here those picture TMCM (7), LM (33), and an eagle dropping a tortoise (41). There are also seven smaller black-and-white illustrations along the way. From the pictures, I recognize some of the other familiar stories among the nine presented in this book. These include TB (14), "The Miser" (18), MSA (21), "The Larks and the Farmer" (26), and "The Farmer and the Noble" (35). Maybe I am missing something, but the T of C at the beginning seems to overlook MSA! It lists only eight stories.

1960? The Wolf Who Sang Songs. Boris Zakhoder. Translated from the Russian by Avril Ryman. Drawings by V. Chizhikov. Moscow: Progress Publishers. $1 at Holland's Books, Portland, March, '96.

This large-format pamphlet contains three stories. "Why the Cock Crows Thrice" shows that the cock crows because he still wants his beautiful tail back from the peacock who stole it. "The Fox's Ruling" is a variation of the "Show me how it was done" tale, only now with the snake as the villain and the fox as the clever "judge" that helps the peasant. Then it adds the fox's demand for a gift, which turns out to be two dogs in a sack. "The Wolf Who Sang Songs" may be related to the fable about the wolf who played for the goat's last dance. Here the wolf's singing brings the townfolk. Lively art, especially in the two-page title spreads for each story.

1960? 5 Fabeln für unsere Zeit (Nach James Thurber).  Aus dem Englischen übertragen von Marlies Müller.  Illustriert von Felix Müller.  Loose in a portfolio.  Bremen: Otto Behrens.  €16 from Versandantiquariat Kerstin Daras, Düsseldorf, July, '18.

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1961 A Children's Treasury of Folk and Fairy Tales. Edited and adapted by Eric Protter. Introduction by Martha Foley. Illustrated by many people. Great Neck: Channel Press. $3.50 at Constant Reader, March, '88.

A beautiful book in very good shape. Three Aesopic stories appear: "The Raven and the Fox," "The Thief and the Donkey" (with a Doré illustration), and "The Peasant and the Waterman," also with an illustration. Otherwise a wonderful collection of story and art.

1961 A Greek Reader for Schools adapted from Aesop, Theophrastus, Lucian, Herodotus, Thucydides, Zenophon, and Plato. Edited with Introductions, Notes, and Vocabularies by C.E. Freeman and W.D. Lowe. Hardbound. Oxford: Clarendon Press. See 1917/61.

1961 A Hundred Fables from La Fontaine. The English by Philip Wayne. First U.S. edition. Paperback. Garden City: Anchor Books: Doubleday & Company. $2 at Jackson Street Booksellers, July, '93. Extra copy for $1.50 from Jackson Street earlier.

Good short introduction. "La Fontaine's lighthearted manner is, in a way, a veil to his scope and depth. This poet saw and loved lasting essentials, whether in a bowed woodman or in a rabbit or in death." His intelligence is coupled with gaiety, his irony with compassion. I find Wayne's verse translations faulty, perhaps because I have read too many student papers that find things in the English not there in the French. A careful study of the first four of Wayne's fables finds regular additions, perhaps prompted by the rhythm and rhyme. Thus calling the grasshopper the ant's "friend" in I,1.17 is dangerous. In I,2.3-4, there is nothing in the French about "delicate flair" or a "fair" greeting. In I,3 it takes Wayne's frog twenty-one words to burst as against LaFontaine's ten. In I,5 Wayne's wolf adds a gratuitous and potentially distracting line in the midst of his rejection of the dog's feasts: "You have 'em. You grow fatter." T of C at the beginning, and AI at the end.

1961 Aesop Without Morals. Lloyd W. Daly. Illustrated by Grace Muscarella. First printing. Dust jacket. NY: Thomas Yoseloff. $8.10 from Booklegger's, May, '89. Also three copies of the smaller second printing with a red cover (one for $6.50 from Harold's, St. Paul, June, '95; another a gift of Vera Ruotolo, July, '91; the last for $9.50 from St. Croix, March, '94) and five copies of the third printing with its tan cover, including one work copy.

One of the best sources for straight fables. Daly uses Perry as his basis for translation. Simple black-and-white ink sketches. AI. Quite comprehensive. A worthwhile book.

1961 Aesop's Fables. Translated by John Warrington. Illustrated by Joan Kiddell-Monroe. First edition. London: J.M. Dent & Sons/NY: E.P. Dutton & Company. £29 from Robin Greer, Nov., '94.

A beautiful edition distinctive for its green, blue, orange or tan two-tone art, a specimen of which appears on every page except 15 and 71. Some samples of very good illustration occur on 46, 85, 108, and 114. Perhaps 75% of the fables have morals, which seem to me particularly intelligent. Some good examples include "Figures are not facts" for "The Widow and the Hen" (8), "There is as much malice in a wink as in a word" for "The Fox and the Woodman" (31), "Disclaim one defect, and betray another" for "The Mole and her Mother" (49), and "Better scare than snare a thief" for "The Farmer and the Lion" (110). The appropriate morals are all the more surprising because "These fables have been translated into the plain, straightforward English of today from the Greek and Latin texts of Babrius, Phaedrus and other ancient or medieval writers to whom we owe their preservation," the translator's note on the back of the title page accurately proclaims. In terms of form, there are a few exceptions to a rule of "one or two fables per page." On three pairs of pages (76-77, 134-35, and 152-53) there is one fable with two illustrations. AI at the front of the book. Maybe 240 fables in all. Not listed in Hobbs.

1961 Appearances: Fables & Drawings. Russell Edson. Pamphlet. Printed in USA. Thing Press. $15 from Book Stop Used Books, Tucson, AZ, Nov., '01.

I had experienced Edson in his What a Man Can See from 1969. See my comments there. Here earlier he apparently does his own art work. I am still at a loss as to how to comprehend most of the work here. Several items seem to approach being stories, and so to qualify as fables. "Stew" (15) is a delightful piece about a woman who falls into a pot. Her husband ends up jumping in saying "I can get in stew too." "The Courtship" (23) evokes a man's hopes of appearing and being noticed and accepted by the person who looks afar from her window. Windows, doors, and walls recur frequently in this work.

1961 Belling the Tiger. Mary Stolz. Pictures by Beni Montresor. NY: Harper and Row. $1 at Amaranth, Evanston, Sept. '91. Extra copies for $3 from Milwaukee Public Library, Summer, '86, for $.95 from Downtown Books, Milwaukee, Nov., '92, and for $1 from Pageturners, Dec., '92.

A delightful kids' picture book. It is a kind of "second-generation" literature that actually quotes the Aesopic fable. Two mice end up belling a tiger and scaring an elephant and come home stronger mice for it all. No pictures worth considering.

1961 Fabeln und Parabeln von Äsop bis Brecht. Herausgegeben von Grete Ebner- Eschenhaym. First printing. Dust jacket. Leipzig?: Im Insel-Verlag. $4 at Imagination, Feb., '92. Extra copy without dust jacket for DM 8 by mail from Revers Buchhandlung, Sept., '95.

A hidden treasure sitting in the "Collectible" section of a favorite bookstore. In the midst of a delightfully broad and understandably heavily German spectrum of fabulists, I find the selection here surprising. Aesop is represented with five fables, Babrius with three, Phaedrus with two. Lessing has twenty-seven, LaFontaine nineteen, Pestalozzi fifteen, and Gellert fourteen. Krylov (nine), Krasicki (four), and Leonardo (two) give some international representation. No English or Spanish fabulists are represented. The short overview on 183-5 notes that the twentieth-century fable (e.g., from Brecht) has moved toward parable and takes its images from the human world. Alphabetical register by authors (with works) on 186. The extra copy, though lacking a dust jacket, is in superior condition, especially in its paper. Thus I keep it in the collection.

1961 Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrations de (W.) Cremonini. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Printed in Italy. Milano: Editions Fabbri. $14.61 from Louise Walsh, Houston, TX, through Ebay, May, '01.

See the English version of the presumably Italian original of this book under The Fables of Aesop and La Fontaine (1958). Surprisingly, it took Fabbri three years after the English version to get to this French version. Notice also that the English title speaks of both Aesop and La Fontaine, while the French speaks only of La Fontaine--though the fables covered are exactly the same. The texts here are La Fontaine's poetry verbatim. Many of the illustrations are even richer in color than those I already praised for their color in the English version: compare the title-page's colors, for example. The T of C here is at the back rather than in the front. The order of the nineteen fables changes somewhat. MM and "The Wise Lark" switch positions (on 8 and 23). One reason for the switch lies in the overly long version of La Fontaine's "L'Alouette et ses Petits"; the English saves a whole page of text. Similarly, the English adds a whole page to MM. "Le Chat, la Belette et le Petit Lapin" takes an extra page in the French, as does "Les Deux Chevres." AD and "Les Frelons et les Mouches a Miel" switch places, with the latter taking an extra page. In all, the fable texts and illustrations run through 56 in the French and 55 in the English. The FS pictures (21-22) are here again in reverse chronological order. Though La Fontaine's text of FG (30) says nothing about it, we still have here the laughing rabbit holding ripe grapes. The cover and its dust-jacket are beautiful. The transparent dust-jacket overlays gold on the title of the front cover and adds a golden spider's web around the back cover's man holding balloons illustrating animals. A delightful book!

1961 Fables de la Fontaine. Illustrations de Éliane Haroux-Métayer. Hardbound. Printed in France. Paris: Flammarion-Jeunesse: Ernest Flammarion. $13.49 from Ina Kerby, Colville, WA, through Ebay, March, '01.

This book is memorable for me first of all because there was a mix-up over shipment of it. I received another, rather commonplace La Fontaine edition, and Ms. Kerby and I feared that this book might have been lost or misplaced. As a result, I was especially happy to receive it. Then I was happier to look through it. There are about twenty colored illustrations--generally full-page--along with perhaps fifteen smaller black-and-white illustrations and designs. The best of the colored illustrations may be for "Le rat et l'huître" on 35. The book presents sixty-five fables in all. It once belonged to the St. Mary's High School Library in Edmonton, Alberta.

1961 Fables from Aesop. Retold by James Reeves. Illustrated by Maurice Wilson. Dust jacket. Blackie of London and Glasgow. $4.95 in Madison, Dec., '85. New paperback, $5.95.

AI at the back. The alternating (water-?) colored and black-and-white illustrations are not bad. Maybe the best thing about this kids' book is the morals--e.g., for the man who loses his wig: "When others laugh at us, it is best to laugh with them" or for Hermes: "If you try to find out what other people think of you, you may be disappointed."

1961 Fables: La Fontaine, Ésope.  Illustrations de (W.) Cremonini.  Hardbound.  Paris:  CELIV.  €14.20 from Anne-Marie Quême, Ormoy France, through Ebay, Dec., '22.

1961 Famous Folk Tales to Read Aloud. Mabel Watts. Illustrated by Sergio Leone. Paperbound. NY: Wonder Books. $1 in Portland, Aug., '87. One extra copy.

Two things strike me in this rather worn little book: the attempt to fit the tales to a listening audience, and the attempt to make them "contemporary." Characters are given names, and older professions and circumstances are shifted to more modern ones. Written for (and many taken from) grade school periodicals.

1961 Five Parables. Small booklet. "Greetings from Alice and Paul Walker, Christmas, 1961." Limited edition of 900. Sterling Press. $8 at Holmes, Oakland, July, '94.

A pleasant little book with five stories that could be reckoned parables or fables, including the story of John the Evangelist's repeated admonition, "Children, love ye one another" and the Buddhist story of the disconsolate mother who had lost her first-born asking the Buddha for a way to bring life back to her child and being asked to bring a mustard seed from every home that had not experienced death. Other stories concern diplomatic one-up-man-ship and learning by being thrown into the sea that riding a ship in a storm is not so bad. The last story has Truth donning some of Parable's lovely garments "for the truth is that men cannot face Truth naked; they much prefer him disguised."

1961 Friendly Tales. Book One, Beacon Literary Readers. Edited by J. Compton. Colored drawings by Paul Hogarth. Monochrome decorations by Owen Wood. London: Ginn and Company. See 1931/61/63.

1961 Gaetano the Pheasant: A Hunting Fable.  Guido Rocca.  Pictures by Giulio Cingoli and Giancarlo Carloni.  Dust jacket.  Hardbound.  Printed in Italy.  NY: Harper & Row.  $5.25 from Midway Books, St. Paul, June, '03.

This big book was apparently first published in Italian, and copyrighted by Ugo Mursia Editore.  Rocca died in 1961 at the age of thirty-three shortly after composing this work.  I think I finally gave in and bought the book because it has so often appeared in my web searches for fable books.  With 60 pages (and a T of C at the back), the book stretches the dimensions of fable in the strict sense I would like to retain.  Maybe it is a fable-like short story or novella.  Cecco the gamekeeper cares for some 3000 pheasants in the game preserve at Belmondo.  Gaetano has a blue tail and differs from the other pheasants also in that he can think.  He experiences the first of many traumatic hunting days.  He learns then that, to stay alive, he needs not to fly.  Gaetano seizes a moment to exhort his fellow pheasants to take measures against the hunters--like flying low or walking near the beaters or dogs.  They discuss his ideas, but those win the day who say that it is pheasants' destiny to be hunted.  Two pheasants even institute a betting game with odds on the next pheasant-victims.  Gaetano finally leaves with four other pheasants.  They seek the sea and/or the land where pheasants can live in peace.  After difficult adventures, Gaetano and his lady pheasant Donatella make it to an island.  Victory!  An epilogue tells us that the island soon was full of blue-tailed pheasants.  The art varies.  Some of the styles include a collecting or cataloguing style showing and labeling different types of pheasants or dogs on the same page, a primitive cartoon style notable for its big round eyes, and suggestive monochromes.  Among the best might be the conversation of the three last pheasants with Pietro the lobster (55).

1961 Hans Sachsens ausgewählte Werke: Erster Band: Gedichte. Hans Sachs; edited by Paul Merker and Reinhard Buchwald. 16th century woodcuts handcolored by Ernst Schauer. Nachwort von Wolfgang Stammler. Hardbound. Leipzig: Insel-Verlag. €22.50 from Quadrate Buchhandlung, Mannheim, July, '12.

Here is a gorgeous pair of books! They were my first find in Mannheim on this visit. Fables make up a small portion of the work. One way to locate them is to work from the chronology before the all-too-brief T of C at the end of the second volume. Other things around the fables are exciting, especially as they are highlighted by the foldout illustrations. Notice these in particular: the portrait of Hans Sachs (xii); types of work (77-83); "Der Bürgertanz" (140-42); "Die Ehbrecherbruck" (146-7); "Der Bauer mit dem bodenlosen Sack" (234-8); "Der Nasentanz" (267-8); "Der Narrenfresser" (287-92); and "Summa all meiner Gedicht" (299-307). Fables include "Der untreu Frosch" (100-101); "Der Aff mit der Schildkröten" (102-5); "Fabel der Löwin mit ihren Jungen" (106-7); "Der krank Esel" (108); "Fabel des Esels mit der Löwenhaut" (109-10 with a glorious illustration); "Der Krug mit dem Wetter" (111-12); "Der Fuchs mit dem Storchgast" (113-14); "Der karg Wolf" (115-16); "Fabel von Neidigen und Geizigen" 117-19 with another fine illustration); and "Der Fuchs mit dem Hahn" (120-21). "Der Krug mit dem Wetter" is new to me. The pitcher is proud to be what it is as it sits outside to dry out after being fashioned. The weather asks him what he is and he answers proudly that he is a pitcher. The weather answers "but you will be mud" and goes to work. The moral ends with a great proverb: "Poor people's court courtesy and calf excrement both soon smell bad"! Apparently these two volumes are a reprinting of something done by Insel in 1923-24, copies of which are around various American university libraries. I have one huge question that my researches have not answered: Who created these woodcuts in the first place? 

1961 Hans Sachsens ausgewählte Werke: Zweiter Band: Dramen. Hans Sachs; edited by Paul Merker and Reinhard Buchwald. 16th century woodcuts handcolored by Ernst Schauer. Nachwort von Wolfgang Stammler. Hardbound. Leipzig: Insel-Verlag. €22.50 from Quadrate Buchhandlung, Mannheim, July, '12.

Here is the second of a gorgeous pair of books! They were my first find in Mannheim on this visit. This second volume presents a number of pieces dealing with Mardi Gras, four comedies and a tragedy, and prose works. The appendix includes an essay on Sachs and his time by Stammler and a closing word from Buchwald, "Die Silberweise von Hans Sachs," a vocabulary, and chronological listing of the works represented here. There are only a few hand-colored woodcuts, the most impressive of which is "Sie werden im Pflug getrieben" (180). I keep this book in the collection since it belongs to the two-volume set that includes Sachs' fables. Apparently these two volumes are a reprinting of something done by Insel in 1923-24, copies of which are around in various American university libraries. I have one huge question that my researches have not answered: Who created these woodcuts in the first place? 

1961 Holzschnitte der Ulmer Äsop-Ausgabe des Johann Zainer. Ursula Koch. Ulm. Hardbound. Dresden: Verlag der Kunst: Zwinger-Bücher. $5 from an unknown source, August, '97.

The heart of this lovely little book lies in the seven reproductions from the "Life of Aesop" and the twenty-nine reproductions from the fables in the 1476 Ulm edition of Johann Zainer. They are numbered, and the fable for each briefly told, on 45-48. The text of this book is not bound to sequential comment on the reproductions. It tells the history of Western fables and of Steinhöwel's Latin-German edition. This edition by Johann Zainer in Ulm included one-hundred-and-ninety-three text illustrations, twenty-eight of them on the "Life of Aesop." To insure the popular impact he wanted from the work--it was quickly sold out--Steinhöwel included the Schwänke of Poggio and other non-fable material within his work. Koch emphasizes that the woodcuts contributed mightily to the popularity and success of Steinhöwel's work. The woodcuts were used again in Günther Zainer's new German-only edition in Augsburg the following year and often until the turn of the century, when stress on the wood necessitated new woodcuts. The illustrations of all twenty editions of fables that appeared in Germany before 1500 come, directly or indirectly, from the Ulm woodcuts. The master who fashioned these woodcuts focussed on the highpoint of the scene; he finds the important point in the plot and leaves aside the ornamentation that late Gothic art loved. Sometimes the more important character or element is enlarged. All the elements are ordered to each other. One look is enough to get a sense of what is happening. Few of the illustrations put two events into one scene, as artists of the middle ages were wont to do. Koch finds that, by contrast with his earlier work for Zainer, the Ulm Master here shows an ease in presenting the human form, even in complex movements or moments. Koch believes that one master drafted all of the cuts, but that a number of hands executed them. There is thus some variation in the quality of the cuts.

1961 India's Tales and Legends.  Retold by J.E.B. Gray.  Illustrated by Joan Kiddell-Monroe.  Dust-jacket.  Hardbound.  NY: Henry Z. Walck.  $7.20 from Berthoff Books through Biblio, Nov., '23.

1961 Isoppu Ebanashi (2). [Aesop's Picture Stories]. Edited by Toshio Miyawaki. Tokyo: Kodansha Co., Ltd. ¥400 at Miwa, Kanda, July, '96.

This thick-paged children's book shows its age. The spine is weak and cramped. Various artists present generally a two-page spread of simple art for each fable. The stories include BF, "The Net That Lets Little Fish Escape," GA, "The Wolf and the Monkey" (like "The Tiger, Brahmin, and Jackal"), "Sticks to Break," "The Bear, Boar, and Fox," "The Eagle and the Turtle," AD, DLS, "The Lion and the Gnat," "The Dancing Goat," "The Deer and the Vine," and BW. The most ingenious stroke may come when the singing grasshopper is in a gondola (6)! At 33, the book presents other stories illustrated with less color.

1961 Italian Fables. Paperback. By Italo Calvino. Translated from the Italian by Louis Brigante. Illustrator (Michael Train) NA. Original title: Fiabe Italiane. (c)1956 by Giulio Einaudi editore. American edition (c)1959 by The Orion Press. First Collier Books Edition 1961. NY: Collier Books. $3 at The Book House on Grand, St. Paul, May, '97.

See my comments on the hardbound in 1959. Apparently, some of the designs from the original hardbound version are not included in this paperbound edition. The cover shows a picture of a dog or fox getting cheese from a crow in a tree, but I cannot find that fable inside the book!

1961 L'Aesopus Moralisatus Stampato in Parma da Andrea Portilia nel 1481. One (unnumbered) of 300 copies. Pamphlet. Printed in Parma: Cassa di Resparmio di Parma. $10 from an unknown source, July, '97?

This booklet was printed to commemorate a ceremony celebrating, as far as I can tell, the presence in Parma's Biblioteca Palatina of the unique exemplar of a book of "Aesopus Moralisatus" printed by Andrea Portilia in Parma in 1481. The sections of this pamphlet are: "Cronaca della Cerimonia," "Testo della Comunicazione del Dott. Ciavarella," and "Appendice Bibliografica." This last bibliographical section includes a rich gathering of fable manuscripts and editions in two different collections, that of the Biblioteca Palatina itself and also that of Prof. Ettore Ponzi. There are two photoreproductions within the booklet: a copy of the "incipit" page of the book in question (16) and a copy of Barlow's frontispiece for an Amsterdam edition of 1714 (32). The dotted line for indicating which of the 300 this copy is remains blank. The traditional candidate (e.g., for Hervieux) for the author of this collection is Walter of England. My Italian reaches just far enough to know that Doctor Ciavarella's communication deals with the question of the authorship of the collection.

1961 La Fontaine. Pierre Clarac. Paperbound. Écrivains de toujours. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. $6.95 at Schoenhof's in Cambridge, MA, June, '85.

This study of LaFontaine gets interesting for me around 114, where there are a number of fine old illustrations of the fables, unfortunately small in size. One nice series traces "The Plague among the Beasts" through about eight or ten artists. Also a nice "The Cat and Venus" on 182. The front cover and inside back cover are also fine.

1961 La Fontaine: Fables. Dix aquarelles de Dandelot. #74 of 8000. Paperbound. Paris: Collection "Pastels": Éditions du Panthéon. €52.10 from Bouquinerie Languédoc, Montpellier, through abe, Jan., '03. Extra copy in fair condition, not numbered, for $28.65 from alibris, Nov., '02. 

This is a nice looking edition, often using two colors for the texts. No editor is acknowledged. I like the Dandelot water-color illustrations. They are big, bold, and colorful. Unless the cover counts as one of the ten, I can find only nine. The others face: 16, 32, 64, 96, 128, 144, 160, 224, and 272. The FG illustration is particularly good (64). I would say it is clear that this fox has done and will do no jumping. There are also several nice monochrome designs throughout the book: WL (49 and 301); "The Larks and Their Mother" (93); TH (129 and 241); and perhaps "A Hungry Fox" (257). There is an AI at the back. Most of the pages here are uncut. The book has a plasticene dust jacket that looks original.

1961 La Fontaine: Fables.  Dix aquarelles de Dandelot.  #3175 of 8000.  Hardbound.  Paris: Collection "Pastels":  Éditions du Panthéon.  $4.99 from Kathy Bartlett, Durham, NC, through Ebay, June, '19.

1961 La Fontaine: Fables.  Dix aquarelles de Dandelot.  Unnumbered.  Paperbound.  Paris: Collection "Pastels": Éditions du Panthéon.  €52.10 from Alibris, Nov., '02.

1961 La Fontaine: Fables (Cover: Les Fables de La Fontaine). Illustrations de Gianini. Hardbound. Paris: Bibliotheque Junior: O.D.E.J. $3.50 from Marie Gervais, St.-Urbain-Premier, Quebec, Canada, through eBay, July, '05.

This little hardbound booklet includes ten fables in La Fontaine's original verse. There are colorful full-page illustrations for ""Le Chat, la Belette, et le Petit Lapin"; FC; FS; and "Le Loup, la Chevre et le Chevreau."

1961 La Fontaine: Fables. Images de Romain Simon. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Printed in Monaco. Paris: Idéal Bibliothéque: Hachette.   See 1958/61.

1961 La Fontaine Poet and Counterpoet. Margaret Guiton. First printing. Hardbound. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. $6 from Starr Book Shop, Cambridge, MA, March, '89.

This is an appealing book. Written for the general audience, it translates all the poetry of La Fontaine that it presents. It does not presume knowledge of the language, history, or literature surrounding La Fontaine's work but takes the reader into those areas. A first chapter offers a careful examination of the artistry of FC. The second chapter seems to me, after my cursory introduction to this book, to be a key: "The Fable Fiction." Guiton finds La Fontaine both poet and counterpoet. Let me suggest what is for her involved in these two realms. Poetry deals with the myth of man the hero; it is inherently fictional. This is an "idealized, at least magnified, version of ourselves" (16). Poetry is of course thus "lies" even if they are Aesop's lies. La Fontaine wanted to revive the heroic style that was dead in late seventeenth-century French poetry. In the fables, La Fontaine fuses this style with counterpoetry, reality, nature, man as animal and a fairly insigificant one at that in the big picture of things. Prose fable early carried this realistic view of man, but La Fontaine will write poetic fables. This realistic vision is comic rather than heroic, arising out of our recognition of "two different and contradictory aspects of an identical situation" (27). These conflicts concern "appearance and reality, promise and performance, what we are intended to see and what we, sometimes perversely, see for ourselves" (27). "These two points of view -- the single vision of imaginative poetry and the double vision of comedy -- are constantly displacing each other in La Fontaine's fables" (26). She finds that his whole vision, bringing together counterpoetry and poetry, "became deeper, broader, more assured and closely integrated as he gradually developed his art" (29). In the epilogue to the eleventh book of fables, he defined his objective retrospectively: "to translate 'the voice of nature,' as exressed by all living things, into 'the language of the gods,' or poetry (29). The next two chapters deal with fable language and verse form. "The Fable as Counterpoetry" encompasses the poetic comedy, the social comedy, and the human comedy. "The Fable as Poetry" encompasses such chapters as "Words and Actions," "The Voice of Nature," and "The Language of the Gods." A final chapter speaks of La Fontaine as "A Citizen of the Universe." I so look forward to the next time that I will teach La Fontaine! 

1961 La Fontaine: 20 Fables. Various artists. Preface by Jean Cocteau. #103 of 299 (total 440). Loose leaves. Monaco: Jaspard Polus. $1550 from Gemini Books, Hinsdale IL, June, '08.

Here is a treasure! I was able to get it only because there is one illustration missing from Brayer. As I recall, the book dealer was eager to be rid of the grief he had had with it. Let me include some of the bookseller's description and then mention some of my favorites. Twenty fables by Jean de la Fontaine illustrated with 20 in-texte half-page color lithographs + 20 full-page color lithographs by 20 modern artists, the latter each signed in the plate. Artists include: Yves Brayer; Bernard Buffet; Jean Carzou; Leonor Fini; Fontanarosa; Foujita; Edouard Georg; Picart-Le-Doux; Konstantin Terechkovitch; Vertes; Jacques Villon; and others. Jean Cocteau contributed an additional lithograph printed in sepia and several lithographed manuscript leaves. This copy contains an additional suite of the color lithographs: 20 hors-texte lithos printed recto (Yves Brayer plate lacking) + 10 hors-texte plates with 20 lithos printed back to back + one Cocteau litho. The total number of hors-texte lithos printed to one side is 41 (of 42), in addition to 20 smaller size lithos. Aside from the lithos, there are about 200 loose leaves with La Fontaine fables, all housed in publisher's leather covered solander box; overall size 17" x 13" x 3.5". Aside from lacking the Brayer litho, all contents are in fine condition, the box with some wear and rubbing. Some of my favorites include "The Lion and the Mosquito" by Caillard, "The Pumpkin and the Acorn" by Desnoyer, "The Animals Sick from the Plague" by Foujita, "The Young Widow" -- especially the contrast of the two illustrations -- by Goerg, and MSA by Planson. I plan to photograph if possible Cocteau's sketch of La Fontaine, Chapelain-Midy's SW, Fini's 2W, both illustrations for Oudot's OR, and Terechkovitch's "The Old Woman and the Two Servant Girls." What a treasure!

1961 Landmaus und Stadtmaus; Der Fuchs und die Krähe; Der Hund und sein Knochen.  Patricia Scarry, nach Aesop; übersetzt von L. Julius.  Bilder von Richard Scarry.  Paperbound.  Zurich: Happy Buch Nr. 1034: Delphin Verlag.  €3 from Bücherecke BeLLeArTi, Vienna, July, '19.

1961 Le Roman de Renard. Odette Larrieu. Illustrations de Romain Simon. Printed in Monaco? Paris?: Hachette. $4 at La Librairie Arcadie, New Orleans, August, ’96.

A standard prose children’s version of the Renard story, with lively illustrations. Many of the colored illustrations are dedicated to fable material (e.g., 39, 105, 109, and 167). Another favorite illustration of mine has Renard hiding by hanging with fox-corpses (175). There is a T of C at the back. Formerly the property of Don Bosco BibliothP que in Jacquet River.

1961 Making Storybook Friends. Gerald Yoakam, Kathleen Hester, and Louis Abney. Illustrations by Milo Winter. Hardbound. River Forest, IL: Laidlaw Readers: Laidlaw Brothers. $5 from Vintage Mall Antiques, Buffalo, MN, Jan., '00.

An early-grade reader in some continuity with Laidlaw's other work for children. This is a curious book for several reasons. The closest story to a fable is "The Timid Rabbit" (48), which is identified as an "Eastern legend." One nut falls on a pile of sticks, and another falls on the rabbit, who concludes that the sky must be falling. Two other works are included and identified as "Aesop's Fables." The first of these is "The Camel and the Pig" (99), which also occurs in "The Child's Treasury" (1923/31), though I cannot now tell if in the same version. The camel can look over some walls, and the pig can squeeze through holes in other walls. "To be just as we are is the best thing in the world after all" (103). "Red Hen and Sly Fox" (106) includes the standard elements of a scissors, which the hen uses to get out of the bag, and a stone, which she then puts into it. Aesop gets blamed for a lot!

1961 My Poetry Book of Masterpieces in Verse. (Cover: Classics To Grow On.) Selected and arranged by Grace Huffard and Laura Carlisle. Illustrated by Willy Pogany. Introduction by Booth Tarkington. Previously published as My Poetry Book. NY: Parents' Magazine Enterprises. See 1934/56/61.

1961 Nigerian Folk Tales. As told by Olawale Idewu and Omotayo Adu. Told to and edited by Barbara K. and Warren S. Walker. Text Decorations by Margaret Barbour. First edition? Dust jacket. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. $9 at Adams, DC, May, '92.

Thirty-seven Yoruba tales, including fourteen labelled "Moral Fables" (35-54). The notes on this section (89-98) comment in careful fashion on possible transmission routes, including those of the several Aesopic fables presented. As to these, TH adds the tortoise's deliberation before he accepts the original challenge. "The Tortoise and the Boar" and "The Tortoise and the Snake" work off of the Aesopic FS pattern, but use stepping on one's tail as provocation and adding a rope to one's tail as revenge; the moral is that man teaches man to be tall or short. How can the crow in FC speak with the cheese in his mouth? TMCM cuts out the country visit. The non-Aesopic fables are heavier on lessons and more like folk-tales, with emphasis on significant names, magical tests, and strange powers. "The Test" is ingenious. "The Man, the Dove, and the Hawk" is a well-crafted lesson in self reliance. "The Lion and the Goat" follows a familiar pattern but gives the man a rare chance to be the clever judge that recreates the original scene. "The Lion, the Tortoise, and the Boar" has a good moral: "To state one's dislike is to initiate one's annoyance." I feel for the tortoise in the first fable who has collected all the world's wisdom into a gourd but is not smart enough to hoist it on his back while he climbs a tree! The Aesopic story about the bat changing sides and being outcast is told as a "pourquoi" story on 26. "The Tortoise and the Tug of War" (59) is told unusually cleverly: the tortoise has dragged both elephant and hippo out of their elements!

1961 Once a Mouse.... A fable cut in wood by Marcia Brown. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons. Hardbound. $1 for a copy with olive-colored covers with brown lettering, Fall, '92. Extra copy with a multi-colored cover for $.50 from the Milwaukee Public Library Book Cellar, Nov., '95.

This classic tale is well told here, with lively two-color and three-color illustrations. The endpapers of the olive edition (marked "6.70" on the reverse of the title-page) are torn. The multi-colored copy is marked "4.69."

1961 Once a Mouse.... A fable cut in wood by Marcia Brown. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons. Paperbound. $1 at Hooked on Books, Colorado Springs, March, '94.

The illustrations and the text are scaled down in this paperbound version. One can also notice a distinctly different tonality in the colors here. This version tells the classic tale well, with lively two-color and three-color illustrations.

1961 Open Doors. Ullin W. Leavell and Mary Louise Friebele. Illustrated by Sheila Beckett. Fifth printing. Hardbound. NY: Golden Rule Series #2 (The Modern McGuffey Readers): American Book Co. See 1957/61.

1961 Slimme Reintje de Vos.  Lucille Desparois (Tante Lucille).  Illustrated by Johannes Coenraad van Hunnik.  Pamphlet.  Amsterdam: No. 1424H:  Mulder and Zoon.  Gift of Peter Everaers, Dec., '21.

1961 Stories from India.  Edward W. Dolch and Marguerite P. Dolch.  Illustrated by Gordon Laite.  Hardbound.  Dust jacket.  Champaign, IL: Folklore of the World: The Garrard Press.  $0.50 from a Duchesne Library Sale, Omaha, May, '15.

1961 Story Carnival. Floy Winks DeLancey and William J. Iverson. Book design by Stefan Salter. Illustrations by Guy Brown Wiser Associates: Richard Foes, Claude Leet, and Ken Smith. (c)1960 by The L.W. Singer Company. California State Series. Sacramento: California State Department of Education. $2 for the 1961 printing in satisfactory condition at the Sebastopol flea market, Dec., '96. Extra copy of the 1962 printing in better condition for $.25 at the Sebastopol flea market, Aug., '94.

This third-grade reader includes, as stories to be turned into plays, DM (170) and FC (172). Each is simply illustrated in color. Story Wagon (1960) is in the same series, though my copy is not a California edition.

1961 The Big Book of Animal Stories. Compiled and edited by Margaret Green. Pictures by Janusz Grabianski. Hardbound. Printed in Vienna. NY: Mulberry Books: Franklin Watts, Inc. $10 from Blake Books, Milwaukee, Nov., '98.

This book is of a piece with the later Big Book of Animal Fables by the same author and illustrator. The original publisher of both was Ueberreuter in Vienna. This book was also published in Great Britain, apparently at the same time as this edition, by Dobson Books. Of the twenty-three stories here on some 240 pages, several are fables. "The Foolish Peacock" (137) is new to me and delightful. The peacock insists on a high-sounding name, and the choice does not help him. The two-page colored illustration on 138-9 is one of Grabianski's best. "The Crab and the Crane" (159) is close enough to the Kalila and Dimna story to make me wonder if it is not a descendant. This story is labeled as Egyptian. "Two Frogs from Japan" (202) is the familiar old story of letting the place from which you have come be the pattern for understanding anything new. "Clever Brother Hare" (206) involves not offering oneself as a sacrifice to King Lion but rather preparing a warm meal for him. "Why the Bear Is Stumpy-Tailed" (224) is the shortest of these stories, fitting on one page. This version of "A Bridegroom for Miss Mouse" (236) by Maung Htin Aung involves two phases I am not used to: the Mountain passes the eager parents on to the Bull, who sharpens his horns against the mountain. The Bull in turn passes them to the Rope, and the Rope to the Mouse.

1961 The Country Mouse and the City Mouse; The Fox and the Crow; The Dog and His Bone. Three Aesop Fables Told by Patricia Scarry. Pictures by Richard Scarry. NY: Golden Press. $.25 at Constant Reader. Seven extra copies, including a gift of Marian Adamski, Nov., '92, and of Mary Pat Ryan, Nov., '94.

This is the original behind My Nursery Tale Book, which is a bigger book including several non-Aesop stories. The two stories used in the bigger book cut out several pictures from each story (including the dog and the mice, who then appear on the back cover!). This edition also adds the dog and bone story. My two $.25--and two of the $.89--versions have different back covers. See the $.99 version in the next entry.

1961 The Country Mouse and the City Mouse; The Fox and the Crow; The Dog and His Bone. Three Aesop Fables Told by Patricia Scarry. Pictures by Richard Scarry. NY: A Golden Book/Racine: Western Publishing Co. $.99 at the Milwaukee Public Museum, Aug., '86. Two extra copies, including one for $.45 from the Book Den, Santa Barbara, Aug., '88.

This is a re-issue of the above book, with a touched up cover, title page, and copyright page. The price has gone up from 25 to 99 cents!

1961 The Danish Aesop: 59 of the old animal fables. Retold by R. Broby-Johansen; English version by B. Nordhjem. Illustrated by Mogens Zieler. Hardbound. Printed in Copenhagen. Copenhagen: Hans Reitzel. $22.50 from Children's BookAdoption Agency, Kensington, MD, through ABE, June, '99.

This book has become a favorite of mine. A note before the fables traces the fascinating history of this collection. Some of the fables first appeared in a private edition by Hjorth's Printing-House in 1943 for distribution as Christmas presents. In 1944, all the fables were printed by the same firm for Gyldendal and its title was made into "The Little Aesop," thought to be a less provocative title during the occupation by Nazi forces. The book did not appear, however, until after the liberation in 1945, though a number of copies had been distributed privately with a duplicate T of C that emphasized the topical application of the fables. Thus OF (#1) was titled "Great Germany" and "The Lion, the Ass, and the Fox" (#59) was titled "The Fate of the Informer." The fifty-nine fables are told with wit and care. The artwork, which usually adds one color to black, is delightful. OF (#1) has a frog who thinks that if only his skin was not wrinkled, he would be as big as the ox. There are no children involved in this telling. Fable #2 on the ox and ass is particularly--and unusually--well told. This version turns it into a tit-for-tat story. The ox who has been told that the plowing work he shares with an ass is not hard because he is used to it gives the same answer back to the ass when the latter asks who will carry the master home after work. BW (#14) involves a repeated cry that wolves are coming and a fact that plural wolves do come. Fable #15 on the war of the birds and beasts gives a good example of the book's excellent silhouette art. In the following fable, the whole dead ass is piled onto the back of the unhelpful horse. LS (#29) has a wonderful illustration of a bloody stag divided into four equal parts! The following fable's illustration shows graphically with its separated human limbs what would happen to the man if a lion created the sculpture! The telling of #31 on the hostage sheepdogs is particularly good for this sometimes difficult fable. Zieler does a creative job of making faces out of the rivers and the sea for #40. In fable #51 the mule kicks the wolf in the forehead while the latter is trying to read what kind of horse his father was; this version explicitly speaks of this "racial problem," and it may take this unusual turn precisely to address the racial interests of the Nazis. There is a pair of typos in the fourth line of #53. This version has the horse as usual take on a human master, but he does not even overcome his enemy the stag. In #57 the ass asks as usual whether the enemies will burden him more than his present masters; the unusual part here is that the cargo is human. The ass thus asks if he will have two saddles put upon him. The black-and-white illustration catches this humorous twist well. There are no titles but except those given in the T of C at the end. The outer spine is cracking.

1961 The Danish Aesop: 59 of the old animal fables. Retold by R. Broby-Johansen; English version by B. Nordhjem. Illustrated by Mogens Zieler. Paperbound. Printed in Copenhagen. Copenhagen: Hans Reitzel. £35 from Unicorn Books, Middlesex, Feb., '01.

Here is the paperbound version of the great book I had found a year and a half earlier. See my extensive comments there. I find no difference between the two except in the binding. This copy is in better condition than that.

1961 The Fables of Aesop and La Fontaine. Illustrated by W. Cremonini. Retold by Shirley Goulden. (c)Fratelli Fabbri, Milano. London: W.H. Allen and Co. 5$ Canadian at cafe BOOOKS inc., Montreal, Nov., '89.

Compare this book with the larger 1958 book with the same title by the same author and illustrator. It must be unusual in the history of publishing to have the same two combine on so different a work! Three of the ten fables here repeat the versions from there but have new illustrations. The other seven are new stories, two of which are new to me: "The Hare's Courage" (19) and "The Bull and the Fox" (21). The endpapers show one illustration from each fable on balloons played with by mice. The best of the illustrations may be that of the blown-out frog (18). The illustrations here are not quite as vivacious as those there, perhaps because of the poorer quality of paper here. Page 25 is slightly torn.

1961 The Fables of La Fontaine.  Translated by Paul Selver.  Paperbound.  London: Brodie's Modern Language Classics: James Brodie Ltd.  £20 from Langdon Etraders, Harrow, UK, Feb., '19. 

1961 The Fairy Tale Tree. Stories from all over the World. Retold by Vladislav Stanovsky and Jan Vladislav. Illustrated by Stanislav Kolibal. Translated by Jean Layton. Dust jacket. Printed in Czechoslovakia. NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons. $4 at Gull, Oakland, Aug., '94. Extra copy for $10 at BookAdoption, Sept., '91.

A wonderful fat book full of great pastel illustrations. Each of twelve nests has fifteen stories in it. Fable material includes FS (16, Russia); "The Stork and the Wolf" (229, Tajik, with an unusual finish--the wolf never eats another stork); TT (264, India); "The Best Thing and the Worst Thing in the World" (289, Cuvan, about the human tongue); LS (344, Arabia); "The Racing Crayfish" (384, Armenia); and "The Tell-Tale Wolf" (386, France, about the court of the sick lion, with whiskers as the cure). T of C at the back. A few stories from North America. A treasure chest!

1961 The Lion and the Mouse. As told by Mabel Watts. Illustrated by Bonnie and Bill Rutherford. Tip-Top Books: Racine: Whitman. $.50 at Cameron's Book Store, Portland, Aug., '87.

The story is nicely stretched out, e.g., with Midgy the mouse startled by Lionel the lion's first roar--so that she can recognize it later in the story. Pleasing, expressive kids' art.

1961 The Rand McNally Book of Favorite Nursery Classics. Illustrated by Anne Sellers Leaf. Chicago: Rand McNally. (Aesop (c)1952, book apparently published in 1961.) See 1952/61.

1961 The Snow and the Sun/La Nieve y el Sol: A South American Folk Rhyme in Two Languages. Woodcuts by Antonio Frasconi. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Printed in USA. NY: Harcout, Brace & World, Inc. $9.00 from Constant Reader, Milwaukee, Dec., '98.

This book presents a story like that about finding the strongest spouse for the mouse-daughter. The chain here runs through snow, sun, cloud, wind, wall, rat, cat, dog, stick, fire, water, ox, and man, and thence back to snow. Frasconi's work is as always simple, strong, and delightful. Thank God that neither Spanish nor English has a distinct vocative case, or this kind of rhyme would not work, since it calls on the most recent member each time and puts each other member into apposition with the object that ended the last line. This would be a fine book for learning some Spanish or English.

1961 Tommy Tortoise and Moe Hare Coloring Book. Created and produced by Harvey Cartoon Studios. Oversize paperbound. Printed in USA. NY/Akron, OH: The Saalfield Publishing Company. $1.99 from Brock Tumbleson, Kewanee, IL, through Ebay, August, '00.

I do not think that I have ever seen any edition get more out of the race in TH than this coloring book gets! In fact the race never ends. It covers so much territory! Here are some of the phases of the race. Moe Hare takes time out to eat apples, later to eat carrots and a pie at a farm, and to sleep. Tommy Tortoise travels by roller skates, a goat butt, swimming, a railroad handcar, a truck, an outboard motor, an unicycle, a racing car, and a "bucking bronc." Along the way he visits the desert, the ocean, and even a pirate ship. In the last picture, he has a rocket strapped to his shell and is holding a lighted match! Some of the pictures are colored in by a young hand. This is one of those items for which the shipping was more than twice as expensive as the item itself!

1961 Twenty-five Fables. Retold and illustrated by Norah Montgomerie. Hardbound. Printed in USA. London: Abelard-Schuman. $12 from Silva Kahl at Windever Books, Duluth, MN, Jan., '99.

A nice mixture of Scottish, English, Indian, Swahili, Tibetan, and Aesopic fables with simple, colorful illustrations to match. The first fable presents as a Scottish fable the old Renard trick of playing dead in the road in order to be picked up; once on the fisherman's back, the fox tosses the fisherman's caught fish onto the road behind him. New to me and delightful is "The Robin and the Wren": when one wants to get married, the other does not. "Henny-Penny" gets a new twist when the fox leads the entourage, supposedly on the way to tell the king that the sky is falling, into his hole to be eaten up by him and his family. The ass jealous of the dog tells the dog his plan and hears "You do that" from the laughing dog. The fox gets the wolf to lose his tail not by putting it into the ice but by laying it on the "cheese" (actually the reflection of the moon) on the ice. "The Goat and the Wolf" (32) is listed as Aesopic, but it is new to me. The wolf overhears the goat saying that he will not be afraid of the wolf; he drags him off nevertheless. Here the man puts onto the ass a tiger's skin. In "The Friendly Mouse" just the king of the pigeons is entrapped; the rest of the flock carries him in the net to his friend the mouse. "The Ambitious Maiden" is a human adaptation of the story about marrying the most powerful. Here the series runs through king, priest, Siva, dog, and master. The usual story shows up later: "The Mouse and the Magician." "Iron-eating mice" becomes a story of gold dust that turns into sand; a parrot saying "See what I've turned into, Father!" is then substituted for the son. There is a T of C at the front. Formerly in the Elementary Library in Virginia, MN.

1961 Voci della Mia Gente: Poesie in Vernacolo Sambenedettese: Satire, Favole, Liriche. Giovanni Vespasiani; Commenti di Francesco Palestini. Disegni del Prof. Giancarlo Negrini. Paperbound. Signed and inscribed by Giovanni Vespasiani. Fermo: Tipografia Fratelli Tarquini. 10000 Lire from Porta Portese Flea Market, Rome, July, '97.

Signed and inscribed by Giovanni Vespasiani. It took me a long time to find Sambenedetto di Tronto on the Adriatic coast in the territory of Ascoli Piceno. Apparently Giovanni Vespasiani is the favorite-son-poet of the city and territory. I presume that it is this man whose photograph we see on 5. This is a curious publication: large-format (about 8½" x12½"), 83 pages in length, with a variety of contents, including a picture of Miss Europe (67). As the closing T of C shows, the materials are divided into the three subcategories given in the subtitle. Four verse fables are gathered on 33-51. Each has a long prose comment after it, and each receives several of Negrini's designs. They are "La Vorpe Pruletarie"; "Lu Ciucce.Artiste!"; "Lu Ca' e lu Sumare!"; and "Lu Fattore.e lu Ca'!.." Sorry, I cannot understand what is going on in them. My, what one can find at the Porta Portese flea market!

1961 Vogel und Fisch: Ein Buch Fabeln. Ausgewählt von Wolfgang Proebst. Ulm. Paperbound. Bamberg: Texte: Dichtung und Dokumente in Schulausgaben: Band 4: C.C. Buchners Verlag. €5 from Antiquariat Hatry, Heidelberg, July, '09.

Here is a good classroom resource from fifty years ago. The back cover lists the forty fabulists whose texts are represented here, from Erasmus Alberus to Wohlmuth, from Aesop to Morgenstern. A few lines offer biographical information about each author (110-15). The helpful T of C (116-19) lists authors as well as texts and page numbers. George Braque's work graces the cover. I enjoyed reading the last ten selections from people like Seidel, Wohlmuth, and Morgenstern. Maybe the best of them are the shortest, Seidel's "Das Huhn und der Karpfen" (103) and Wohlmuth's "Freundschaft" (105). I am a little surprised that I had not run into this paperback book earlier.

1961 White Apples: A Novella, Stories and Fables. Arno Karlen. First edition. Paperbound. Philadelphia/NY: J.B. Lippincott Company. $5.99 from Dani Serus, Las Vegas, NV, through eBay, Nov., '02. 

At the end of this paperback anthology of the work of Arno Karlen, there are twelve "fables," pointed short (mostly one-page to four-page) stories. A nudnik in Vitebsk provides a miracle when he has a wise thought, namely that "if God ever gave a chochma to a poor nudnik like me it would be an act of faith on His part" (222). Mr. Magister rides an ostrich in stately fashion, as a mount worthy of his high office in the city. Particularly strong is "The Mad Song of Dr. P" (242). Doktor Professor P used the whip to tame a wild man. Then he realized that he could turn a profit with this man. The shortest of these stories may be the best: "Mr. Plover" (247). The title character proclaims that there are no more beasts, but the narrator has strange beasts. He keeps them in the corner when Mr. Plover comes. "There is nothing that destroys friendship so completely as unnecessary contradiction." There is a water stain across most of the top of the book.

1961 Yeh-Hsuan's Fables.  Ho YI.  Illustrated by Huang Yung-Yu.  Paperbound.  Peking: Foreign Languages Press.  $11.99 from eBay, March, '15.

1961/62 My Book of the Lion and the Mouse and Other Fables. Jane Carruth. Illustrated by Nardini. An Oddhams All-Colour Book. (c)1961 Fratelli Fabbri, Milan. (c)1962 English text by Odhams Press Ltd. Printed in Italy. London: Odhams Press Limited. $14 by mail from The Plains Bookman, Manhattan, KS, Jan., '98.

This is really a printing for another publisher and audience of the same book I have listed under My Book of Aesop's Fables in 1962. It is the same book internally, but there are some very curious variations, starting with the title. The next is that my two printings listed under 1962 claim a copyright of that year for Fabri. Now this edition claims a copyright a year earlier for Fabri. The back cover here advertises the book as an "Odhams All-Colour Book." The series listed there is very close to the series on the back of the St. Paul copy. My three different printings of this book thus show distinctive publishers' names in red on their spines. Carruth is acknowledged here on the title-page.

1961/63/67 The Faber Storybook. Edited by Kathleen Lines. Illustrated by Alan Howard. Hardbound. Dust jacket. London: Faber and Faber. $4.50 at McIntyre & Moore, Cambridge, July, '88.

Comparison with the paperback version (1961/72/86) which I had found previously reveals some differences. This hardbound edition has a nice colored picture of Aesop between 204 and 207 and a picture on 216 of the wolf eating a lamb while the shepherd cries. It also includes "Nonsense Stories," a booklist, and some colored art beginning each section. The printer is different, too. The impressions of the drawings seem better in the paperback.

1961/64 My Nursery Tale Book.  Patsy Scarry et al.  Illustrated by Richard Scarry.  Hardbound.  NY: Golden Press: Western Publishing Co.  $5 from Bryn Mawr Book Store, Boston, July, '16.

1961/67 A Camel in the Tent. Retold by Katherine Evans. Illustrated by Katherine Evans. Second printing.  Dust jacket. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Chicago: Albert Whitman & Company. $18 from Cox and Cox, Ashland, MA, through ABE, Jan., '03.

Pairs of pages alternate between full color and black-and-white. The rich sultan of Taza orders rich robes from the distant Mohammed for his eight hard-to-please daughters. Mohammed is bringing them across the desert by camel when he experiences an unusual night. The camel asks permission, respectively, to put first his head, then his front legs, and finally his back and hump into the tent. Once there is that much inside the tent, the camel pushes out the trunks and cases. The wind blows away all the dresses, robes, and slippers. Still not satisfied, the camel pushes Mohammed out into the cold. Mohammed has to come to Taza and plead with the sultan for a second chance. The sultan grants it but admonishes him "When you give the foolish a little, they want too much." This is one of several Evans books I searched out quickly on the web after I found them advertised in another volume of hers. This copy belonged once to the Kimball Public Library in Atkinson, New Hampshire.

1961/68 The Mouse and the Lion. Gyorgy Varnai. Based on a film made in the Pannonia Film Studios, Budapest, by Gyula Macskassy, Szabolcs Szabo, and Laszlo Molnar. Second edition. Hardbound. Printed in Hungary. London: Bancroft. £7.50 from Elisabeth Sykes Children's Books, Ramsbottom, Lancashire, England, through ABE, Dec., '98.

This landscape-formatted book develops LM cleverly and delivers a surprising point to young readers. The ancient female mouse lives in a pyramid, where she has an alarm clock, bathroom, and even a toothbrush. Outside she is fleeing from a vulture. The latter tries to catch her just as she approaches what seems a hill. In fact, the hill is a lion, as the vulture discovers when he tries to stab the mouse but stabs the lion's tail instead. Later, the mouse is thoughtful enough to put a cushion beneath the lion's suspended rope-bag. After she gnaws through the rope suspending the bag, the lion asks her how she could do it. She takes him to her home and shows him--through the window, since he is too big to enter--how she brushes her teeth. The lion laments that he did not care better for his teeth, and now he suffers from toothaches even though he has eaten three dentists! He appoints her his children's Supreme Dental Supervisor. The rear endpaper has been cut away. The pictures have a cartoon quality that suggests their origin as stills for an animated motion picture. Both the characters and the colors are lively. The book is fun!

1961/68/76 Children's Literature in the Elementary School. Charlotte S. Huck. Third Edition. NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. $3, Summer, '89.

A good comprehensive college text on teaching children's literature. The short discussion of fables is valuable for the editions it recommends. I am happy to see that Untermeyer is the most popular with kids. Huck praises Reeves as well written. New to me: Showalter's The Donkey Ride and Scarry's LaFontaine. She adds some modern fabulists.

1961/70 La Fontaine Poet and Counterpoet. Margaret Guiton. Second printing. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. $12 from an unknown source, Sept., '88.

Here is a second printing of a work already listed in its first edition in 1961. As I wrote there, this is an appealing book. Written for the general audience, it translates all the poetry of La Fontaine that it presents. It does not presume knowledge of the language, history, or literature surrounding La Fontaine's work but takes the reader into those areas. A first chapter offers a careful examination of the artistry of FC. The second chapter seems to me, after my cursory introduction to this book, to be a key: "The Fable Fiction." Guiton finds La Fontaine both poet and counterpoet. Let me suggest what is for her involved in these two realms. Poetry deals with the myth of man the hero; it is inherently fictional. This is an "idealized, at least magnified, version of ourselves" (16). Poetry is of course thus "lies" even if they are Aesop's lies. La Fontaine wanted to revive the heroic style that was dead in late seventeenth-century French poetry. In the fables, La Fontaine fuses this style with counterpoetry, reality, nature, man as animal and a fairly insigificant one at that in the big picture of things. Prose fable early carried this realistic view of man, but La Fontaine will write poetic fables. This realistic vision is comic rather than heroic, arising out of our recognition of "two different and contradictory aspects of an identical situation" (27). These conflicts concern "appearance and reality, promise and performance, what we are intended to see and what we, sometimes perversely, see for ourselves" (27). "These two points of view -- the single vision of imaginative poetry and the double vision of comedy -- are constantly displacing each other in La Fontaine's fables" (26). She finds that his whole vision, bringing together counterpoetry and poetry, "became deeper, broader, more assured and closely integrated as he gradually developed his art" (29). In the epilogue to the eleventh book of fables, he defined his objective retrospectively: "to translate 'the voice of nature,' as exressed by all living things, into 'the language of the gods,' or poetry (29). The next two chapters deal with fable language and verse form. "The Fable as Counterpoetry" encompasses the poetic comedy, the social comedy, and the human comedy. "The Fable as Poetry" encompasses such chapters as "Words and Actions," "The Voice of Nature," and "The Language of the Gods." A final chapter speaks of La Fontaine as "A Citizen of the Universe." I so look forward to the next time that I will teach La Fontaine!

1961/70    My Nursery Tale Book.  Patsy Scarry et al.  Richard Scarry.  Fifth printing.  Hardbound.  NY: Golden Press: Western Publishing Co.  $3.50 from Second Story Books, DC, June, '89.

1961/71/76 The Arbuthnot Anthology of Children's Literature. Fourth Edition. May Hill Arbuthnot, Dorothy Broderick, Shelton Root, Jr., Mark Taylor, and Evelyn Wenzel. Various illustrators. Revised by Zena Sutherland. Dust jacket. NY: Lothrop, Lee and Shepard Company. Gift of Linda Schlafer, June, '93.

A packed resource. The "Fable" section (414-23) seems to be built on Time for Fairy Tales (1952); its introduction finds fable the most pedantic and least appealing form of fiction for children. The characters of a fable are as impersonal as an algebraic equation. Teachers should not insist on gleaning one interpretation from any given fable. The introduction recommends LM and TMCM for children of five or six years and then three or four fables a year. The twelve fables from Aesop begin surprisingly with "The Hare and Her Many Friends" in a version that has hare escaping on her own at the very end. This version is from Jacobs, as are most of the Aesopic fables. Three from the Panchatantra and two from LaFontaine, one in both prose and verse. A fable bibliography is on 1005-6. Arbuthnot's Children and Books (1947/72) seems different in organization, though covering some of the same material.

1961/72 My Nursery Tale Book. Pictures by Richard Scarry. Sixth printing. NY: Golden Press: Western Publishing Co. $4. Extra of the Fifth Printing for $3.50 from Second Story Books, DC, June, '89.

TMCM told by Patsy Scarry has a quaint flapper city mouse in its water colors. The picture of the cat discovering the two mice may be the best. This story adds a vacuum cleaner! The picture on the back cover has a dog never mentioned in the story! FC by the same author adds an elephant and a tiger to its cast of characters. Nothing special.

1961/72/86 The Faber Storybook. Edited by Kathleen Lines. Illustrated by Alan Howard. Paperbound. London and Boston: Faber and Faber. $7.95 at Looking Glass Bookstore, Portland, Aug., '87. Extra copy for $5.97 at Murphy-Brookfield, Iowa City, April, '93.

Fifteen well-told Aesopic fables in one of seven sections in the book, with illustrations for most. The best is MM on 174. There is no source for Aesop acknowledged, whereas apparently all other materials' sources are acknowledged. This paperbound version drops several things from the hardbound version of the book: "Nonsense Stories," the booklist, the illustration of the wolf eating the lamb while the shepherd boy cries, and the colored art beginning each section. The printer is also different. There is delightful art here on the back cover and even on the spine.

1961/73 Aesop's Fables. Translated by John Warrington. Illustrated by Joan Kiddell-Monroe. Hardbound. Dust jacket. London: J.M. Dent & Sons/NY: E.P. Dutton & Company. $3.95 from Clare Leeper, July, '96.

This is a later printing of a work I comment on extensively under its original date. See my comments there.

1961/75 Aesop's Fables. Translated by John Warrington. Illustrated by Joan Kiddell-Monroe. Hardbound. Dust jacket. London: J.M. Dent & Sons/NY: E.P. Dutton & Company. £6 from Children's Bookshop, Hay-on-Wye, July, '98.

Here is the latest printing of a work I comment on extensively under its first publication date of 1961. It is now included as #49 in the C.I.C. ("Children's Illustrated Classics") series.

1961/80/84 Fabulas Antiguas de China. Wei Jinzhi. Illustraciones de Feng Zikai. Segunda impresión de la segunda edición. Beijing: Ediciones en Languas Extranjeras. $7.95 at Allá, Santa Fe, May, '93.

121 fables from various eras. As I have read the first thirty, I am surprised at the large amount of overlap with, for example, 100 Ancient Chinese Fables (1985/89). The best new fable in my sampling comes in "El Arte" on 12: A fellow spent three years and his whole fortune on learning how to slay dragons, but then found that there are so few dragons that he could not practice his dear art! I have now found an English translation of this book, listed under 1981/83. See my comment on "El Arte" there.

1961/82 The Country Mouse and the City Mouse; The Fox and the Crow; The Dog and His Bone. Three Aesop Fables Told by Patricia Scarry. Pictures by Richard Scarry. Printed in USA. NY: Little Golden Books: Golden Press. $1 from S.J. Rizzo, Islip, NY, through Ebay, August, '00.

This book is very close to identical with one of the two $.89 books I already have listed under "1961." It shares the same back cover (filled with characters from Little Golden Books) and nearly the same inside back cover. Further, they both share a reference to McDonald's on the inside front cover: "This Little Golden Book from McDonald's belongs to…." What is most distinctive here is an extra advertising page at the back including a coupon dated 1982. See my comments on the other editions under "1961."

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1962 A Critical History of Children's Literature: A Survey of Children's Books in English from Earliest Times to the Present. By Cornelia Meigs, Anne Thaxter Eaton, Elizabeth Nesbitt, and Ruth Hill Viguers. Decorations by Vera Bock. Hardbound. Printed in USA. NY: The Macmillan Company. See 1953/62.

1962 A Day Without Lies: Humor, Satire, Legends, and Fables of the Peoples of Asia (Russian). G. Golovnev, editor. V. Maksin, illustrator. Hardbound. Moscow: Molodaya Gvardiya. $7 from Viktor Romanchenko, Sumy, Ukraine, through eBay, June, '12.

As the T of C on 252-5 shows, the structure of this book is geographic. Its first writings are from Afghanistan, Burma, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Iran, respectively. I regret that I cannot go further in tracking what is in this book. There are numerous small designs along the way. A pink canvas binding is complemented by colored cover boards featuring various scenes including nature vistas, large hotels, and cars. 

1962 A Thurber Carnival. James Thurber. Pamphlet. NY: Samuel French, Inc. $1.00 from Bookman's Alley, Evanston, Dec., '97.

Thurber includes three "Fables for Our Time" so I will keep this little actor's script in the collection: "The Wolf at the Door," "The Unicorn in the Garden," and "The Little Girl and the Wolf." The first does run away with the daughter, and so "Mother doesn't ALWAYS know best" (19). In the second, the man who saw the unicorn turns the tables on the wife who would not believe him, and she ends up being shut up in an institution for the insane. "Don't count your boobies until they are hatched" (22). The shot wolf in the third sits up straight before dying to give the moral: "It is not so easy to fool little girls nowadays as it used to be" (24). The T of C speaks of these as "Part One," and I am disappointed not to find a second part!

1962 Aesop's Fables. Preface (and translation?) by Gordon Home. With Eight Page Illustrations in Colour by Charles Folkard. Dust jacket. Hardbound. London: Adam & Charles Black. See 1912/1962.

1962 Aesop's Fables, Including Fables by Gay, La Fontaine, and Others. Will Nickless. Dust jacket. Hardbound. London, Melbourne and Cape Town: A Prince Charming Colour Book: Ward Lock and Company. £ 1.21 from Diane Walker, UK, through eBay, Feb., '04.

This book seems to reproduce exactly The Book of Fables, published by Frederick Warne in New York in 1962; my copy is dated 1963. This volume from Ward Lock changes the title from The Book of Fables to Aesop's Fables, Including Fables by Gay, La Fontaine, and Others. The others include Dodsley, Gellert, Lessing, Florian, and Kriloff. (These others had been listed there; indeed, their inclusion there was more logical.) As I comment there, this is a wonderful fable collection! The frequent line drawings and sixteen colored illustrations by Nickless are lively; the best may be of the charger and the miller (28), of the miller's falling ass (36), and of the mice-generals (49). His colored illustrations include a good deal of the story, as with the picturing of Jupiter in BF (14). This book has far thicker pages than most! There is both a T of C and a list of colored illustrations. The book's organization is not apparent. I also have Nickless' work in the shorter Aesop's Fables that Ward Lock included in their "Rainbow Series" in 1964. This book is in the "Prince Charming Colour Book" series. It is inscribed in 1962.

1962 Androcles and the Lion. Bernard Shaw. The Shaw Alphabet Edition. Dust jacket. Baltimore: Penguin Books. $1 at Clark's Old Book Store, Spokane, '86.

Here is something different: facing pages present the regular text on the right and a text in Shaw's original alphabet on the left! Somebody had or left some money for this (worthwhile?) project, and this copy is a free edition promoting the use of the alphabet. I do not think it got far!

1962 Androcles and the Lion. Bernard Shaw. Public Trustee's Edition. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. Baltimore: The Shaw Alphabet Edition: Penguin. $15 from Second Story Books, Rockville, MD, Dec., 2009.

I previously found a copy of this highly unusual edition with facing pages presenting the regular text on the right and a text in Shaw's original alphabet on the left! Now I found a copy of the edition with a dust-jacket proclaiming "Public Trustee's Edition." Inside, the page facing the title-page identifies this as a presentation copy "furnished to you, free of charge, under Shaw's Will by the Public Trustee, London." This copy also contains a card showing the "Shaw Alphabet for Writers" This card reproduces the alphabets on 150-51.

1962 Androcles and the Lion. An Old Fable Renovated by Bernard Shaw. (c)1913 George Bernard Shaw. Paperback. Baltimore: Penguin Books. See 1951/62.

1962 Cento Favole dei Migliori Autori Raccontate ai Ragazzi. Prof. C. Siniscalchi. Paperback. Printed in Italy. Milan: Editoriale Lucchi. In trade from Clare Leeper, who paid $2 for it, July, '96.

This magazine-like paperback shows on its cover a fairy godmother with a wand and a very large book reading to two children, while its back cover shows a horse-rider whose hat is blowing off in the wind; it fits the last story, "Il Viaggiatore et il Vento." There is a T of C at the back. Contrary to my expectation, the book is at least predominately made up of fables. It interrupts the succession of fables, always one page in length and always with an italicized moral, in two ways. First it presents black-and-white illustrations with blank verso: WC (9); "The Monkey and Hare" (17); LM (41); "The Cat and the Fish" (57); "The Shepherds" (65); "The Insatiable Hunter" (89); "The Monkey and the Dog" (105); and "The Horse and the Sow" (113). Secondly, there are colored illustrations in pairs, that is, on the two sides of one page: "Three Dogs" (32); "The Ass and the Race Horse" (33); "The Magpie, Goat, and Squirrel" (48); "The Stag's Reflection" (49); "The Mouse and the Camel" (96); "The Fox and the Wolf" (97); "The Lamb and the Bird" (112); and "The Elephant and the Bridge" (113).

1962 Das grosse Buch der Fabeln. Edmund Mudrak. Steinhoewel. First printing? Dust-jacket. Hardbound. Reutlingen: Ensslin & Laiblin Verlag. DM 15 from Altonaer Antiquariat, Hamburg, June, '98.

This seems to be an earlier copy of a book I have already listed. The one difference I can find between the two copies is that the obverse of the title-page there lists "20.-25.Tausend," while there is no such marking here. Also this copies goes on to finish that remark on the book's printing with "62/1-10," while that other copy has "68/3." As I wrote there, this is a wonderful book, a major resource, and a great bargain! The woodcuts (fifteen colored, mostly poorly) come from Steinhöwel's Äsopus (1477) and Das Buch der Weisheit (1483); their page numbers are on 248. Six chapters group the material well by age and place. I have taken detailed separate notes, particularly on the differences from well known versions. The medieval period seems to rely heavily on Aesopic stories but to develop and fill them out significantly. Among the best of the fables here are "Die Hasen fangen und braten den Jäger" (119), "Der lügnerische Knecht mit dem großen Fuchs" (129), and "Undank ist der Welt Lohn" (206). Almost all the fables here are prose or prose translations. The Nachwort (225) is helpful on the difference between fable and Volksmärchen but less helpful on the difference between fable and parable, several examples of which are included here. The basic viewpoint on fable is that the recognition that grows out of its story belongs to the essence of fable. For Mudrak, the fact that some fables come from age-old materials ready at hand militates against Lessing's famous description of the genesis of a fable. Chains within this book of like fables, of similar stories with different meanings, and of thematically related materials are described on 233-6. There are good helps at the end: Quellenverzeichnis, Sachverzeichnis, Inhalt. 

1962 Der Knabe und der Löwe: Geschichten und Fabeln aus Liberia. Bai Gai Kiahon-Liberia. Translated from English by Annemarie von Welk. Illustrations by Alfred Zacharias. 1. Auflage. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. Munich: Lucas Cranach Verlag. DM 10 from Altoner Antiquariat H.-H. Tiedemann, Hamburg-Altona, June, '99.

This is a German translation of Folk Tales of Liberia by T.S. Denison in Minneapolis. There are thirteen stories here on 7-151. "Folk tales" is probably a better description than "Fabeln." I tried one: "Die Spinne und das Glühwürmchen" (15-25). The spider, always a thief, turned to the more honorable glow-worm to build a partnership in a time of famine. Together they regularly stole at night the fish caught in a leopard's traps, but, as the glow-worm noticed, the spider ate almost all the profits. So one night the glow-worm suddenly disappeared in the midst of their work. The spider with great effort dragged one fish to what she thought was her own home, but landed instead in the leopard's home -- and then fell fast asleep from her strenuous efforts. The leopard woke up and immediately understood why his take of fish had dropped off recently. He tied up the spider's legs and beat her unmercifully but did not notice that the beating loosened the cords tying up the spider. The spider got away, but still had the tight binding around her middle. For fear of cutting herself apart, she left it. The spider's body has never recovered and is still tight around the middle. The glow-worm out of guilt now shines whenever and wherever it can. There may be a fable at the heart of these highly developed stories. 

1962 Der Wizard in Ozzenland: My Grossfader's Rhymers und Fable Tellen mit also Heinrich Schnibble's Deutscher Wordenbooke. Dave Morrah. Drawings by the author. First edition. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Garden City: Doubleday. $46.50 from Acorn Books, San Francisco, Dec., '01. 

My, this book is expensive! I am surprised that it took me until now to find it. I have four earlier, similar books by Morrah, and am happy to find this fifth. I think it completes the circuit. As I have written before, the germanizing gets old quickly, but there are clever turns on many of the fables. Thus here the eagle swoops down while the victorious rooster proclaims, only the eagle here attacks the losing rooster (13)! The king with two queens learns to use the hairbrush, not on his now bald head but on the bottoms of the two hair-picking queens (37)! The stag is actually wrong the second time, not the first: the hunters do admire his antlers more than his legs (50)! A dragon, not a lion, here enters into argument with the woodcutter on who is stronger. The woodcutter, according to form, appeals to a statue. The dragon makes his point without a statue (54). In the second half of the LM story, where the two marry, the lion asks the ambiguous question "Ist lions liken micers?" (56). It is ambiguous in that it may mean either "Are lions like mice?" or "Are lions liking mice?" Once the wedding feast starts, the narrator tells us "Mein gootness! Der lions ben indeedisch liken der micers!" I have the impression that this book has more fables than any of Morrah's other four. 

1962 Die Grille und die Ameise. Fabel von La Fontaine.  Übersetzt von N. O. Scarpi.  Auf Stein gezeichnet von Warja Honegger-Lavater.  Not numbered or signed.  Accordion-folded.  Stuttgart: Folded Story 2: Basilius Presse.  $200 from Ken Sanders Rare Books, Salt Lake City, Sept., '22.

1962 Fabeln. Wilhelm Hey. Mit Zeichnungen von Otto Speckter. Hardbound. Kassel: Friedrich Lometsch Verlag. DM 9 from Ahrens & Hamacher Antiquariat, Düsseldorf, July, '95. 

This is an almost-square little book 5¾" x 6¼". The illustrations here are very close to those in the edition I have labelled "1920?", but I think there are differences, even in the illustrations. If they are the same plates, they became very worn in the course of multiple printings. In any case, this is the set that has the first crow looking right. The snowman (7) is upright and has three children attacking him with snowballs. There are only forty fables here on eighty pages. Texts and illustrations here are taken from both "Fünfzig Fabeln" and "Noch Fünfzig Fabeln." At the end there is a "Nachwort" and a T of C. In the Nachwort, Lometsch writes that he has included the Speckter illustrations "denn sie wären durch keine besseren zu ersetzen" (83).

1962 Fabeln und Erzählungen.  Johann Heinrich Merck; Hermann Bräuning-Oktavio.  Paperbound.  Darmstadt: Hessische Beiträge zur Deutschen Literatur: Eduard Roether Verlag.  €4 from Antiquariat Thomas Hatry, Heidelberg, July, '17.

1962 Fabels Van Leo Vroman. Met Prenten van Peter Vos. #843 of 1000; first edition. Hardbound. Amsterdam: Em. Querido's Uitgeverij. €85 from Antiquariaat Gemilang, Bredevoort, Netherlands, May, '08.

Here is an artistic book of twenty-two fables. Each fable with its illustrations takes up two pages, as the T of C on 5 shows. The texts are all made up of rhyming couplets. Many of the illustrations are multiple or unusually shaped. The first fable has four. One illustration for "De Twee Struisvriendinnen" (the two ostrich friends?) on 18 is shaped like an inverted "U." These line drawings are engaging. "Rondheid Gestraft" has a great set of little round things bouncing around 20 and 21. "Waarheid en Leugen" has a naked woman under an unusual wooden apparatus on 28-29. The two creatures facing each other on 34 and 35 are well done. The spatial interrelation of title, text, and illustrations changes with each fable. This books looks fascinating. Now I need to get Gerd-Jan or Paul Wackers to help me read it! First sold by Robert Premsela in Amsterdam. Not in Bodemann; I am also unable to find it in the holdings of my favorite private collector.

1962 Fables. Jean Anouilh. Paris: La Table Ronde. 115 Euros from Librairie Hirlam, Nice, France, May, '96.

At last I have arrived at a worthy exemplar of Anouilh's work. The colophon at the book's end is careful about what constitutes the original edition of the book. Eight copies were printed on Japon numbered I to XV and hors de commerce (H.C.) 1 to 3. Seventy copies were printed on Hollande numbered XVI to LXXV and H.C. 4 to HC 13. One-hundred-and-twenty were printed on Vélin d'Arches numbered LXXVI to CLXXV and H.C. 14 to H.C. 33. This is HC 17 done on Vélin d'Arches. Its impression number is 5282. It features irregularly sized pages, some uncut. I am surprised that the original edition did not include art work. It is in very good condition. Octavo. 147 pages. I am in the midst of reading the fables with Jean-Pierre Karegeye, and so I will not comment yet on what they have to say. I am so pleased to have a fine copy of this book!

1962 Fables. Jean Anouilh. #1773 of 6000. Hardbound. Printed in Switzerland. Lausanne: La Guilde du Livre Lausanne. $4 from The Book End, Monterey, CA, Feb., '96.

Apparently, at the same time as--or shortly after--La Table Ronde published Anouilh's fables in Paris, the Guild published them in Switzerland, but without the illustrations. The colophon page at the back of the book declares that this edition was printed at the presses of Imprimeries Populaires in Lausanne on July 6, 1962. The same page lists the two numbering systems (1 to 6000 and I to XXX) for this edition and the categories of the special "tirage" done at La Table Ronde. It then mentions that this edition is "hors commerce" and reserved only to members of the Guild of the Book. Finally, it lists this copy as Exemplaire No 1773 in Volume No 408. For some comments on Anouilh's fables, see the paperback edition of 1962/73/85. This book's cloth cover features imprints of two doves and a sunburst around the simple embossed gold title.

1962 Fables. Jean Anouilh. Édition hors Commerce. Hardbound. Printed in Switzerland. Lausanne: La Guilde du Livre Lausanne. $7.50 from Brattle Book Shop, Oct., '97.

Here is a curiosity. Every page and feature in this book is the same as in a separate listing from the Guild. But the colophon page at the back is different. That edition there gave its place and date of printing, numbering systems for its printing and La Table Ronde's original edition, and the unique number of that copy among the 6000. This colophon page says only "Édition hors commerce reservée aux membres de la Guilde du Livre, Volume No 408." It gives no number for this copy and no size of the printing. How curious! For some comments on Anouilh's fables, see the paperback edition of 1962/73/85. This book's cloth cover, like the cover of the other Lausanne copy, features imprints of two doves and a sunburst around the simple embossed gold title.

1962 Fables and Fairy Tales. Leo Tolstoy. A New Translation by Ann Dunnigan. Illustrated by Sheila Greenwald. Paperbound. First printing, June, 1962. Printed in USA. NY: A Signet Classic: New American Library. $7.00 from Lively Arts Books, Sacramento, Oct., '97.

See my comments under the later Plume re-editing of this book listed under 1962/80. How nice to find a first printing so economically!

1962 Fables and Maxims. Thomas R. Merton. Inscribed by T.R.M.. Hardbound. Bedford: The Sidney Press, Ltd. $75 from Johanson Rare Books, Baltimore, July, '08.

Imagine my excitement over having a book of fables by Thomas Merton! Then imagine my disappointment when I realized that Thomas R. Merton is not Thomas Merton! Thomas Ralph Merton (1888-1969) was a physicist who made discoveries that allowed England to develop two-layer long-persistence radar screens that helped England win World War II. He was also a connisseur of art. The book, it seems to me, will be remembered most for its delightful quips. "I usually prefer wicked people to stupid people. Wicked people are only wicked when it suits them, but stupid people are stupid all the time" (12). "He is like the emperor Justinian. He is always so busy returning good for evil that the idea of returning good for good has escaped him" (13). "Your sins can be forgiven; but for your errors of judgment you will have to pay the price in full" (18). "He is so warmhearted and generous that he would always be ready, if you were in need, to share someone else's last crust with you" (21). There are plenty of stories here, but I have not found any that would be properly classified as a fable. An inscription inside the front cover reads "I have read your book with the greatest interest and am proud of being mentioned. T.R.M."

1962 Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrations de Raoul Auger. Hardbound. Printed in France. Paris: Bibliothéque Rouge et Or, Série "Souveraine": Editions G.P.  See 1949/62.

1962 Fables Fantastiques. Ambrose Bierce. Traduction de Jacques Papy. Illustrations de Pierre Gauthier. Paperbound. Printed in Malakoff (Seine). Éric Losfeld: Le Terrain Vague. $45 from The Book Chest ABAA, NY, by mail, Feb., '98.

This softbound book is a treasure! As I have noted elsewhere, Bierce is rarely illustrated. Well, here is a wild and wonderful set of illustrations for his work. They are worthy of the biting character of the fables themselves. The bibliographic notice says that about two-thirds of Bierce's 225 fables from Fantastic Fables are used here. The others, Papy writes, either do not translate well into French or are frankly bad! Other fables are included from several other sources. Among my favorites here I will mention a couple, but this book will bear plenty more exploration. A major portion of it is still uncut. Be sure to check "The Lassoed Bear," "The Crimson Candle," "The Lion and the Sheep," and "How Leisure Came." Papy's introduction says well of Gauthier's illustrations that one does not know whether the image is an illustration of the text or the text is a commentary on the image. There are, alas, no page numbers, T of C, or AI.

1962 Fables from Kaleeleh and Demneh.  Adapted by Ali R. Amir-Moez.  Paperbound.  Ann Arbor, MI: Edwards Brothers.  $28 from Blind Horse Books, Deland, FL, through Biblio.com, Dec., '19.

1962 Fables of La Fontaine. Illustrated by Jiri Trnka. Especially adapted for children by Oldrich Syrovatka and translated by I.T. Havlu. Dust jacket. Printed in Czechoslovakia. (c)Artia. London: Golden Pleasure Books. $6, San Francisco, Jan., '91. Extra copy without dust jacket a gift of Vera Ruotolo from The Bookhouse, South Pasadena, May, '97.

Excellent runs on the ten colored illustrations of Trnka, which also appear in the 1974 and 1974/85 editions by Grund and Exeter. The best of these is the cover featuring the wolf as shepherd. There are good black-and-white illustrations besides, though the later editions may have better runs of these. Forty-two fables in a longish and literary version (not identical with the text in Commager's edition of 1974/85).

1962 Folk Tales of India. Adapted by Lee Wyndham. Drawings by Emilio Freixas. First edition. Dust jacket. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill: Howard W. Sams & Co. $4.50 at The Antiquarian Book Mart, San Antonio. August, ’96.

Fourteen well-told stories of various sorts, including lots of falling in love and being bewitched and tough quests. Five are, at least in some sense, fables. "The Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal" (41) is told in standard form. "The Brahman’s Dream" (59) is like MM, but here a Brahman kicks his barley pot. "The Ungrateful Sons" (73) become more attentive when their father receives many sacks (of stones). In TT (85), the two wild ducks are only passing through. Duriing the trip, people calling out ask if it is a rock or a wheel but provoke the tortoise when they call it in any event a funny sight. "The Timid Rabbit" (111) has several nice adaptations. A coconut maks a thump and is quickly taken away by a monkey. The rabbit sees only the hole and believes that the earth is starting to cave in. Later the lion asks the rabbit "Shall we go and tell the others?" "Do we have to?" "Yes, we do. Come." Buying three books, I asked this bookdealer for enough bookmarks or cards to insert one in each book; I wanted them, of course, to indicate where I had found the books. He pulled out his own collection and gave me three. I will keep in this book the bookmark that he gave me from the British Museum!

1962 Fraulein Bo-Peepen and More Tales Mein Grossfader Told. By Dave Morrah, with drawings by the author. NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. See 1953/62.

1962 Gold un Faïer (Or et Feu): Fables et Poems. M. Szulstein. Hardbound. Paris: Imprimerie Abece. $10 from an unknown source, Sept., '11.

Here is a fine looking book about which I can say almost nothing! It does have a ribbon. It is on Google Books, but there are no reviews. 

1962 Happy Times. A Basic First Reader. By Guy L. Bond, Grace A. Dorsey, Marie C. Cuddy, and Kathleen Wise. Developmental Reading Series. A Basic Reading Program. Chicago: Lyons and Carnahan. $3 at Georgetown Books, Bethesda, April, '97.

This first-grade reader includes one fable, "The Donkey and the Dog" (187). This version of the story has some unusual features. A bee talked with the dispirited donkey. Getting into the house was a big part of the donkey's motivation, and he had a first encounter with the man outside that gave him hope that he now might enter. The man handled the situation unusually politically correctly. "You are not like the dog, but you are a very good donkey…. I wish the dog could work… I could not do my work if you did not help me. I like to have you work with me." The donkey went away feeling good and wanting to work for his friend, the man. This version of the story goes on without a "crisis" in which the man needed to call for help. There is a little "game" (quiz) on 196. The cover of this book bothers me. It shows several children playing, two in monkey and mouse suits and another in a dog costume. I could swear I have this picture in or on one of my other books, but I cannot find it.

1962 Indische Fabeln. Erzahlt und illustriert von Selvarajan Yesudian; Aus dem Englischen übertragen von Trudy Steiner. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. Stuttgart: J. Fink Verlag. DEM 14 from Antiquariat Maxvorstadt, Munich, July, '01.

128 pages. There is a T of C at the end listing fifty-seven stories. I recognize many of the early stories in this book, often as parallels to well known Aesopic fables. Thus the first presents two friends who encounter a tiger where the Aesopic fable has them meet a bear (11). Mixed in with these clear fables are a number of wisdom stories which follow the pattern of finding a small cause that creates a big effect. A swimming monk finds a rat gnawing on his towel. Dealing with it brings him eventually a home and family and the usual cares of life, as his teacher learns years and years later (12). Elephants who threaten to trample mice go elsewhere and promise never to hurt mice again. Soon one of them is caught, and the mice come and gnaw away the ropes with which he is tied up (26). Amid these stories are others that it would be hard to call fables in the most specific sense, like "Die Geburt des Opiums" (30) or "Die Böse Schlange" that lives in a young man's stomach (34). Yesudian's designs present the scene but seem not meant to add anything further.

1962 Jean de la Fontaine: Fables I. Illustrations de Gabrielle Bouffay. #141 of 974 numbered copies on chiffon. Paperbound. Grenoble: Roissard. €25 from Librairie La Poussière du Temps, July, '03. 

This volume contains the first six books of La Fontaine's fables. Bouffay's style is like nothing I have seen before. It is entirely in black-and-white. The illustrations, all full-page, present a character rather than a group of characters or a fable scene. Each portrait consists entirely of fluid india-ink lines. Some of them are quite broad and strong. Others are more a wave of small dots. The effect is slightly psychodelic and often quite imposing. Thus the first regular illustration (16) is CJ, with the pearl clearly visible in the cock's mouth. The frog for OF (36) is huge not so much from a bloated belly as in the way he takes up the page. Do not miss the tortoise at 228. The pattern seems to be that there is an illustration at the start of each new book and each section; there are thus illustrations before the title-page, life of Aesop, and T of C. This work was reserved to the Circle of Bibliophile Professors of France. It is recorded in neither Bassy nor Bodemann. Only the first of the three volumes is numbered, although the appropriate colophon appears at the end of each volume. In the other volumes, it tells the reader, among other things, to look in Volume I for the number.

1962 Jean de la Fontaine: Fables II. Illustrations de Gabrielle Bouffay. 1 of 974 numbered copies on chiffon. Paperbound. Grenoble: Roissard. €25 from Librairie La Poussière du Temps, July, '03. 

This volume contains the Books VII through XI of La Fontaine's fables. Bouffay's style is like nothing I have seen before. It is entirely in black-and-white. The illustrations, all full-page, present a character rather than a group of characters or a fable scene. Each portrait consists entirely of fluid india-ink lines. Some of them are quite broad and strong. Others are more a wave of small dots. The effect is slightly psychodelic and often quite imposing. The pattern seems to be that there is an illustration at the start of each new book and each section; there are thus illustrations before the title-page and T of C. Here the illustrations present a lion, a cat, a squirrel, a monkey (particularly well defined), two parrots, an owl, and a dog. This work was reserved to the Circle of Bibliophile Professors of France. It is recorded in neither Bassy nor Bodemann. Only the first of the three volumes is numbered, although the appropriate colophon appears at the end of each volume. In the other volumes, it tells the reader, among other things, to look in Volume I for the number.

1962 Jean de la Fontaine: Fables III. Illustrations de Gabrielle Bouffay. 1 of 974 numbered copies on chiffon. Paperbound. Grenoble: Roissard. €25 from Librairie La Poussière du Temps, July, '03.

This volume contains Book XII and the last few of La Fontaine's fables. Bouffay's style is like nothing I have seen before. It is entirely in black-and-white. The illustrations, all full-page, present a character rather than a group of characters or a fable scene. Each portrait consists entirely of fluid india-ink lines. Some of them are quite broad and strong. Others are more a wave of small dots. The effect is slightly psychodelic and often quite imposing. This volume breaks the pattern of an illustration only at the start of each new book and each section. In this short volume the illustrations present a fox (?); a strong goat (that can be seen frontally or laterally, in Picasso-like style); an eagle; a porcupine; an elephant; a pained human face (?); a Satanic face; and a gentle human face. The T of C here covers all three volumes. This work was reserved to the Circle of Bibliophile Professors of France. It is recorded in neither Bassy nor Bodemann. Only the first of the three volumes is numbered, although the appropriate colophon appears at the end of each volume. In the other volumes, it tells the reader, among other things, to look in Volume I for the number.

1962 Jean de la Fontaine: The Complete Fables. Retold in English Verse within the Original Rhyme Scheme by Reginald Jarman. Paperbound. Printed in England. Four Square Classics. London: The New English Library Limited. $3 from Shakespeare & Co., Berkeley, Dec., '00.

Here is a surprising find from a five-minute stop in a beloved old store. I would have thought that I would know by now of a twentieth-century verse translation of the complete fables of La Fontaine. A quick check on the first fable does not produce happy results, as Jarman switches tense and action in the crucial last lines. Thus the ant asks "How about the Dog Days?" and gets an answer that points to the future rather than the past: "All who list'l/Hear me sing…." The ant's retort in Jarman's words is "Now you can whistle!" What happened to La Fontaine's clear reference to dancing? That, after all, is what cold and hungry people do with their feet while they are shivering. The other early fables do better, I think. "The Two Mules" (I 4) loses the important reference to the humble mule ("comme moi" in the French) in the last lines, as the humble mule is left here making a more general statement: "Had you worked in a mill with the crowd/You wouldn't be feeling so glum!" The lion in LS (I 6) may be misrepresented in his first claim. He "takes the first himself, as fits a king…/'It must be mine,' he said, 'don't ask me why;/'The Lion is the name you know me by.'" The "don't ask" notion, introduced here by the translator, may undercut the force of the fourth claim, which is an ungrounded threat of violence. I am happy to have another full translation of La Fontaine to consult.

1962 La Fontaine: Fables.  Illustrations de André Jourcin.  Hardbound.  Paris: Premières Belles Lectures: Éditions Bias.  See 1954/62.

1962 La Fontaine ' in Masallari. Ceviren: Orhan Veli Kanik. Paperbound. Istanbul: Dogan Kardes Yayinlari. $5 from Ugur Yurtuttan, Istanbul, Turkey, Dec., '03.

Here is a well-used 64-page paperback with a circle of La Fontaine's favorite animals on the yellow cover. There are perhaps a dozen simple black-and-white illustrations. Perhaps the most animated of these depicts the hunter who found the lion on 51 and the dog's view of the meat in the water on 61. There is neither a T of C nor an AI.

1962 Le meunier, sons fils, et l'ane. Illustrations et traduction de Roger Duvoisin. NY: Whittlesey House: McGraw-Hill Book Company. Dust jacket. $10 from Dan Behnke, Chicago, Sept., '90.

Identical and simultaneous with The Miller, His Son, and Their Donkey from the same artist and publisher. Here is a book whose existence I never suspected!

1962 Le Treizieme Livre des Fables. José Corti. Préface de Madame Odette de Mourgues. #440 of 900. Paperbound. Paris: Chez José Corti. $23.21 from La Poussiere du Temps, through abe, June, '03.

I found some surprising information on Wikipedia. José Corti is a book shop and publishing house located in Paris and was founded in 1925. It is named after its founder, José Corticchiato (1895-1984); it is one of France's most prestigious and low-profile independent publishing houses. José Corticchiato started his business by publishing the work of his surrealist friends, including André Breton, Paul Éluard, and Louis Aragon. José Corti's book shop is located in the Latin Quarter in Paris. Its motto is "Rien de Commun" ("Nothing Commonplace"). The French here is beyond me, and Corti is not in The Fabulists French. I can say that there are twenty-one "pastiches" of La Fontaine offered here in a beautifully produced book. There is a T of C at the back. From what I could gather of Odette de Mourgues' preface, there is here some wonderful imitation of what La Fontaine did, and the imitation goes much deeper than the surface. Alas, the book will have to wait for a more skilled French reader than me! 

1962 Les Fables des Trois Commères Illustrées par un Compère. Simone Bussières. Illustrations de Laurent Bédard. Paperbound. Notre-Dame-des-Laurentides, Quebec: Les Presses Laurentiennes inc. $2.29 from Marie Gervais, St.-Urbain-Premier, Quebec, Canada, through eBay, Oct., '07.

Here is a cuddly set of three animal stories. "Commère" means something like "gossip," and "compère" something like "accomplice." In the first, the "Bobby" dog family finds that a mother cat and three kittens have taken over their doghouse (3). The parent dogs give in to their pups' pleading not to disturb the cats. By the next day, they are even protecting the kittens. The two families learn to live together happily, and mother cat even names her kittens after the three pups. In the second, Ratapon the cat is left behind by careless masters off on vacation (13). On the way to starvation, he catches Tigris the rat and asks his help. The two form a friendship, and Tigris gnaws Ratapon a hole that can get him to food. The third story is an expansion-cum-application of BF: "Le petit Canard qui voulait se faire Paon" (25). The duck "Coin-Coin" (equivalent, I believe, to our "Quack! Quack!") wants to compete with the peacock named "Beauté." The duck picks up discarded peacock feathers and gets help from a monkey in creating a peacock-like tail for himself. Alas, he is so happy with the resulting acclaim that he jumps for joy into the water. Of course the feathers fall out one by one, till he is left with just one feather sticking out of his tail. His mother, called upon to remove that last feather, teaches him that life's challenge is to be well what you are rather than to be something else. There are simple two-colored designs all along the way of the 32 pages here. The press apparently changed its location, as the new location is pasted over the old one on the title-page.

1962 Medicated Fables for Mice and Men. Told by Joseph D. Wassersug M.D. Appropriately illustrated by Kenneth Mahood. Dust jacket. NY: Abelard-Schuman. $2 at Strand, Feb., '88.

A book about which one can wonder whether it was worth the printing. Three of these less-than-outstanding stories are Aesopic: "The City Mouse and Arrowsmith," "The Busy Ants and the Lazy Crickets," and GGE.

1962 Molitor Filiusque cum Asello Suo. Fabella a Goodwino B. Beach in Latinum Conversa. Accedunt Imagines a Rogero Duvoisin Fictae. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Printed in USA. NY: A Whittlesey House Book: McGraw-Hill Book Co. $1.50 from The Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library Book Store, March, '99.

I did not suspect the existence of this book and found it by chance on the "Foreign Language" shelf of the children's section in the library's bookstore. What a find! Goodwin Beach's Latin is fine. I may even try it with my second-semester "Beginning Latin" students soon. The book follows the same format as the English and French (both also 1962), which I already have. Watch out: the back flyleaf points out that there is also a Spanish version. I wonder where I will find that! In this version, as in the English and French, the donkey is saved while the miller complains that he had pleased no one and almost lost his donkey besides. One remaining mystery for me comes out of the Latin on the front flyleaf: are they saying that they are following the James version changed slightly to have a bit of La Fontaine in it? In fact, they do follow James closely up to the point where James has them lose the ass and travel home alone. La Fontaine does have the jovial ending of the miller saying that he has learned to please himself. And La Fontaine does not make him pay for that learning with the life of the ass. The illustrations include three colors.

1962 My Book of Aesop's Fables. Jane Carruth. Illustrated by Nardini. A Giant Maxton Book. (c)Fratelli Fabbri, Milan. Hardbound. Printed in Italy. NY: Maxton. $2 at Booksellers et al. in St. Paul, June, '87.

The cover page proclaims that the pictures are thrilling and the story specially retold. Well.... LM, TH, TMCM. There are little block diagrams of the characters in open spaces as you ago along. This book is rather in the style of the big cheap "Book Essentials" editions.

1962 My Book of Aesop's Fables.  (Jane Carruth).  Illustrated by Nardini.  Hardbound.  NY: A Giant Maxton Book: Maxton.  $5.95 from The Book Shop, Burbank, Feb., '97.

1962 Once Upon a Time: Volume 2 of Collier's Junior Classics Series. Series Editor: Margaret E. Martignoni. Volume Editor: Elizabeth H. Gross; Aesop editor: Joseph Jacobs; Jataka Tales retold by Ellen C. Babbitt. Irwin Greenberg, Robert Reed Macguire. Hardbound. Printed in USA. NY: Crowell-Collier Publishing Co. $1 from Milwaukee Public Library castoff sale, August, '86.

1962 Pantschatantra. Aus dem Sanskrit übertragen von Theodor Benfey; Zusammengestellt und sprachlich bearbeitet von Friedmar Geissler. Illustriert von Bert Heller. Erste Auflage. Hardbound. Berlin: Rütten & Loening. €8 from Dresden, August, '06.

1962 Penitence, or Kaleeleh and Demneh. Ali R. Amir-Moez. English and Arabic text back-to-back. Signed by the author. (c)Ali R. Amir-Moez. Lafayette, IN: Lafayette Printing Co. $8 at Midway, St. Paul, Nov., '92.

1962 Penitence, or Kaleeleh and Demneh.  Ali R. Amir-Moez.  English and Arabic text back-to-back.  ©Ali R. Amir-Moez.  Hardbound.  Lafayette, IN: Lafayette Printing Co.  $15 from Feldman's Books, Menlo Park, CA, July, '15.

1962 Rabe Fuchs und Löwe: Fabeln der Welt. Paul Alverdes. 55 Abildungen nach Holzstichen von J.J. Grandville. Dust jacket. Hardbound. Munich: Ehrenwirth Verlag. DM 30 from Ahrens & Hamacher Antiquariat, Düsseldorf, August, '95. Extra copy with slightly torn dj for DM 12 from an open table at a student book fair at Hamburg University, June, '98.

1962 Reineke Fuchs in 12 Gesängen.  Johann Wolfgang Goethe.  Lithographs by Kurt Steinel.  Signed by Steinel.  Hardbound.  Offenbach am Main: Kumm Verlag.  €20 from Zeil, Frankfurt, June, '23.

1962 Reineke Fuks (Göte). Kodansha's Picture Book. Published by Shoichi Noma. Tokyo: Kodansha Co., Ltd. ¥800 at Miwa, Kanda, July, '97.

1962 Reynard the Fox.  Arthur Fauquez; Translation by Marie-Louise Roelants.  Photographs of a performance.  Introduction by Mouzon Law.  Paperbound.  Anchorage, KY: The Anchorage Press.  $25 from Johanson Rare Books, Baltimore, MD, July, '08.  

1962 The Aesop for Children. Pictures by Milo Winter. No editor named. Chicago: Rand McNally. See 1919/47/62.

1962 The Battle of the Frogs and the Mice: An Homeric Fable. By George Martin. Illustrated by Fred Gwynne. Dust jacket. Hardbound. NY: Dodd, Mead & Company. $20 from Jackson Street Booksellers, Omaha, July, '02. 

1962 The Fable of the Bees. Bernard Mandeville. Edited with an Introduction by Irwin Primer. Paperbound. NY: Capricorn Books. Gift of Reinert Alumni Library, Nov., '02.

1962 The Fables of Aesop.  Joseph Jacobs.  Illustrated by Kurt Wiese. Hardbound.  NY: MacMillan.  See 1950/62.

1962 The Fox at the Manger. P.L. Travers. Wood Engravings by Thomas Bewick. (c)1949 John Lyndon Ltd. (c)1962 John Lyndon Ltd. First Edition. Dust jacket. NY: W.W. Norton and Co. $15 from Snowbound Books, Norridgewock, ME, at Rosslyn Book Fair, March, '92. Extra copy with reinforced library binding for $5 from Kaboom, New Orleans, Dec., '92.

1962 The Golden Book of Storytime Tales. Selected by the Editors of Golden Press. Pictures by Sharon Kane. Hardbound. NY: Golden Press. $1 from the Sebastopol Flea Market, August, '08.

1962 The Hare and the Tortoise. Illustrated in three colors by Paul Galdone. No editor acknowledged. Dust jacket. NY: McGraw-Hill Book Company. $12.95 at Red Balloon, St. Paul, May, '90.

1962 The Miller, His Son, and Their Donkey. Illustrated by Roger Duvoisin. No editor acknowledged. NY: Whittlesey House: McGraw-Hill Book Co. $1.98 at Half-Price Books in St. Paul, July, '89.

1962 The Mouse and the Lion. By Eve Titus. Illustrated by Leonard Weisgard. NY: Parents' Magazine Press. $6 from Bibelots & Books, Seattle, July, '93. Extra copy for $8 from Greg Williams, March, '93.

1962 The Sleepytime Storybook. Illustrated by J.P. Miller. Cover illustration by R. Giusti. NY: Random House. $3 at Oxford TOO, Atlanta, Dec., '94.

1962 The Tortoise and the Hare (Storytoon). Edited and Adapted by Margie Bell. Illustrations by Frank Hursh. Hardbound. Chicago: Storytoon Express: Rand McNally. $5 from Pam Brown, Bakersfield, CA, through eBay, Sept., '02. 

1962 The Tortoise and the Hare. The Storytoon Express Version. No author or illustrator acknowledged. Chicago: Rand McNally and Company. $15 from Bibliomania, Oakland, at San Francisco Antiquarian Book, Print, & Paper Fair.   Extra copy for $.48 at Half-Price Books in Milwaukee, June, '93.

1962 Three Fables. (After La Fontaine). Pictures by Pierre Probst. Pamphlet. London: Happytime Series #24: Golden Pleasure Books. $2.50 from Roslyn Pendergast, Australia, through eBay, Sept., '02.

1962 Walt Disney's Story Land. 55 Favorite Stories adapted from Walt Disney films. Illustrated by the Walt Disney Studio. Stories selected by Francis Saldinger. NY: Golden Press/Racine: Western Publishing Co. $7.50 from Renaissance at airport, Oct., '89. Extra copy for $5 from Second Story, May, '92.

1962 1800 Woodcuts by Thomas Bewick and His School. Edited by Blanche Cirker. Dover Pictorial Archive Series. NY: Dover. $9.95 from Colophon Book Shop, Exeter, NH, at Chicago Book Fair, May, '89.

1962/63 The Book of Fables. Including fables by La Fontaine, John Gay, Robert Dodsley, Christian Gellert, Gotthold Lessing, Claris de Florian, Ivan Kriloff, and others (Pilpay and Hitopadesa). No editor acknowledged. Illustrated by Will Nickless. (c)1962 Ward Lock and Co. Printed in Great Britain. NY: Frederick Warne and Co. $5 at Constant Reader, Dec., '90.

1962/63 The Book of Fables. Will Nickless. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. NY: Frederick Warne. $37.50 from Houle Rare Books & Autographs, Los Angeles, August, '10.

1962/66 A Bundle of Sticks. Retold by Katherine Evans. Illustrated by the Author. Hardbound. Second Printing. Printed in USA. Chicago: Albert Whitman & Company. $20 from Bonnie Kirk at BEK Books, Milton-Freewater, OR, through ABE, June, '99.

1962/66 Fables. Jean Anouilh. Paperback. Paris: La Table Ronde. $1.50 from Holland's Books, Portland, March, '96. Extra copy for $4 from Pierre Cantin, Chelsea, Quebec, Feb., '01.

1962/67 Die schönsten Fabeln von La Fontaine. Neu erzählt von Oldrich Syrovatka. Illustriert von Jiri Trnka. Hardbound. Vierte Auflage. Hanau, Germany: Verlag Werner Dausien. DM 20 from Museum Haus Cajeth, Heidelberg, August, '01.

1962/67 Fables. Jean Anouilh. Illustrées par Jean-Denis Malclès. Inscribed and signed by Anouilh. Hardbound. Paris: La Table Ronde. €60 from Librairie de l'Amateur, Strasbourg, April, '08.

1962/67 Fables. Jean Anouilh. Illustrées par Jean-Denis Malclès. Hardbound. Paris: La Table Ronde. FFR 100 from Gibert Joseph, Paris, May, '96. Extra copy for $20 from The Book Gallery, Moss Vale, NSW Australia, Nov., '99.

1962/68 Das große Buch der Fabeln. Herausgegeben von Edmund Mudrak. Mit 47 alten Holzschnitten. Dust jacket. 20-25th thousand. Reutlingen: Ensslin & Laiblin Verlag. $20 at Turtle Island, Aug., '94.

1962/1971 A Bundle of Sticks. Retold by Katherine Evans. Illustrated by Katherine Evans. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Chicago: Albert Whitman & Company. $0.55 from Karen Thiessen, Wheat Ridge, CO, through Ebay, Oct., '02.

1962/72 La Fontaine: Fables choisies mises en vers. Introduction, note et relevé de variantes par Georges Couton. Édition illustrée de 32 reproductions. (c)1962 Garnier Frères. Paris: Garnier Frères. $20 at Moe's, July, '97.

1962/73/85 Fables. Jean Anouilh. Paperback. Paris: La Table Ronde. $6.95 by mail from Schoenhof's, Jan., '94.

1962/75 La Fontaine: Fables choisies mises en vers. Introduction, notes et relevé de variantes par Georges Couton. Illustrée de 32 reproductions. Printed in 1975. Paperbound. Classiques Garnier. Paris: (c)1962 Garnier Frères. $10 at Europa Books, Evanston, Jan., '96.

1962/79 La Fontaine: Fables choisies mises en vers.  Georges Couton.  Hardbound.  Paris: Bibliothèque Essentielle:  Garnier Frères.  CAD $8 from Guy Falardeau, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada, through eBay, July, '16.

1962/80 Fables and Fairy Tales. Leo Tolstoy. Translated by Ann Dunnigan. Illustrated by Sheila Greenwald. Paperback. A Plume Book. NY: New American Library. $2.40 at Powell's South in Chicago, May, '89. Extra copy for $5 from Behnke, Sept., '91.

1962/87 Walt Disney's Story Land: 55 Favorite Stories adapted from Walt Disney films. Stories selected by Francis Saldinger. Illustrated by the Walt Disney Studio. Hardbound. Printed in USA. NY/Racine: NY: Golden Press/Racine: Western Publishing Co. $4 from the Rose Bowl flea market, Pasadena, August, '93.

1962/89 Favorite Children's Stories from China and Tibet. By Lotta Carswell Hume. Illustrations by Lo Koon-chiu. First paperback edition. Printed in Japan. Rutland, Vermont and Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company. $12 at Peking Book House, Evanston, Dec., '92.

1962/94 Walt Disney's Story Land: 55 Favorite Stories. Francis Saldinger (no longer acknowledged). Walt Disney Company. Paperbound. Printed in USA. NY: A Golden Book/Racine: Western Publishing Co. $4 from Ichabod's Books, Denver, April, '98.

1962/2000 Favorite Children's Stories from China and Tibet.  Lotta Carswell Hume.  Illustrated by Lo Koon-chiu. Fifth printing.  Hardbound.  Dust jacket.  Boston: Tuttle Publishing.  $9.95 from Powell's, Portland, July, '15.

1962? Fables de Jean de la Fontaine, Tome Premier. Illustrations par André Collot, Graveur. #916 of 1700. Paperbound. Paris: La Belle Édition. £ 36 from Barter Books, Alnwick, Northumberland, UK, Feb., '06.

1962? Fables de Jean de la Fontaine, Tome Premier. Illustrations par André Collot, Graveur. #1250 of 1700. Paperbound. Paris: La Belle Édition. $50 from Caron Bibliopole, Montreal, through abe, May, '10.

1962? Fables de Jean de la Fontaine, Tome Second. Illustrations par André Collot, Graveur. Paperbound. Paris: La Belle Édition. $50 from Caron Bibliopole, Montreal, through abe, May, '10.

1962? Fables des animaux: d'Esope à La Fontaine. Illustrations de B. Bodini. Hardbound. Paris: Editions Lito. $6.99 from Linda Babik, Cleveland, through eBay, April, '13.

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1963 Aesop and Hyssop. Being Fables Adapted and Original with the Morals Carefully Formulated. By William Ellery Leonard. No Illustrations. Open Court Publishing Co.: La Salle, IL. See 1912/63.

1963 Aesop and the Bible. Alison and Trevor Morrison. Paperbound. London: A.R. Mowbray and Company. $AU18 from Hamish Trumble, Victoria, Australia, through eBay, Sept., '08.

This paperback offers fifty homilies, each about two pages in length. Each is built off of a single scripture verse, and each presents a fable. I have read the first seven and found them well done. They do not do violence to the fables. I look forward to using this book when I finally follow Larry Gillick's advice and put together a whole retreat using fables. I notice a different approach here to the story of the old man and his ass on 13. The old peasant here trusts no one and is thus forced to carry all his possessions with him. Thus his little ass is heavily laden. When armed men approach, it is not just that the ass will be exchanging masters and carrying the same level of burdens. In this version, "The poor ass had carried so many burdens for so long that life had ceased to hold anything of hope, or joy, or peace for him" (14). These sermons are clearly meant for children.

1963 Aesop's Fables. Retold by Ann McGovern. Illustrated by A.J. McClaskey. NY: Scholastic Book Services. $2.50. Second copy on better paper with different ISBN number and publication information for $2.50 at Dearborn St. Fair, June, '88. Third copy of the earlier fifth printing (1970) without ISBN and with a price of 45¢ at Yankee Peddler West, Fremont, Oct., '97.

A cheap paperback. The two-color illustrations are good simple starters for several tales. Otherwise there is nothing special here. Because they are three distinct printings, I will keep all three in the collection.

1963 Aesop's Fables. Retold by Ann McGovern. Illustrated by A.J. McClaskey. Apparently first printing of this edition. NY: Apple Classics: Scholastic Inc. $2.75 at Nebraska Bookstore, Lincoln, May, '91. Extra copy, apparently of the twenty-first printing, for $1.40 at Pageturner's, Sept., '95.

A later reworking of Scholastic's 1963 edition, with no indication of the new date. The covers are new. "About Aesop" is at the back. T of C is added at the front; AI at the back is dropped. The same plates are used, but with smaller margins. McClaskey's two-color illustrations are still good simple starters for several tales. Only the advertisement and its prices have changed in the extra copy. The name "Gillies" is cleverly hidden in the cover picture just below "Aesop's Fables," and now that I have noticed that name, I note that the inside illustrations are attributed to McClaskey.

1963 Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by William K. Plummer. Companion Library. NY: Grosset & Dunlap. $2.95. Two extra copies, one of them from Half-Price somewhere, '94.

Alphabetical list at the book's front. Very few drawings, and they are not superior. Perhaps helpful for its clear "applications." I think one can show a chronological progression among the three copies by watching the altered back of the title page on #2 and #3 (to include an ISBN number) and the altered back cover on #3 (apparently to add some titles to the series.)

1963 Aesop's Fables/Arabian Nights. Illustrated by William K. Plummer. Companion Library. NY: Grosset & Dunlap. $2.95 at Black Star Bookstore, Chicago, Sept., '87. Three extra copies.

Identical with the previous entry (in the form without the ISBN number) except that this volume is bound rear end to rear end and upside down with Arabian Nights!

1963 Aesop: Fables/Medieval Tales. Junior Great Books. No editor named. Chicago: The Great Books Foundation. $.25 at Antiquarium, Jan., '89.

Two fables per page through 48 pages. Compare with the 1967 version, which is shorter, is mated with different works, and occupies a different place in the GB program. The versions seem to be developed from Jacobs.

1963 African Folk Tales.  Charlotte and Wolf Leslau.  Decorations by Grisha Dotzenko.  Dust-jacket.  Hardbound.  Mount Vernon, NY: Peter Pauper Press.  $2 from Second Story Warehouse, Rockville, MD, June, '19.

1963 Animal Stories. Compiled by Carol Denison. Illustrated by Frank Szasz. A Golden Storytime Book. NY: Golden Press. See 1957/63.

1963 Cent dix-sept Fables d'Esope enrichies d'autant de figures selon l'édition de M.DCC.LXIII. I. Raymond. #292 of 7000. Hardbound. Printed in Paris. Paris: Club Français du livre. FRF 100 from Abraxas-Libris, Bécherel, France, Feb., '02.

This lovely reproduction in exaggerated portrait format (4¾" x 8½") is a mystery to me. It presents very traditional rectangular illustrations, one for each of the 117 fables. They seem to be signed by I Raymond. But I can find no record of an edition like this done in 1763--or, in Bodemann, for one done in 1963 either. I had presumed that the French Book Club was celebrating the three-hundredth anniversary of a famous book, but I can find nothing out about the book! The fables start with a varied ornamental line across the page, a number, a title, and an illustration. After the narration, there is a simple straight line. The illustrations as reproduced here are quite dark. Is that carpenter on 63 missing a portion of his arm?

1963 Cent dix-sept Fables d'Esope enrichies d'autant de figures selon l'édition de M.DCC.LXIII.  Raymond.  #366 of 7000.  Hardbound.  Paris: Club Français du livre.  €15 from Librairie de l'Avénue, St. Ouen, Paris, August, '14.  

1963 Des Kaisers neue Kleider.  Hans Christian Andersen; German of Adolf Kellner?  Paperbound.  Karlsruhe: Braunschen Hochschubuchhandlung.  €5 from Evasion, Brussels, August, '19.

1963 Fabelen en Vertelsels. In Nederduitsche Vaerzen Gevolgd. Christian Fuerchtgott Gellert. Bloemlezing verzorgd door Johan van Nieuwenhuizen. Te's-Gravenhage: Bij Uitgeverij V.A. Kramers. Gift of Gert-Jan van Dyk, Jan., '94.

A beautiful paperback facsimile (?) of the first Dutch translation (1781) of Gellert's 1772 work. Fifty-six fables, with one engraving for each fable. I wish I could be sure that this is a facsimile, and not some other sort of reproduction. Gellert's fables are apparently his own creations. The closest thing to a traditional Aesop's fable here is "The Blind and the Lame" (42). I wish I had a good collection of Gellert in English or even German, but I am glad to get him in some form! T of C at the end. A lovely gift!

1963 Fable-Books Printed in the Low Countries. A concise bibliography until 1800 by John Landwehr. Introduction by Prof. Mr. H. de la Fontaine Verwey. With 12 plates. Nieuwkoop: B. De Graaf. DM 38 at Braun, Düsseldorf, July, '95.

This is an extensive and straightforward bibliography presenting 301 items in very sober fashion. The good introduction by Verwey leads one to hope perhaps for even a bit more of each volume beyond its dry data. The introduction highlights each century's particular gifts. The items are arranged alphabetically, beginning with "Aesopus" (112 items) and moving through such well known terms and names as Dialogus Creaturarum, Faernus, La Fontaine, and Phaedrus. The reason for choosing 1800 as the closing date is that the use of fables takes a decided turn towards children at this point. The twelve black-and-white plates illustrate some of the better known of these versions. The editor makes a nice choice to put all place-names into English. There are indices at the back of, first, publishers, printers, and booksellers (all grouped by place) and, second, of illustrators.

1963 Fables. Illustrations de S[teve] Medvey. Paperbound. Paris: Les Petits Livres d'Argent #86 R: Editions des Deux Coqs d'Or. $2.30 from Marie Gervais, St.-Urbain-Premier, Quebec, Canada, through eBay, Oct., '07.

Here is an old friend back again -- and again slightly different. This is the fifth form in which I have found this booklet. The book is softbound, like the 1972 version. Unlike that version -- which had "350" on its cover -- but closer to the one before it, which had "86," this book carries the "86 R" on its cover. The last two versions had, respectively, four and two stories. This volume has three. "The Dog and the Cock" is left out from the the 1959 version; TMCM is here, as it was not in the 1972 version. The result is strange for this booklet. Both the inside covers and the title-page illustrate "The Dog and the Cock," a story not told here! The address of the publisher has changed again. It was once on the Boulevard des Italiens, then on the Rue la Boétie, and now is on the Avenue Pierre-1er-de-Serbie. The copyright on the title-page still speaks of 1952, but the Dépot Légal on the last page is 1963. I finished my comment on one of the earlier versions by writing "I promise never to buy a copy of this booklet again!" Oops! I just did.

1963 Fables de la Fontaine. Paperbound. Editions Volumetrix. $7.25 from Marie Gervais, St.-Urbain-Premier, Quebec, Canada, through eBay, Nov., '07.

This book, 8¾" x 9½", presents twelve full-page texts of the most popular of La Fontaine's fables, each faced with a simple full-page colored illustration. The twelfth text, WL, is on the last page. Its illustration is on the front cover. My favorite illustrations feature the cobbler and banker, MSA, and the worker and his sons. Each of these illustrations presents excellent human facial expressions. Who knows how many of these twentieth-century fable booklets exist?! I am delighted to keep finding new ones!

1963 Friendly Tales. Book One, Beacon Literary Readers. Edited by J. Compton. Colored drawings by Paul Hogarth. Monochrome decorations by Owen Wood. London: Ginn and Company. See 1931/61/63.

1963 Frog in the Milk Pan. Tangential. Cover art by Elisabeth de Bauer Radnay. Dust jacket. Hardbound. Victoria Publishing Co.. $29.95 from E.P. Waggener & Sons, Columbia, KY, through abe, May, '03. 

This book may have been "privately published"; it is at least surprising that the publisher's name appears only on the spine and the dust jacket, and not on the title-page or any other page inside the book. The book seems an (auto-?)biographical account of a spirited young woman. It shows up in this collection because it begins on its very first page with the fable of the frog who falls into a milk-pan. The frog struggles and, instead of drowning, churns so vigorously that he creates a roll of butter. The lesson of the engaging life we read thus has to do with exerting oneself, even in difficult circumstances. Molly McHugh was born in 1883. When she was a child, her beloved father told her stories, including--you guessed it--"The Fable of the Frog in the Milk Pan." I have read and enjoyed the first fifty pages. They describe a spirited girl growing up in Cleveland, going off to boarding school with the nuns, and making her first communion. I would be glad to read more. And the fable serves well so far as a keynote for the book.

1963 I.A. Krylov: Basni (Russian). Edited by G. Kolosov. Illustrated by A. Laptyev. Preface by Igor Ilinsky. Paperback. Moscow: People's Library. $5 from Szwede Slavic Books, Palo Alto, CA, March, '96.

Here are 167 of Krylov's fables in a paperbound book of 176 pages. The book uses sixteen of Laptyev's full-page black-and-white illustrations; one can find twenty-four of them in my 1973 canvas-bound edition from the "School Library" series published by Children's Literature. See my comments there. One wonders why publishers would publish 167 fables of a total corpus that contains, depending on the editor, either 197 or 201.

1963 John J. Plenty and Fiddler Dan. A New Fable of the Grasshopper and the Ant. By John Ciardi. Illustrations by Madeleine Gekiere. First edition. Dust jacket. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company. $15 from Titles, Highland Park, June, '93. Extra copy with a Lippincott Longlife Binding for $30 from Second Story Books, May, '92. Another extra in less good condition without dust jacket for $2.95 from Downtown, Milwaukee, June, '94.

Found after several years of looking. The poetry and story are both excellent. John's sister fell in love with Dan, and they married. John waited and fasted, never sure he had enough; he starved himself through the winter and set out in spring to hoard more. Somehow Dan and his wife hid from the ice and snow. Now they return--with music's return in spring--to surprise John. Gekiere's art is uneven: sometimes excellent, sometimes frustratingly suggestive and no more. There are four morals in italics on the last two pages. The first two copies named above, both in excellent condition, will stay in the collection.

1963 Kitten and Cat Stories to Read Aloud. Compiled by Oscar Weigle. Illustrated by Elizabeth Dauber. Paperback. NY: Wonder Books. $.98 at Half-Price Books, Des Moines, April, '93.

This decidedly simple book includes one cat fable: "The Cat and the Fox" on 124, with a simple, full-page illustration. The fox here claims 100 tricks. He hesitates while deciding. Too late, he runs for it. "And that was the end of the fox, bagful of tricks and all!"

1963 Kodansha No E Hon: Isoppu E Banashi. Written by Daiji Kawasaki. Published by Shooichi Noma. Tokyo: Kodansha Co., Ltd. ¥500 at Miwa, Kanda, July, '96.

The Japanese title means "Picture Book: Picture Tales. Dialogue." The Japanese cover shows a brightly-colored eagle dropping a turtle in mid-air. The fables feature bright illustrations. Among them I find FS, "The Wolf Inviting the Lambs to Come Down to Green Pastures," BF, GA, "King Peacock (but you cannot fly)," BW, "The Ass Carrying Salt and Cotton" (note the nice variation from sponges), "The Lion as Doctor," "The Little Fish That Get Through the Net," "Too Fat to Get Out Through the Hole Through Which You Got In," "The Lion and the Bear," and "The Captured Nightingale." This magazine's glue in the spine has given out. The Western front cover shows a few of the 101 Dalmatians.

1963 La Fontaine: Cent Fables. Présentée par Pierre Daninos. Commentées par Claude Esteban. Illustrées par Pierre-Yves Trémois. First edition, boxed. Hardbound. Printed in France. Paris-Montreal: Sélection du Reader's Digest. $5 from Francine Juneau, Montreal, through Ebay, Sept., '00. Extra copy with a basement smell from John Baxter, Paris , for $20, Jan., '05.  

This is a curious book. It puts around the fables a number of curious things. There are, e.g., a number of pointed, provocative little quotations about La Fontaine and his fables. There is Trémois' art, sometimes line drawings, but at other times colored illustrations. These are not neat little rectangles but rather designs that intrude into the text's territory. Among Trémois' better contributions I would list FS (39), "Le loup plaidant contre le renard par-devant le singe" (49), CW (68), "Les deux perroquets, le roi et son fils" (249), "Le chat et les deux moineaux" (274), and "Le singe" (the wife-beater, who reads a copy of this book, 294). There are several suitably daunting animal images including Rodilardus (92), Raminagrobis (182), and Bertrand (231). I am surprised to find an image of a frog devouring a mouse or rat as the illustration for FK (78). There are both a T of C and an AI at the back. Before that, on 297-315, there are comments one or two paragraphs in length on thirty-eight of the fables. Presumably these comments are from Esteban. This is a nicely conceived book. The outside of the spine has been lost. Because both copies have defects, I will keep them both in the collection.

1963 Legendary Animals. Edited and selected by Bryna and Louis Untermeyer. Illustrated by A. and M. Provenson and others. Volume 9 of "The Golden Treasury of Children's Literature." NY: Golden Press. $5 at Constant Reader, May, '93. Extra copies for $5 at Normal's, Baltimore, Nov., '91, and for $5 from Books of Imagination, Silver Spring, Oct., '91.

A nice book, found twice within a month. I had thought that its illustrations came from the Untermeyer/Provenson Aesop's Fables (1965) or its (Greek?) source. After closer comparison, these illustrations with Greek and English phrases are in the same style as those in 1965, but they are completely independent. The question remains: Why the Greek? Was it done just for this North American edition? The fifteen fables here have texts written by Michael Lewis, of whom I do not otherwise know. The credits seem not to point to a book of his. Do not miss AL with text by Untermeyer and art by Harlow Rockwell. There is good advice on 26: drop the morals if you want. Is one to think that the cooperation with the Provensons on this book brought Louis Untermeyer (What happened to Bryna?) to want to undertake a whole book on Aesop together? If so, for this exclusively Aesopic book, Untermeyer would write his own texts.

1963 Les Fables du Rat: Esopo, Fedro, La Fontaine. Réalisation éditoriale de Roberto Borghi. NA. Hardbound. Paris: Collection Les Fables du Bois: Del Duca: Éditions Mondiales. $8.80 from Marie Gervais, St.-Urbain-Premier, Quebec, Canada, through eBay, Oct., '06.

Here is a lively large-format book for children gathering seven well-known fables about rats. Each fable gets a two-page spread except the last, which has three pages. Prose texts share the page with colored illustrations. Might these unsigned illustrations be done by Cremonini? Somehow the personfied trees seem to remind me of his work. There are also frequent small animals standing on the edge of a scene and commenting on it to each other. The fables include LM (attributed to Aesop); "The Rat Who Became a Tiger" (translated from the Italian); "The Association of the Cat and the Rat" (translated from the Italian); "The Cat Hanging Up and Playing Dead" (attributed to Aesop); FM (extracted from La Fontaine); "The Rats and the Cat" (translated from the Italian); and TMCM. I find the first two Italian fables weaker than the other stories. I presume that the "Italian" fables here are translations of some version of Phaedrus. FM follows La Fontaine verbatim but saves space by making the text into prose and adding slashes to mark line endings. Among the most dynamic illustrations is that for FM. There are five other books in the series "Les Fables du Bois": Lion, l'Ours, Renard, Loup, Lapin et ses Amis.

1963 Mishley Amim (Hebrew "Folk Fables"). Hayim Yefet/Chaim Jaffe. Zila Binder. Hardbound. Tel Aviv: Tarbut Ye-Hinukh. $65 from Meir Biezunski, Israel, Nov., '06.

There are some 130 fables here on 160 pages. They include fables from Aesop, Phaedrus, Krylov, La Fontaine, and others. It is a pleasure here to encounter -- through the pictures -- so many old friends. TMCM, for example, is on 64. FG is right at the start of the book (7). Is that CW on 134? It is curious on 157 to see various fabulists' dates without being able to read their names. There is a T of C at the end. The canvas spine is well worn. This seems to have been a library book. 

1963 More Friends Old and New.  Helen M. Robinson, Marion Monroe, A. Sterl Artley.  Illustrated by Richard E. Loehle, Bob Childress, Bob Korta, Rod Ruth.  Hardbound.  Chicago: The New Basic Readers Curriculum Foundation Series:  Scott, Foresman, and Co.  $5 from Rural Iowa Antiques Mall, May, '15.

1963 Old-Time Schools and School-Books. Clifton Johnson. With Many Illustrations Collected by the Author. Carl Withers. Paperbound. NY: Dover Publications. $3.50 at Bluestem Books, Lincoln, NE, Jan., '13.

This is a reprinting of the 1904 original with a new introduction by Carl Withers. It is one of those large -- 381 pages -- Dover editions that probably cost $4 new in 1963. It seems to contain a wealth of specific knowledge. Johnson was a collector of grade-school readers and textbooks, "gathered by exploring the nooks and corners of the old bookshops from New England to South Carolina" (xviii). Just after the beginning T of C, a list of illustrations lasting some thirteen pages offers a good introduction to the book's subjects. That help becomes important because there is no AI at the back. And one of the great contributions of this book lies in its more than 200 illustrations. My search for fables yielded a number of texts, references, and images. Fables begin on 50 with several fables from the landmark book of Thomas Dilworth, A New Guide to the English Tongue (1740), specifically "Of the Fisherman and the Fish," "Of the Waggoner and Hercules," and "Of the good natured Man and the Adder." Fenning's speller in 1755 seems to have been Dilworth's major rival; from it "The Town in Danger" is offered here (54). Every townsman has a different method to propose for saving the town. I am surprised to learn that originally a primer was a book of private devotions (69). Noah Webster's speller offers the fable of the boy who stole apples (179) with an illustration. When the old man catches a boy stealing apples in his apple-tree, he first asks him to come down and then throws tufts of grass, which provoke only laughter from the boy. Then he throws stones and the boy comes down. A second illustration from 1829 appears on 184. Also from Webster's 1789 speller comes a text and illustration of MM. The Columbian Spelling Book of 1799 offers "The Dove and the Bee" and "The Old Knight and his Wig" (194-6). The New England Spelling-book of 1803 includes as a "moral tale" "The Child and the Serpent," a development of the fable of the frozen serpent. Now the serpent gives the snakes' view of the story: the man thought the snake dead and took it home for its colorful skin (204-5). On 210 one finds an illustration of WL from Perry's Only Sure Guide to the English Tongue of 1818. Jones' Analytical Spelling Book of 1823 dismisses fables as unsuited to the rising generation in the United States. Animals are not the equals of people. Children need literal examples, not analogies. Picket's Juvenile Spelling-book of 1823 has "A Poetical Fable" about a caught fish; the story dramatizes the danger of temptation (219). 

1963 Pebbles from a Broken Jar: Fables and Hero Stories from Old China. Frances Alexander. School children's scissor-cuts. Hardbound. Copyright Frances Alexander. $30.60 from Heritage Auctions, Oct., '11.

Here is a surprise. I have a copy of this book published by Bobbs-Merrill in 1967. That copy acknowledges a 1963 copyright by Frances Alexander. This book was thus apparently privately published by Alexander and then taken over four years later by Bobbs-Merrill. As I mentioned then, this book represents an unusual find with eighteen stories. One of them is the Aesopic TB: "Chi and Yi" (22-23). Many are etiologies, especially of animal sounds. Several involve clever solutions (11, 14, 16, 18, and 28). The best of the stories are found on 9, 18, 19, and 23. The excellent scissor-cuts were done by grade school children in Cheefu, China, about 1920. The best of them are on 9 (mosquitoes), 13 (tiger), 18 (ice), and 22 (bear).

1963 Plays That Sing. Margaret Wardlaw Gilbert. Hardbound. Printed in USA. NY: The John Day Company. $15 from Willard A. Krantz, Books and Less, Janesville, WI, through ABE, Nov., '01.

One of the three selections in this oversize book is "A Musical Setting of Some Aesop's Fables" (45-64). This is a one-act play with one setting and a Greek chorus. The setting includes just a small stump center stage right. For the chorus Gilbert demands at least twenty voices; the chorus stands through the entire performance on risers center stage right. Actors join the chorus after their performances. An easel holds cards with the name of each fable. An introductory song, "About Aesop," by everybody climaxes with "We will fable you again with thanks to Mister Aesop." Each of seven fables gets one song: FG, BC, BS, BW, GA, MM, and FC. Some necessary actions fit well between two verses. The chorus usually fits right into the song with a short closing moral. At the end there is a last song, "Closing Words of Wisdom." This book once belonged to the Wheeling Public Library.

1963 S. Mikhalkov: Basni. Sergei Michalkov. A. Lapteva (?). Paperbound. Moscow: Moskovskii Rabochii. $5.99 from Allan Doyle, Seattle, through eBay, March, '09.

This is a lovely find! Its 94 paperbound pages include forty-seven colored illustrations, all signed in 1961. They are lively and highly interpretative. The rabbit on 13 is one of the strongest; notice that the cover's two-color version of this multi-colored piece adds a bottle and may reinterpret the rabbit's explosive gesture. Is that a fox looking so voluptuous on 17? The two hands on 51 are simply but powerfully done. I believe I have seen some of these before. They remind one of Racheva's work, but these are rougher, more primitive, livelier. There is a T of C at the end.

1963 Sa Mashal: Otsar Meshalim U-Fitgamim. Yitshak Idan. Illustrations by Meir Arieh Moskovich. Hardbound. Tel Aviv: Niv. $65 from Meir Biezunski, Haifa, Israel, Nov., '06.

The title may translate roughly "Tell a Fable." There seem to be 179 pages of stories. Apparently a T of C on the last six pages. There is a map of Israel on 173. The occasional illustrations seem to deal as much with Jewish legend as with traditional fable material. Meir reports that there are some 450 short fables here from unidentified sources, including the Bible and Jewish tradition. I wish I could say more! 

1963 Selections from Aesop's Fables. Paperbound. Obunsha's English Library: Obunsha. $18.15 from alibris, April, '03. 

Here are one-hundred-and-twenty-eight fables presented on facing pages in English and Japanese, with occasional simple black-and-white illustrations. There is a T of C on 3-9. At the end there are some exercises, an idiomatic English vocabulary index, and an AI of the Japanese titles, I believe. This looks like a standard student's textbook, and I am surprised that I had not come across it earlier. The student who had this copy worked hard on the first fable, made some markings on some of the next fables, and then....

1963 The Birds and the Beasts Were There. Animal Poems Selected by William Cole. Woodcuts by Helen Siegl. Cleveland: World Publishing Company. $4 from Booksellers Row in Chicago, May, '89.

A very enjoyable selection of animal poetry. Pages 170-71 are soiled and a few others are creased; otherwise the book is in excellent condition. I am surprised that only one fable is included: TH is cleverly (if not 100% credibly) combined with "The Hare and the Hedgehog." The rabbit ends up exhausted.

1963 The Blind Men and the Elephant: John Godfrey Saxe's version of the famous Indian legend. John Godfrey Saxe. Pictures by Paul Galdone. Hardbound. Printed in USA. NY: Whittlesey House; McGraw-Hill. $0.25 from Bookseller Library Used Book Store & Coffee Shop, Milwaukee Public Library, June, '98. Extra copy with dust jacket and regular binding for $.25 from the Alley Bookstore, Highland Park, August, '96.

This sideways book presents the story very nicely. I still cannot say whether the story should be reckoned as a fable. Saxe's verse and Galdone's alternating black-and-white and several-color illustrations present it wonderfully in six steps. The Milwaukee copy has a reinforced library binding. The Alley Bookstore copy, also formerly in a library, has experienced more than its share of cut-outs, wrinkles, paste-ins, and tear-outs.

1963 The Book of Fables. Including fables by La Fontaine, John Gay, Robert Dodsley, Christian Gellert, Gotthold Lessing, Claris de Florian, Ivan Kriloff, and others (Pilpay and Hitopadesa). No editor acknowledged. Illustrated by Will Nickless. NY: Frederick Warne and Co. (c)1962 Ward Lock and Co. Printed in Great Britain. See 1962/63.

1963 The Faber Storybook. Eited by Kathleen Lines. Illustrated by Alan Howard. Hardbound. London: Faber and Faber. See 1961/63/67.

1963 The Fables of La Fontaine. Adapted and illustrated by Richard Scarry. First edition. Dust jacket. Garden City: Doubleday and Co. $32 from Abracadabra Book Search, Nov., '92. Extra copy of the same without the dust jacket for $4.95 from Powell's, Chicago, August, '96. Another extra copy, not a first edition, of a Doubleday Prebound Edition in fair condition without dust jacket and with a simpler green cover for $3 from Magus, Seattle, July, '93.

I had searched for ten years and never had this book in my hand. Experts in children's books did not even know that Scarry had done a LaFontaine book. Thirty-one fables, some with colored and some with black-and-white illustrations in Scarry's typical style. Rebus of T of C on 6. The best illustrations are for "The Mice in Council" (18-19), "The Wolf and the Stork" (20-21), "The Wolf and the Fox" (36-7), and DLS (54). Scarry may miss some of the story fun in SW (17) and "The Donkey with the Sponges" (44-45). Cuteness takes over in "The Lion and the Troops" illustration (22-23). In fact, the inside left flyleaf gives this description: "Romping through these wisely witty little tales are the cheeriest and most personable small creatures ever to come from an artist's drawing board." I am not sure that LaFontaine would have asked first for cheer and personableness in his characters. Excellent condition.

1963 The Hawk and the Nightingale: Hesiod. One of 100 copies. Paperbound. Los Angeles: Frank J. Thomas at the Tenfingers Press. $20 from Oak Knoll Books, New Castle, DE, July, '11.

This little pamphlet has four folded pages. It starts with a page featuring the upper half of a hawk and "Now I will tell a tale to princes who will understand it:..." Two facing pages then present Hesiod's fable. The next page points a moral to Perses. The work seems almost an experiment in the presentation of typeface. That first page includes three different sets of print. The final page presents words that run over into the next line and one line printed mirror-backwards. The colophon page -- headed by Greek letters KOLOPHON -- presents two other typefaces. The binding is a lovely white thread.

1963 The Mice That Ate Iron. A Fable Retold and Illustrated by Katherine Evans. First edition? Dust jacket. Hardbound. Chicago: Albert Whitman & Company. $33.50 from Windy Hill Books, Ames, IA, through eBay, Jan., '03. 

It was expensive to get this book! But it helps fill out the series that Katherine Evans developed. This is her seventh different Aesop title that I have. It is in excellent condition. In this cleverly worked version, Pablo goes off to seek his fortune and leaves his only hereditary possession, an anchor, with Antonio the inn-keeper. Antonio sells the anchor. Pablo comes back with a concertina and a chest. Antonio thinks fast. He has promised to bring something for Pablo to eat. He is looking around for ideas in the cellar when he notices the mice; they suggest to him the idea of iron-loving mice. Antonio thus makes a long face and tells Pablo that mice have eaten the anchor. Pablo says that he has heard of that phenomenon. He asks for Antonio's burro to take his concertina and chest to his lodging. Antonio immediately agrees, for he wants no uproar and no doubts from Pablo about their friendship. A few days later, Antonio objects to the fact that his donkey has not been returned and takes Pablo to the mayor. There Pablo claims that the burro was carried off by an eagle. When Antonio objects, Pablo can come out with his famous line, "In a country where a large anchor was eaten by mice, an eagle might easily carry off an elephant." Black-and-white and very pleasing color illustrations alternate on two-page spreads.

1963 The Sardonic Humor of Ambrose Bierce. Edited by George Barkin. Paperbound. NY: Dover. $7.50 from an unknown source, July, '00.

This is, as the verso of the title-page says, a collection of verse, fables, satirical essays and stories by Ambrose Bierce, selected from "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce" (Neale, twelve volumes, 1909-1912). The book is designed as a companion volume to Bierce's own "Devil's Dictionary." Selections from "Fantastic Fables" occur on 111 through 125. "Aesopus Emendatus" is on 127-28. Bierce is always fun! The cover illustration by Heinrich Kley of two naked women, one green and one orange, hoisting a dressed man is worthy of Bierce! 

1963 The Tiger, the Brâhman, and the Jackal. With pictures by Mamoru Funai. From Tales of the Punjab by Flora Annie Steel. By permission of The Macmillan Company. A Young Owl Book. NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. $5 from Spokane Book Center, Spokane, March, '96.

A large-format hardbound book which presents Steel's strong telling well. (Tales of the Punjab is represented in this collection under 1894/1983). The version of this tale is effective by having the jackal get the tiger to take the initiative in explaining how it all happened. The illustrations are brightly colored. Perhaps the best of them is the second-to-last, in which the tiger is confronting the apparently stupid jackal. One page near the middle of the book is torn slightly.

1963 The Tortoise and the Ducks and other Aesop Fables. Paperbound. Printed in Great Britain. A Favourite Book. London/Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons Limited. £3 from Stella Books, Monmouthshire, UK, Dec., '98.

Twenty-one fables in a pleasant little book 5½" x 7½". In TT, the tortoise opens his mouth to confirm the ducks' statement that she is the queen of tortoises. Three fables here are new to me. In "The Bee and the Spider," the two insects argue about their artistry; the bee gets the last word by showing that its art of making honey and wax is useful. In "A Gnat and a Bee," the bee turns down the gnat's offer to teach music to the bee family, noting especially that her music has done her no good. In "The Fox and the Bramble," the fox puts up with the bramble because it keeps off the dogs. There are several two-page spreads inserted along the way that seem not to relate to particular fables. Very good condition.

1963 The Tortoise and the Hare. Aesop's Fable as told by Jean Lewis. Illustrated by Bonnie and Bill Rutherford. A Whitman Fuzzy Wuzzy Book. Top Top Tales. Racine: Whitman. $18 through Interloc from Dianne Mosbacher Books, Bainbridge, Ohio, Sept., '97.

In the same series with my 1961 The Lion and the Mouse, though this book has the added distinction that its rabbit is fuzzy, on the cover and all the way through the book. After the initial encounter, King Lion commanded the two to race. The race started over a brook. The hare woke up once but looked only back, not forward. Not seeing the tortoise, he went right back to sleep. The fuzz is still intact! Sorry, it is not scratch-and-sniff!

1963 Tomás de Iriarte: Poesías. Prólogo y Notas de Alberto Navarro González. Clásicos Castellanos. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, S.A. $5 at Europa Books, Evanston, Jan., '96.

Here is the first edition of a book of which I already have the third edition (1963/76). See my comments there.

1963 U TO U STO: This and That (Russian).  Sergei Michalkov.  Paperbound.  Moscow: Bibliotheka Crocodila 5: Pravda.  $7.52 from Inna Chertok, Toronto,  through Ebay, Nov., '18.

1963 Young Children's Library: Best Loved Fables and Poetry for Young Children. Editor: Augusta Baker. Various classical artists. Reprinted from Young Years Library. NY: Home Library Press: Parents' Magazine Press. $12 through Bibliofind from Dianne Mosbacher Books, Bainbridge, OH, Oct., '97.

See Young Years (1960/71) where I have this same material in the Young Years Library. See my comments there. Twenty-one fables on the first thirty pages of this book. The texts are apparently from Jacobs, with some revisions. The illustrations include a different color with black for each two-page spread.

1963/64 The Lion and the Rat: A Fable by La Fontaine.  Brian Wildsmith.  Second printing.  Dust-jacket.  Hardbound.  NY: Franklin Watts.  $12.95 from Shakespeare, Berkeley, July, '13.

1963/64 The Lion and the Rat: A Fable by La Fontaine. Illustrated by Brian Wildsmith. First published 1963 by Oxford University Press. First American publication 1963 by Franklin Watts. Second Impression 1964. Printed in Austria. NY: Franklin Watts, Inc. $.50 at the Milwaukee Public Library Book Cellar, Nov., '95. Extra copy missing the first title-page from the same source for the same price.

Here is another case where I got a "backup copy" only to discover that I had only the paperback (1963/86). See my comments there.

1963/65 Fabelhafte Gegenwart: Eine Auslese bemerkenswerter Fabeln. Zusammengestellt von W.F. Karlos. Mit 20 Illustrationen von Grandville 1840. Hardbound. Third edition. Bielefeld: Sonderausgabe der Firma J.D. Broelemann. $22 from Worpsweder Antiquariat, Worpswede, Germany, through abe, March, '00.

This is an attractive little bookwith a red leather cover embossed with a monument on which sits a lion's head. The book has a soft spine and gilt pages. It is entirely in Gothic script. The twenty half-page illustrations from Grandville are well executed. There is a T of C at the front. Besides, 96 lists all the authors and the pages on which their respective fables appear. The only names that are somewhat surprising might be those of Wilhelm Busch, Jan Lemanski, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Heinrich Seidel. Except for La Fontaine, the list is all ancient and German. Florian, for example, does not appear here. Busch's "Der Volle Sack" (57) is a delightful conversation between a sack and some grain. Lemanski's FC (50) features a crow who has learned from experience and tells the fox to get beyond his naivete. Schopenhauer offers "Die Stachelschweine" (61), in which porcupines on a cold day huddled together for warmth but then found that they were pricking each other and so moved away. Soon they approached again, and then again distanced themselves. In the end they found the middle distance in which they could best survive. "And they called this distance politeness and fine morals." Seidel has "Der Zeisig" (65, a small finch). The finch sings; when another bird complains, the finch says that he will sing with the voice God gave him and that those who do not like it can go elsewhere.

1963/66 Sungura Mjanja (Hare Is a Rascal). kimetungwa na Frank Worthington. kimetafsiriwa na D.E. Diva. Paperbound. Nairobi: Oxford University Press East Africa. $5 from Greg Williams, Philadelphia, June, '98.

This sixteen-page Swahili pamphlet had first been published in 1961 by the East African Literature Bureau. Oxfoird University Press East Africa picked it up in 1963 and reprinted it every year for the next three years. There are three stories here. The designs suggest some very fable-like activity. For example, the lion swallows the snake and becomes sick. Does the wise hare send a mouse past the lion to attract the snake's pursuit? I wish I could decipher more of what is going on! The translation of the title--"Hare Is a Rascal"--comes from the back cover.

1963/68 Happy Hours in Storyland. Volume 2 of The Bookshelf for Boys and Girls. Prepared under the Supervision of the Editorial Board of the University Society. NY: The University Society, Inc. $4 at Book Loft, Santa Cruz, Aug., '89.

Sixteen fables of Aesop and a few other fables start off this volume. The editor of these versions is not acknowledged. The illustrations are a third set for Aesop by Kurt Wiese (Favorite Stories, 1942; Jacobs' The Fables of Aesop, 1950/62). The frontispiece is a strong full-page colored depiction of FC by Bess B. Cleveland. I believe that I have seen it somewhere else as frontispiece, but I cannot place it. Compare the smaller version of the same illustration in The Home University Bookshelf, Volume III, 380 (1945). See the identical new edition of 1970/81.

1963/1974 Fábulas: Esopo, Fedro, La Fontaine, Samaniego, Iriarte.  Adaptación de Julia Daroqui.  Ilustraciones de Raúl Stévano.  Hardbound.  Buenos Aires: Colección Estrella:  Editorial Sigmar S.A.  $30 from Christian Tottino, Buenos Aires, through eBay, July, '19.

1963/75 Fables de La Fontaine. LaFontaine. Saint-Justh. Hardbound. Paris: Bias Jeunes annees: Éditions Bias. 21 Francs from Librairie de l'Avenue, Paris, August, '99.

Here is an earlier printing of a book I have already from its 1981 printing. Now it is printed in France; then, five years later, it will be printed in Italy. The only changes in the book occur in the small print on the bottom of the title-page and on the bottom of the last page. The symbol for Bias on the spine also changes from dice now to a simple name then. Let me include remarks I made on that later book. This large-format hard-covered book must be like hundreds of others published regularly in France. This one contains sixteen fables with colorful pictures appealing to children. Here I learned for the first time that in "Le Cheval et l'Ane" the horse on hearing the ass's request "fit une pétarade." The artist here pictures the ass pulling a cart. TT is pictured just after the tortoise has opened his mouth. The girl in MM, who could be from a fashion magazine, has a small pitcher. Is she already tilting her head? Unpaginated. T of C at the end.

1963/76 Tomás de Iriarte: Poesías. Tercera Edición. Edición, Prólogo y Notas de Alberto Navarro González. Clásicos Castellanos. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, S.A. $4.50 at Schoenhof's, June, '91.

Standard straightforward scholarly presentation of Iriarte's seventy-six literary fables with other short poetic works, with introduction and notes. T of C at the back gives only chapter headings, not a listing of the individual fables.

1963/81 Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrées par Saint-Justh. ©1963 Éditions Bias, Paris. Paris: Éditions Bias. $8 through Advanced Book Exchange from The Book Queen, West Bend, WI, Sept. '97.

This large-format hard-covered book must be like hundreds of others published regularly in France. This one contains sixteen fables with colorful pictures appealing to children. Here I learned for the first time that in "Le Cheval et l'Ane" the horse on hearing the ass's request "fit une pétarade." The artist here pictures the ass pulling a cart. TT is pictured just after the tortoise has opened his mouth. The girl in MM, who could be from a fashion magazine, has a small pitcher. Is she already tilting her head? Unpaginated. T of C at the end.

1963/86 The Lion and the Rat: A Fable by La Fontaine. Illustrated by Brian Wildsmith. First published in paperback in 1986. Printed in Hong Kong. Oxford: Oxford University Press. $4.95 at the Bookhouse, Omaha, July, '91.

This big book is an excellent format for Wildsmith's large and colorful work. There are several good illustrations--of the lion hunting and of the animals rushing to see--but I do not find the quality of the art sustained. All the animals came to see the trapped lion, but none could help, and they all left.

1963/87 Swimmy. Leo Lionni. Part of Frederick and His Friends, a set of four books and a tape. NY: Dragonfly Books: Alfred A. Knopf. $1.25 at Heartwood, Charlottesville, VA, April, '92.

More pictures here than in my 1985 Frederick's Fables, but the colors are not as lively. This is a good story that deals with enjoying the wonders of one's world and being imaginative and creative in meeting its threats.

1963? Everyday Adventures and Updated Fables. Charles Ferris. Paperbound. Northridge, CA: Charles Ferris. $5 from The BookCellar.com, Boston, through abe, August, '02.

This is a pamphlet of 32 pages. The first twelve pages present one-hundred-and-fifteen Everyday Adventures. These are two or three line cases from school life. They present a strange amalgam of the very traditional and the almost modern. Case 12 has Fred fearing that he will get "pantsed" at school. In #13, a friend shows Grace how to use an aqualung. She puts in on and swims to the bottom of the pool! In #16, Kevin has been out of school for a week with the flu; when he returns, he begins to feel sick again. The cases present normal human embarrassments--and some situations we would see differently now. "62. Charlene was in the art supply room getting paper. When the teacher came in, he leaned over and kissed her." The larger portion of the book is made up of seventeen "Up Dated Fables," one to a page, hailed as "Charlie's famous one-page plays." For most, it is easy to identify the Aesopic fable behind the modern dramatic parallel from everyday life. "The Fox and the Crow" has its own dash of spirit: a student praises a teacher and exclaims how much he enjoys reading books for her class. Then he asks for an extension on a book report.. "Look Before You Leap" presents a clever white lie. The best for me is GGE: a student using another student to draw his assigned maps complains once too often and finds his latest map being ripped up by its maker. "Make your own for a change" is his last word.

1963? Fabeln von La Fontaine.  Fuer Kinder ausgewählt und illustriert von Richard Scarry.  Nacherzählt von Karl-Heinz Berger.  Erste Auflage.  Hardbound.  Berlin: Der Kinderbuchverlag.  €6 from Lausitzer Buchversand, July, '14.  

1963? The Family Treasury of Children's Stories. Edited by Pauline Rush Evans. Illustrated by Donald Sibley. Garden City: Doubleday and Co. See 1956/63?.

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1964 Aesop: Five Centuries of Illustrated Fables. Selected by John J. McKendry. Dust jacket. Greenwich, CT: Metropolitan Museum of Art: NY Graphic Society. $8 from Book Stall, Rockford, IL. Two extra copies.

A lovely book that started me off on this whole romp. One can always find more in this good work. Of course it also suggests many more places to look. A wonderfully chosen panorama.

1964 Aesop Up-to-Date. Robert L. Zimler. Illustrations by Roy McKie. First edition. Dust jacket. NY: Clarkson N. Potter. $4 from Bay View, Oct., '94. Extra copies for $8 from Walk a Crooked Mile Books, May, '92, and for $4 from Shakespeare, Berkeley, Aug., '94.

An important book in my collection. I am surprised that I had not known of it earlier. A good resource, for example, on a sweep through the history of a single fable. Zimler is somewhere in a group that would include Thurber, Bierce, Eichenberg, and probably Monterroso. Zimler is longer and more complex than Bierce, but less radical than Thurber. Forty-nine fables, many of them with a psychoanalytic approach. A number of the fables are simply Aesop's but with changed morals. Other fables change the story a bit to get to their excellent morals. Some fables here mix two traditional stories together. Many add some elements to the traditional tale. There are also new fables, several very good, like "Zeus and the Spider" (#5) and "The Ailing Farm Dog" (#43). My impression is that McKie's drawings do not add much. Finally, note the great dedication: "To my wife and children without whose constant help this book would have been written sooner."

1964 Aesop's Fables. Retold by Joan Hirschmann. Illustrated by Ralph Pinto. A Harlin Quist Book. NY: Dell. Paperback first printing for $1.50 at Alverno Book Fair, Fall, '87. Hardbound first printing, with dust jacket, for $8 from Greg Williams, Dec., '94.

Very imaginative charcoal renditions. Among the best: "The Donkey and the Driver," "The Miser," "The Bald Huntsman," 2W, "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," "The Astronomer," and the joke of putting together the frontispiece and backpiece. A little treasure. The hardbound copy has been through some wars, apparently in the James V. Brown Library in Williamsport, PA.

1964 Aesop's Fables. Illustrations by Will Nickless. Hardbound. London and Melbourne: Rainbow Series Story Books: Ward Lock & Co. £ 8 from Stella Books, Tintern, Sept., '02. 

I have known and enjoyed Nickless' work before in The Book of Fables (1962/63), and I find it highly enjoyable here. It may be that some or all of the art from there repeats here. This is a 92-page book that averages approximately one fable per page. There are sixteen colored full-page illustrations printed on the regular paper stock with text printed on the verso. Among the best are MSA (33), "The Hares and the Frogs" (53), and "The Lion in Love" (80) There are also frequent line-drawings that take up less of the page. Among the best of these are TMCM (57), MM (71), "The Thief and His Mother" (85), and GGE (92). A sampling of the versions suggests that they are well crafted. The cover (which repeats as the first illustration) is notable for the backwards home-made "s" in the "Winning Post" sign for TH.

1964 Aesop's Fables. Translated from the Greek by the Rev. Geo. Fyler Townsend. Illustrations designed by Harrison Weir and engraved by J. Greenaway. Third printing. Dust jacket. Jacket design by George Orzel. Keepworthy Classics. NY: Parents' Magazine Press. $25 from Greg Williams, June, '96.

I am delighted to see that this series brought back an author and an illustrator so important earlier in the tradition but not known well now. I may have more copies of these two men's work than of any other pair. Both texts and illustrations seem to be exactly what Townsend and Weir offered eighty years earlier. I took for comparison the 1883? Three Hundred Aesop's Fables by the two from McLoughlin Brothers; really that edition contains 310 fables, and like many of their editions of both 300 and 350 fables, it has 114 illustrations. This edition seems to drop eleven fables (the flyleaf incorrectly states that this 1964 edition contains 292 fables) and eight illustrations. I count 299 fables in the book and 300 in the AI at the end and am afraid that if I try to resolve the discrepancy, I will go crazy or spend the whole summer! The illustrations here are typically dark.

1964 Aesop's Fables. Retold by Anne Terry White. Illustrated by Helen Siegl. NY: Random House. $7.95 at Cardijn, about '84.

The tellings seem standard to me. I like the twenty or so illustrations in two colors, done by a simple and even primitive method. The best among them are of the milkmaid and the chickens and of the fox and the goat. T of C, nice cover, no index. This copy, like that done for the California State Series (1964/69), reprints the illustration of the milkmaid (8) again just after the endpapers at the back.

1964 Aesop's Fables. Retold by Anne Terry White. Illustrated by Helen Siegl. Weekly Reader Childrens Book Club. NY: Random House. $4 from Dan Behnke, Sept., '92. Extra copy for $4.95 at the Magnolia Park Book Shop, Burbank, Feb., '97.

Nearly identical with Random House's original edition (1964). This edition adds the notation of the Childrens Book Club on the title page and drops the repetitions of the illustrations of FC and MM before the front and after the back endpapers, respectively.

1964 Aesop's Fables. Anne Terry White. Illustrated by Helen Siegl. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. NY: Random House. $3.50 from Powell's, Portland, August, '11.

This is at least the fourth nearly-identical copy of this book that I have found, and probably the best and most original. The other copies are a cheaper 1964 printing by Random House, an edition by the Weekly Reader Childrens Book Club, and an edition by the state of California. This copy alone has a dust-jacket. Unlike the cheaper Random House copy and the California copy, this copy does not reprint illustrations of FC before the beginning endpapers and MM after the closing endpapers. As I wrote back when I first met this book, the tellings seem standard to me. I like the twenty or so illustrations in two colors, done by a simple and even primitive method. The best among them are of the milkmaid and the chickens and of the fox and the goat. The front cover has an embossed smiling sun at its center. 

1964 Aesop's Fables Translated from the Greek. Hardbound. Hampstead. £2 from The Itinerant Gallery, Camden Lock, London, June, '02.

Here is a curious and wonderful find! It has the marks of a limited edition but offers no recognition of the twenty texts' translator or of the artist who did the eight strong woodcuts (?) pasted onto interlaid heavier paper. Perhaps the strongest of these is SW facing 18. It presents starkly the contrast between adverse winds and pleasant sun. The versions are careful and seem generally faithful to the Greek, but there are surprises. Thus in WL there is a third round in which the lamb denies that he has a brother who could have abused the wolf (4). In SW, the wind is so strong that the man puts on a second garment over the one in dispute, and the sun has him remove first this over-garment and then the one in dispute (18). Generally, the man asked by the horse to restrain the stag does so and then keeps the horse in his power. Here he does nothing about the stag once he has power over the horse (19). The pages are starting to come loose. Not in Bodemann.

1964 Altindische Fabeln. Ivan Olbracht erzählt; Deutsch von Erich Bertleff. Illustriert von Josef Liesler. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Printed in Czechoslovakia. Prague: Artia. € 12.50 from Dresdener Antiquariat, Dresden, August, '06. Extra copy without dust-jacket for DM 46 from Antiquariat Richard Kulbach, Heidelberg, July, '98.

Produced from the Czech original edition done by SNDK, Prag, 1962. Be sure to consult my notes on the 1965 Hamlyn English edition, Indian Fables. I am happy to find a second copy of this book. Though the first copy I found is in excellent condition, the printing of many of the illustrations is slightly less sharp than in the English edition. The copy from Dresdener Antiquariat has very sharp printing, and a dust-jacket besides. The book's cover has a red design of an insect apparently on a mountain top. Other than that, this book seems exactly the same as the English edition.

1964 Childcraft: The How and Why Library. Volume 2 of fifteen volumes: Stories and Fables. Chicago: Field Enterprises Educational Corp. $1, June, '88.

The five fables (76-84) apparently use the Jacobs translation used in the 1931/47 and 1949 Childcraft editions. There is a strange melange of illustrators here, several using photographs. The illustrators are acknowledged on 286.

1964 De Fabels van Lokman: Naar het Latijn van Thomas Erpenius. Leo Ross. Paperbound. 'S-Gravenhage: L.J.C. Boucher Paperbacks. $10 from an unknown source, July, '96.

It has taken me years to get to this book. I do not know enough about Lokman, and I think I am not going to learn about him in Dutch. The surprise to me in this unpaginated paperback book is that Lokman is presented first in Latin, specifically in thirty-seven prose fables. Those I can read! Almost all seem standard Aesopic presentations. The moral of "The Sick Stag" (Fable #III) is surprising: "His pains increase whose family increases." In Fable IX, it is not a goat but a deer that falls into the well, only to be admonished by the fox that he should have thought about a way out before he fell in. In Fable XII, "Mulier et Gallina," the woman who overfeeds her productive hen wanting more has been getting silver eggs from this hen. I do not think that I had seen that approach to this fable before. I am not sure that I have before seen Fable #XXII on the planting of a bramble bush. Of course, it takes over the garden. There are two fables on blacks trying to become white (#XVII and #XXIIII). SW (#XXXIV) is told in the poorer form in the Latin. #XXXVII, "Anser et Hirundo," seems new. When the pair of friends encounter a trap, the swallow can fly up and away, but the goose is caught. The Dutch translations seem to be in rhyming couplets. An appendix seems to present the same thirty-seven fables now in Dutch prose translations. Erpenius was apparently a professor of Arabic and other oriental languages. He seems to have flourished in the early 1600's. There is a pasted-in photograph facing the title-page. Might that be Leo Ross?

1964 Deutsche Tiergeschichten, Tiermärchen, Tiergedichte und Tierfabeln. Herausgegeben und mit einem Nachwort versehen von Franz Fabian. Illustrationen von Josef Hegenbarth. 4. Auflage. Hardbound. Berlin: Alfred Holz Verlag. DEM 22 from Syndikat, Leipzig, June, '95.

This is one of those books, I believe, that Hegenbarth worked hard on late in his life, as the Jandas write in their Insel-Bücherei account of his work. This book is abundantly illustrated, and fables get more than their share of the strong illustrations. The frontispiece offers one view of WL, and Luther's version of that story gets one of Hegenbarth's strongest and most typical illustrations (5). Other excellent fable illustrations include "Der Wilde Schwein und der Esel" (17), MSA (20), and "Der Tugendhafte Hund" (100). The cover's embossed design is very strong. What is happening to that wolf? There is a dated Nachwort to this fourth edition but I cannot find an indication of the year of publication.

1964 Fables. Louis Landry. Illuustrations: Jean Landry. Paperbound. Ottawa: Le Cercle du Livre de France. $22 from Pilgrim Reader, Combermere, Ontario, Canada, Nov., '04.

As the closing AI indicates, there are sixty-eight fables here, with nine popular-style cartoon illustrations. Not in The Fabulists French. Online I can find out nothing about this author, though I have found his book online for sale and downloadable digitally. I have struggled to understand one or two shorter texts here in these mostly uncut pages. I think I may have succeeded with "Jacquot" (73). Jacquot is just three years old. No toy can console him for not being able to go to school. "What would please you so much at school?" "What pleases Lisette: getting so many days off." Often we seek the eyeglasses that we are carrying on the end of our nose! A monk receives a hundred-year old man asking for lodging and cares for him graciously. He notices that the man says no prayer before eating. "I do not believe in God or the devil and am doing fine. Whom am I to thank for this evening? You, and I do thank you." The monk is scandalized and throws him out. God then asks the monk what he has done. "Kicked him out for insulting you." "I have experienced his insults for a hunded years and loved him as a father. You only had to watch him eat and sleep." The monk understood and went after the impious man to resume his residence (145-6). This book looks to me like another of those out-of-the-way ephemeral finds for this collection. 

1964 Fables Choisies: La Fontaine. Illustrations de André Michel. Pamphlet. Paris: Contes du Gai Pierrot: Éditions Bias. $2.55 from Pierre Cantin, Chelsea, Quebec City, Canada, Nov., '00. Extra copy at the same time for $2.25 from Pierre Cantin.

This is a very simple children's book measuring about 5¾" x 7½". It combines colored and black-and-white illustrations. Among the best are the three colored illustrations for MM. There are twelve fables with ten illustrations. On the cover is a good illustration of a vastly overloaded donkey, with an unloaded horse in the background.

1964 Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrations de Maraja et Cremonini. Hardbound. Collection Contes et Couleurs. Printed in Italy. Milan: Fratelli Fabbri Editori. $5 from Pierre Cantin, Montreal, Feb., '02.

See my version dated 1965 and otherwise almost identical. They share a 1962 copyright by O.D.E.J., Paris. As I write there, this is a large-format children's book, now the third distinct set of work I have by Cremonini (see The Fables of Aesop and La Fontaine in 1958 and 1961, both by Fratelli Fabbri). Here Cremonini's first contribution lies in the colorful designs on the pages given to texts. There are also six full-page color illustrations in a distinct style (perhaps Maraja's?). From these latter, I like particularly the sparkling-eyed town and country mice sitting at the country meal. Have I seen some of this Maraja work before? Cremonini's work also includes the monochrome blue designs that appear along the way. Cremonini typically has fun with the figures, like the armed mice on the design next to "Le Cheval et l'Ane" or the insects around the scene of WL. There are also good faces on both main characters in OR. Thirteen fables. T of C at the back. This book is in better condition than the 1965 copy. The different date is to be found at the bottom of the last page. The two books also differ in the issues in the series that are announced on the last page. This 1964 copy skips numbers 4, 5, and 7 out of fourteen. The 1965 version skips 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, and 12 out of twenty-two. The series not only grew fast. It also went out of print fast!

1964 Fables from Aesop. Illustrated by Cyril Deakins. Hardbound. Printed in Great Britain. London/Glasgow: Blackie & Son Ltd. AUD 16 from The Book Gallery, Moss Vale, NSW Australia, through ABE, Feb., '01.

Here is a small hardbound book the size of a traditional Penguin paperback, with one hundred and nine fables, perhaps fifteen to twenty of them illustrated in black-and-white with either a partial-page or a full-page illustration. I tried hard but in vain to locate a clear source for the versions. A couple of these tellings may have been inspired by V.S. Vernon Jones, but there does not seem to be a single text that provided or stimulated the versions here. Most of the illustrations seem quite expectable. "The Lion, the Ass and the Fox" (82) has a good full-page illustration. The fox stands before his one little chop, while the rest of the deer-prey lies nearby in sections, ready for the lion to take. I am surprised that I had not heard of this edition earlier.

1964 Fables: La Fontaine. Tome 2 annotées et commentées par Pierre Michel et Maurice Martin. Paperbound. Nancy: Bordas: Univers des Lettres. $1.50 in New Orleans, April, '88.

A fascinating school edition, with plenty of pictures. Some are from the tradition of Aesop: Pilpay, Oudry, Bayeux, Nevelet; others are from famous artists; then there are photos of pigs and cats for little French kids who do not know what they look like! See Tome 1 under 1969 and a later printing with a different cover under 1964/77/80.

1964 Fables of Aesop. Translated by S.A. Handford with illustrations by Brian Robb. Baltimore: Penguin. See 1954/64.

1964 Fables of Aesop. Translated by S.A. Handford. Illustrations by Brian Robb. Nineteenth printing. Paperbound. NY: Penguin. See 1954/64.

1964 Fables of Aesop. Translated by S.A. Handford with illustrations by Brian Robb. London: Penguin. See 1954/64/91?.

1964 First Fairy Tales. Grace E. Potter and Ruth Harley. Illustrated by Tony De Luna. Told-Again Tales from Many Lands. Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Books. Gift of Dad's Old Book Store, Nashville, April, '96. Extra copy for $2 at Renaissance, Summer, '85.

A ho-hum simple children's version of stories that include GGE and "A Hard Lesson" (MSA). The latter is interesting in that the miller learns the lesson and expresses it to his son. The illustrations are simple. It is hard for me to see to what use I can put this book.

1964 Folk Tales and Fairy Stories from India. Sudhin N. Ghose. With illustrations by Shrimati E. Carlile. Hardbound. Dust jacket. NY/London: Thomas Yoseloff. $7.50 from Brattle Book Shop, Boston, Nov, '97.

Formerly owned by the Connecticut State Department of Education. Among the sixteen stories here, I find three that are fables. None is illustrated. "The Jackal that fell into a Dyer's Vat" (96) is familiar. "The Crane and the Gander" (98) is not totally clear to me. A crane greets a gander from Cockaigne and asks about the territory from which he has come. After hearing glowing reports about the rivers, he asks about the snails. The gander replies that there are none and that he does not care for them. The crane laughs out loud. The narrator asks who was wiser, and I frankly cannot give the answer! "The Woodcock that Refused to be Fooled" (128) presents a persuasive cat telling the woodcock that she only wants to be friends; in fact she offers to marry the woodcock. The latter should just come down from his tree. The woodcock tells the cat to go fool some silly vain crow instead. Be deaf when an enemy flatters!

1964 Foolish and Wise. Teacher's Manual. Nila Banton Smith, Hazel C. Hart, and Clara Belle Baker. The Best of Children's Literature Series. Second in a series of six. $3 at Booklegger's, Chicago, March, '93.

LM is on 163-4, with two illustrations. There are also questions and discussion suggestions on 37 in the early manual section.

1964 Index Phaedrianus. Adolph Cinquini. Paperbound. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung. $30 from Hackenberg Booksellers, El Cerrito, CA, Dec., '05. 

This is a photographic reproduction of the original Milan publication of 1905, apparently done by U. Hoepli in Milan. There is an appropriate Latin "Praefatio" for two pages in the beginning and a short list of addenda on the last page, 87. This is a helpful tool found for me by the ever vigilant Michael Hackenberg.

1964 Isoppu Isoppu Isoppu (Aesop).  Momoko Ishii, translator.  Illustrated by K. Fuka, T. Tan, and Masami (Tereoka?).  Boxed.  Hardbound.  Tokyo: Jitsugyo no Nihon-Sha.  $4.95 from My Superthrift through Ebay, Oct., '19.

1964 It's Time for Story Hour. Compiled by Elizabeth Hough Sechrist and Janette Woolsey. Illustrations by Elsie Jane McCorkell. Third printing. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. Philadelphia: Macrae Smith Company. Trade with Clare Leeper, July, '96.

Clare asked wisely "Which of these stories have been expanded from fables?" Good question! The book's third part, "Cunning Beasts and Trickish Men," seems to be predominated by stories that have been expanded from fables. "The Man Whose Trade Was Tricks" extends beyond normal fable length and involves several tricks, but the basic ploy is to get the king to believe outrageous stories, and he does (106). "The Fox and the Bear" is the old story of splitting the harvest by taking either what is on top of or under the soil (111). "The Magic Cap" combines two old tricks. The first consists in calling a cow a donkey until its owner sells it at a donkey's price rather than a cow's price. The revenge comes in a ploy to get the tricksters to buy a "magic cap" that pays for everything (117). "The Little Jackal and the Alligator" is a multi-phase playing out of the one ploy, namely of getting the alligator to declare where he is in the water (121). The story moves then to the jackal's house, where the jackal gets the alligator to reveal himself by answering in the name of the house. "The Old Woman and theTramp" is the story of nail soup (126). "How Brother Rabbit Fooled the Whale and the Elephant" is a fine inclusion from the B'rer Rabbit stories (132). Good tip, Clare! 

1964 Jean de la Fontaine: Die Fabeln: Gesamtausgabe. Übertragen von Rolf Mayr. Mit 39 Illustrationen von Gustave Doré. Hardbound. Wiesbaden: VMA Verlag. DM 14,80 from Hassbecker's Galerie & Buchhandlung, Heidelberg, July, '01.

This is a very compact verse translation of La Fontaine into German. The verse rhymes in various patterns. There is a T of C at the end.

1964 Josef Hegenbarth: Märchen und Fabeln: 24 Blätter aus dem Nachlass. Geleitwort von Karl-Heinz und Annegret Janda. Hardbound. Leipzig: Insel-Bücherei Nr. 790: Im Insel-Verlag. €10 from Antiquariat an der Universität München, August, '07.

Hegenbarth did over four thousand illustrations for various Märchen and animal poetry of various sorts. Of the twenty-four lovely illustrations here, two strong black-and-white images are explicitly given to fables: "Der Affe und der Fuchs" and "Der Wolf und die Maske" (14-15). Two black-and-white and four colored illustrations are given to "Reineke Fuchs" (16-21). I do not find two Aesop engravings in Hegenbarth's Aesop: Fabeln or Der Diebe und der Hahn. They show Hegenbarth's strong sense of line.

1964 Known Fables. Illustrated by Antonio Frasconi. Text from S. Hodgson's Newcastle edition of 1820. Hardbound. Slipcase. Signed, #324 of 500. NY: The Spiral Press. $200 from Abracadabra, Denver, by mail, Sept., '98.

Nine fables listed in a beginning T of C: FG, "The Ant and the Fly," "The Bear and the Bees," "The Lion and the Goat," WC, WL, "The Daw with Borrowed Feathers," "The Clock and the Dial," and FC. Printed on Goyu paper from the original blocks. Each page is folded over so that it is printed on just one side. Typical Frasconi work. The grasping fox of FG is outstanding. "The Bear and the Bees" presents two large masses with a few random bees in the open spaces; a huge mass of bees attacks the huge mass of the bear. I think there may have been some confusion about "The Lion and the Goat." The illustration shows a lion looking up a cliff at a goat. The text is about the two of them coming at the same time to a fountain on a hot day and preparing to fight--until they see vultures overhead. These vultures are nowhere to be seen in the woodcut. WC's illustration shows typical Frasconi angularity and physicality. The scrawny, plucked daw is in a lower corner wonderfully overshadowed by the beautiful peacocks. The crow of FC practically throws the cheese down to the vigilant wily fox below. Very nice work!

1964 La Fable Antique, Tome Premier: La fable grecque avant Phèdre. Morten Nojgaard. Paperbound. Copenhagen: Nyt Nordisk Forlag: Arnold Busck. €45 from Antiquariat Manfred Henke, Berlin, July, '02.

I have long wanted to study this volume, particularly with someone who could guide me through it. That pleasure still eludes me. It would have been wonderful to read it with Pack Carnes! With its 600 pages, it is a veritable tome, and it is only the first volume of two. I will look now for a copy of Volume II. What I can do now is to offer Lloyd Daly's review from Classical World in May of 1965. "As the first modern attempt at a full analytical study and history of the fable in antiquity this book must be given serious consideration. Yet it is probably premature since it could not take advantage of B.E. Perry's fundamental 'Demetrius of Phalerum and the Aesopic Fables,' TAPA 93 (1962) 287-346, nor of his forthcoming Loeb 'Babrius and Phaedrus' with its extensive introduction, nor of the completion of his 'Aesopica.' The excesses of literary theory as to the origin, development, history and particularly the definition of the genre fable are legion. Few literary theorists have plunged into the sea of fable without striking the very shallow bottom and thus muddying the waters. It is not clear to me that Nojgaard has been notably successful, although he wrestles valiantly with the difficult problems, shows a thorough command of the extensive materials on the subject and demonstrates considerable acumen in evaluating the work of others. His weakness seems an excess of subtlety. Book One deals with the theoretical problems to be considered. Book Two subjects the Augustana recension of the collection of Greek prose fables to a very detailed 'structural analysis.' The process results in classification and anatomy of fable which might prove useful were it not buried beneath a mountain of unnecessarily ponderous special terminology and jargon which would overwhelm even epic. Book Three is the historical section. It takes full account of the new Sumerian material, which makes it clear that the fable is not Greek in origin. It recognizes that the ghost of Crusius' Ionic Volksbuch has been laid, but raises a new spectre of a fifth century Attic collection, for which there is no shred of evidence and which makes nonsense of the known collection of Demetrius of Phalerum. Am ambitious book, a tiresome book, an unreliable guide to the uninitiated." This review only whets my appetite the more! 

1964 La Fontaine: Fables, Livres I-VI.  Roger Guichemerre.  Various artists.  Paperbound.  Paris: Les Classiques de la Civilisation Française: Librairie Marcel Didier.  $30 from Danny Horgan, South Walpole, MA, through Ebay, August, '17. 

1964 La Fontaine: 12 Tierfabeln. Illustriert von Gerhard Oberländer. Hardbound. Frankfurt am Main: Büchergilde Gutenberg. DM 70 from Antiquariat Friederichsen, Wellingsbüttel, Hamburg, July, '98.

Here is a large-format (8¼" x 11¾") book with splashy, colorful artwork ranging from banners to full-page illustrations. The full-page illustration of FS is well chosen for the cover, since it may be the best of a good group of work. Other good illustrations include "Die Fische und der Kormoran"; bottled treats kept by the stork in FS; and two frogs looking up at two suns. I can find no indication of the translator of La Fontaine into German. I am happy to keep finding strong examples of German publication art.

1964 Lafonten Hikayeler: Tavsan ile Kaplumbaga. Jean de La Fontaine. Paperbound. Istanbul: Iyigün Yayinlari Seri C: Iyigün Yayinlari/Iyigün Yayinevi. $9.99 from Alp Gencata, Istanbul, through eBay, Oct., '11.

Though the tortoise and hare are on the cover, there are fourteen fables in this 32-page pamphlet from Istanbul. A T of C at the beginning lists the fables. Even I can recognize #13: "Androkles"! The illustrations -- full-page and part-page black-and-white cartoons -- seem to be repeats from the 1959 larger edition titled "Lafonten Hikayeler." In fact, several of them are again represented on the cover there: MM, "The Pulling of the Lion's Teeth," and "The Fox and the Goat." Once you have a good thing, stay with it! 

1964 Les Fables de La Fontaine. Préface de Jean Giraudoux. Notes de José Lupin. Le Livre de Poche Classique. Paris: (c)Gallimard et Librairie Générale Française. $1 from R. Dunaway, St. Louis, March, '95.

A fat paperback! Maybe the most compact complete edition I have of La Fontaine's fables. It comes complete with good notes, an AI, and a T of C, all at the back of the book. This book is worth every bit of the dollar I paid for it!

1964 Les Plus Belles Fables des 50 Meilleurs Fabulistes.  Par Illberg.  Paperbound.  Paris: Série: Récitations: Éditions André Bonne.  $31.50 from Neil Marshall, Toronto, through ABE, June, '16.

1964 Maori Fables and Legendary Tales. By A.W. Reed. Illustrated by Roger Hart. First edition. Wellington: A.H. & A.W. Reed. $7.56 at Meandaur, June, '93.

Eleven fables in a more specific sense among the 142 stories here. The legendary stories are heavily etiological, especially for local geography. There are many love stories, starting from sky father and earth mother and including many tales of husband and wife stealing, killing, and eating. Typical and engaging: "The Heart of a Child" (61), "The Jealous Gods" (75), and "The Jealous Sisters" (76). For an antidote, try "The Love Charm" (85). The black-and-white art is strong. One fable touches the Aesopic tradition: in GA (13), there is no trip of the grasshopper to the ant in winter; he simply dies. The other fables are on 19, 20, 38, 77, 81, 92, 112 (two fables), 129, and 138.

1964 More Friends Old and New. Cathedral Edition. Right Reverend Monsignor John B. McDowell et al. Various illustrators. Chicago: Scott, Foresman, and Co. $.10 at Book Market in DC, June, '89.

A great bit of Catholic memorabilia! The book features great pictures of little kids dressed up as nuns, priests, and crusaders. Three fables: "The Hare and the Hedgehog," TT, and TMCM. Charming illustrations. The end of an old style.

1964 My Nursery Tale Book.  Patsy Scarry et al.  Illustrated by Richard Scarry.  Hardbound.  NY: Golden Press: Western Publishing Co.  See 1961/64.

1964 Nail Soup: A Swedish Folk Tale. Retold by Harve Zemach. Illustrated by Margot Zemach. Hardbound. Chicago: Follett Publishing Company. $7 from Jack Magill, Ephrata, PA, through abe, Feb., '02.

A tramp trying to find his way home from around the world meets a poor old woman in the forest and begs her for lodging for the night. She finally relents and lets him sleep on her floor. He turns out to be something of a poet. She turns out to be greedy and stingy. When she claims in answer to his request for food that she has not eaten all day, he says that she had better lend him a pot so that he can make her some dinner. As the water is getting hot, he puts in a nail. Then he starts to mention the things that could help the soup, starting with some flour or oatmeal. Soon he is mentioning beef and potatoes and then barley and milk. Once the soup is ready, he mentions that it is what the king eats, but always with a tablecloth, and wine, and a sandwich. The soup is so good that they eat and drink and dance around the room. The woman finally sleeps on the floor herself and gives him her bed to sleep in and coffee, a bun, and a silver piece for the road. This book was earlier a holding of some library in Pennsylvania.

1964 Onion Soup and other fables. By R.O. Blechman. Illustrated by the author. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Printed in USA. NY: Odyssey Press. $15 from Jerry Blaz, The Bookie Joint, Reseda, CA, through Bibliocity, Sept., '99.

I think the title story is indeed a fable, perhaps the one true fable in the book. Its point is well given: "Too many broths spoil the cook." At one good moment in the story, customers who have overstretched the cook find in their soups, respectively, a hair and a hare! Many of the stories work toward a good parody-punch line. A Russian and an American meet each other and look in vain for the tail and the horns that will show that the other is a devil. They leave believing that the other is indeed the devil, but in disguise. Moral: "Seek and ye shall find." Narcissus meets a lovely young girl, but causes her to run away when he finds her aggressive. He then goes back to being sorry for himself. Moral: "You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can fool yourself all of the time." Perfect! This book is about a ten-minute read, and I enjoy it.

1964 Peacock Fables Number One. By Agnes H. Campbell. #125 of 600. Miniature pamphlet. Printed in Berkeley. Berkeley, CA: Peacock Press. $15 from McMeans Books, Danielsville, GA, through Bibliofind, Dec., '98.

Here is a sixteen-page pamphlet with stiff-paper covers and a string-tied binding. It presents "Lady Bug." The lady bug struggles to get to the top of a piece of grass and discovers the universe. Moral? "It all depends on your point of view." Lost somewhere in history is the story behind this little book and its creator(s).

1964 Phaedrus' Aesopische Fabels. Opnieuw in verzen verteld door Johan van Nieuwenhuizen. Engravings by J. van Vianen. Een Kramers pocket van Formaat. Den Haag: W. Van Hoeve. $5 in Amsterdam, Dec., '88.

The 1701 circular engravings of van Vianen come off successfully. They are noble but enjoyable. The cover shows Aesop with an animal. T of C at the rear.

1964 Quatre Fables de La Fontaine. Paperbound. Paris: Hachette Mini-Livres #27: Hachette. See 1953/64.

1964 Sefer Mishle Shualim (Fox Fables, Hebrew).  Rabbi Berachya berabi Netronai HaNakdan.  Hardbound.  Jerusalem: Levin Epstein Book Publishing, Ltd.  $30 from Joshua Yakobovich, Shiloh, Israel, Maiy, '22.

1964 Selected Fables of Aesop. Compiled by C. Julian Fish. Original Illustrations by Clare McCanna. Pamphlet. Printed in USA. NY: A "Help Yourself" Booklet offered to GM Men and Women by General Motors Information Rack Service: Trautmann, Bailey & Blampey. Gift from Philip Taraska, from books his grandmother had from her husband's employment at GM., April, '00. Extra copy for $21.54 from Monty Lutz, Milwaukee, WI, through Ebay, March, '00.

A "Help Yourself" Booklet offered to GM Men and Women by General Motors Information Rack Service. I find it amazing that I did not come across this book for twenty years and then found it twice within a month! Thirteen fables are given each one page in this pamphlet measuring about 6.5" x 5". Illustrations on each page are done in three colors: red, pink, and black. Some of the morals are surprisingly long and complex, like those for CP ("The brisk exercise of resourcefulness results in the solving of many difficult problems") and for BC ("Don't embark upon any plan which has not been thoroughly thought out from beginning to end. Many things are easier said than done"). ML has only two stages: neighbors and "ourselves." DW is well told and raises questions with its moral, which I guess is fitting for General Motors: "Those who would enjoy the good things in life must expect to pay for them." This statement as a moral for this fable is not exactly a ringing endorsement of freedom!

1964 Selected Works of La Fontaine. Edited by Philip A. Wadsworth. No illustrations. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Arcturus Books paperback: 1964. See 1950/64.

1964 Tales to Read. Harold G. Shane and Kathleen B. Hester. Illustrated by Mary Miller Salem. Gateways to Reading Treasures. Co-Basal Literary Readers. River Forest, IL: Laidlaw Brothers: Doubleday. $2 at Renaissance Books, Summer, '85. Extra copy of the 1966 edition for $4 from Half Price Books, San Antonio, August, '96.

The most interesting feature in this early kids' reader is the use of rebus in its fables. Besides FG, AL, and BC, there is "The Wolf and the Cat," wherein the two discover together that the wolf has outraged every person who might help. There is nostalgic interest and not much more. The 1966 edition has a new copyright and does not mention the earlier edition or copyright; I can find nothing that changes from one book to the other.

1964 The Cuntry Mous and Uther Storiz. General Editor: Dr. J.R. McIntosh. Associate Editors: F.L. Barrett and C.E. Lewis. Artist not acknowledged. Traditional Orthography Edition. (c)1962 The Copp Clark Publishing Co. Transliterated into Pitnam's Initial Teaching Alphabet. Printed in Canada. London: Initial Teaching Publishing Co. Ltd. $1.50 at A. Amitin, St. Louis, March, '95.

It is fun trying to decipher TMCM and LM, the two fables among the five stories written here in a phonetic alphabet. In the former, there are three rounds of trouble, coming from a woman, a cat, and traps. Colored and black-and-white illustrations generally alternate from one page-spread to the next. This find belongs to the "unusual" category!

1964 The Fable of Profitt the Fox. Written and illustrated by Bill Sokol. NY: Holt Rinehart and Winston. First edition. Dust jacket. $7.50 from Stillwater Book Center, Oct., '95. Extra copies with dust jacket for $3.50 from the Book House on Grand, Dec., '95 and without dust jacket for $2 at Secondhand Prose, DC, Sept., '91.

A very 60's moral fairy tale with simple art. Profitt the fortune-telling charlatan is unmasked when asked how long he can keep taking things and giving nothing in return.

1964 The Fables of Jean de la Fontaine. Monograph by Frances J. Brewer. With a Leaf from the Memorial Edition of the Fables Choisies, illustrated by Jean-Baptiste Oudry and printed in Paris by Charles-Antoine Jombert, 1755-59. See 1759/1964.

1964 The Magic Story Tree. A Favorite Collection of Fifteen Fables and Fairy Tales. Illustrated by Lucille and H.C. Holling. Inscribed in 1964. NY: Platt & Munk. $7.50 at Stillwater Book Center, Jan., '97. Extra copy for $18 from Greg Williams, Sept., '94.

The five fables here are all reprints from earlier Platt & Munk publications, including The Road in Storyland (1932). Three Platt and Munk booklets (1939?) also contained these stories. This edition, like the 1932/52 reprint of The Road in Storyland, colors in all of the pictures and drops the first full-page picture for "The Rooster and the Fox." It also (apparently for the first time) changes the titles of two pieces: from "How Brother Rabbit Fooled the Whale and the Elephant" to "Brother Rabbit and the Mighty Animals" and from "The Little Turtle That Could Not Stop Talking" to "Little Green Talking Turtle." The two other fables included are "The Elephant and the Monkey" and TMCM. I find the Hollings' work attractive, and am happy to find this nostalgic throwback.

1964 The North Wind and the Sun: A Fable by La Fontaine. Illustrated by Brian Wildsmith. Dust jacket. Second impression 1964. Printed in Austria. NY: Franklin Watts. $25 by mail from Cynthia Fowler, Oct., '90.

A beautiful book in excellent condition. Wildsmith's best illustrations of the three books of his that I have. The question of the bet is "Let's both try [to] blow it off his back." What nonsense! Complete with an advertisement for Wildsmith's books from Franklin Watts.

1964 The Panchatantra. Translated from the Sanskrit by Arthur W. Ryder. Paperback. Phoenix. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. See 1925/53/56/64.

1964 The World's Great Stories: Fifty-Five Legends That Live Forever. Newly Written by Louis Untermeyer. Illustrated by Mae Gerhard. NY: M. Evans and Company. $8 at Clark's, Spokane, March, '94.

The only fable material in this book is "Androcles... The Slave Freed by a Lion" (140). The surprising things about this story are that (1) it is different from Untermeyer's own "Androcles and the Lion" in his Legendary Animals (1963) and (2) that he claims, on the back of the title page, that part of this version is the same as part of that version there. Anyone interested in a comparison project? My suspicion is that word limits may have had something to do with the final products.

1964 Trois Fables de La Fontaine. Hachette Mini-Livres #29. Printed in Holland. Paris: Hachette. See 1953/64.

1964/66 Aesop's Fables (Cover: Classics to Grow On). Translated from the Greek by the Rev. Geo. Fyler Townsend. Illustrations designed by Harrison Weir and engraved by J. Greenaway. 1966 printing. Classics to Grow On. NY: Parents' Magazine Press. $2.95 from Land Run Books, Guthrie, OK, through eBay, Oct., '99.

See my 1964 Aesop's Fables in the "Keepworthy Classics" series. This seems to be the very same book, perhaps with superficial changes like a name in the series. See my comments there, and check the particulars of the two books carefully. I cannot find "Classics to Grow on" mentioned inside this book. I am sorry that I cannot compare the LC Catalog Card Number of that volume with the 64-15720 shown here. The illustrations are again dark.

1964/66 The Fables of Aesop: Selected, Told Anew and Their History Traced by Joseph Jacobs. Illustrated by David Levine. Afterword by Clifton Fadiman. Dust jacket. NY: Macmillan. Gift of Margaret Carlson Lytton, Summer, '86.

Meg got this for me from her Berkeley High library. I love any illustrations that Levine does; the added spice here is that he later (1975) turned his hand to a fuller illustration. One can trace the genesis of some of his ideas, I think--e.g., in 2W. Great capitals start off each story.

1964/67 One Good Deed Deserves Another. Retold and illustrated by Katherine Evans. Second printing. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Chicago: Albert Whitman & Company. $.55 from Karen Thiessen, Wheat Ridge, CO, through Ebay, Oct., '02.

A green cloth cover has the title and images of a mother and child. As elsewhere in her Whitman books, Katherine Evans uses a crayon-like style, alternating black-and-white and colored spreads. A Hispanic family of three has had a good day at the market. Ruffo the Bandit plans to rob them, but falls over a cliff and clings to a tree. The little family saves Ruffo, only to hear his command to turn over their money. The family prevails on Ruffo to let them ask one person for an opinion of his robbing them, and Ruffo agrees. They find a little boy. He insists that they demonstrate for him the original situation. When he has Ruffo back in the tree, he declares the situation better than what he had found. Soon a caballero gallops up seeking Ruffo and offering a reward for his capture. The boy gets the reward. Ruffo through the bars cries "Caramba!" Good condition, especially for a library book.

1964/69 Aesop's Fables. Retold by Anne Terry White. Illustrated by Helen Siegl. California State Series. Sacramento: California State Department of Education. $2.25 at the Book Consortium, Berkeley, on some June 21^st, probably in the 80's! Extra copy for $2 at the Magnolia Park Book Shop, Burbank, Feb., '97.

Identical with my 1964 Random House copy except for the change in publisher on the title page and the "California State Textbook" stamp inside the front cover. It belonged to the Emerson Elementary School. This copy, like that done for the California State Series, reprints the illustration of the milkmaid (8) again just after the endpapers at the back. See my comments there.

1964/70 Tales of the Hodja.  Retold by Charles Downing.  Illustrated by William Papas.  Hardbound.  Dust jacket.  London: Oxford University Press.  $15 from the West Coast, July, '15.

1964/76 Animal Fun Time. By Janet and Alex D'Amato. Pleasantville: Reader's Digest Services. (c)1964 Doubleday & Company. $1 at Hooked on Books, Colorado Springs, March, '94.

A selection from the original book Animal Fun Time, according to the back of the title page. This 48-page pamphlet contains many puzzles and games to play. It has simple monochrome and two-color illustrations. It is well pencilled. FC (4-5) is told in standard fashion. TH (44-45) is both a fable and a game. In the latter, the tortoise moves two spaces for "heads," while the hare moves six spaces for the same toss.

1964/77/80 Fables: La Fontaine. Tome 2 annotées et commentées par Pierre Michel et Maurice Martin. Paperbound. Nancy: Bordas: Univers des Lettres. $5 at Schoenhof's in Cambridge, MA, June, '85.

Only the cover and later printing date seem to distinguish this printing from that of 1964. See my comments there.

1964/79 Fabels van Aesopus. Bejeengebracht door Phaedrus in verzen verteld en ingeleid door Johan van Nieuwenhuizen. Engravings by J. van Vianen. Utrecht and Antwerp: Prisma: Het Spectrum. $2.50 in Amsterdam, Dec., '88.

A re-edition in new format of the 1964 edition of van Hoeve. The circular 1701 engravings of van Vianen come off very successfully, partially because of the good paper they are printed on here. Noble but enjoyable. T of C at the front.

1964/84 The North Wind and the Sun: A Fable by La Fontaine. Illustrated by Brian Wildsmith. Printed in Hong Kong. Oxford: Oxford University Press. $3.98 at Oxford Too, Atlanta, April, '94.

This book differs from the original hardbound version in lacking a dust jacket. What was the dust jacket there has now become the cover here. The publisher has changed from Franklin Watts to Oxford, the place of publication from Austria to Hong Kong. Notice that the 1964/86 paperback is also from Oxford. See my comments on the original hardbound edition under 1964.

1964/86 The North Wind and the Sun: A Fable by La Fontaine. Illustrated by Brian Wildsmith. Paperbound. Printed in Hong Kong. Oxford: Oxford University Press. $4.95 at Tro Harper in San Francisco, Aug., '90.

Even the paperback is a beautiful book in this case! See my comments on the original hardbound edition under 1964.

1964? Early Thoughts on Fables, Being a Collection of Verse. By M.J.C. Parsons. Hardbound. Manila: H.S.G. Ltd.. $9.60 from Wonder Book and Video, Frederick MD, through abe, August, '02. 

This book may win the prize for having the least claim to be in this collection. The book's title is taken from the title of one poem, "Early Thoughts on Fables" (36). I cannot make much of this poem, and I do not find it bearing much on fables or the fable world. So I have a 153-page book of poetry, with a magnificent gold-imprinted blue cloth cover. The epilogue is dated April 26, 1964. The poet's full name is Michael Joaquin Parsons.

1964? Fables from the Golden Age for Modern Dry Cleaners. By PPG Chemicals. Paperbound. Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company. $5.69 from Victor Sirianni, Youngstown, NY, through eBay, Sept., '08.

This twelve-page pamphlet has nothing to do with fables. In it, Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company's Chemical Division advertises its product Perchlor to dry cleaners. Each of its pages presents a black-and-white photograph of a classical piece of sculpture, a quip by the subject of the sculpture, and a rhyming quatrain making the point, usually about Perchlor. Sometimes the point is about good salesmanship or other aspects of dry cleaning. Thus the quip for a picture of a caryatid is "If it falls off this time, Aphrodite can take her old Charm School and ..." The quatrain is "So much of her charm/Most every girl knows/Comes from dry-cleaning/Of her finest clothes." Hercules holds out his lion-skin and says "Look, Bud. The sign says 'one hour.' Now, either you have this suit ready or ..." The quatrain here reads "Fast cleaning action,/Economy,too/Are yours when Perchlor/Is used by your crew." Now, this is a piece of ephemera! I will list it also under advertisements and shelve it with the books.

 

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