Creighton University

This booklet, published by Miles Kelly in 2013 has been picked up, along with the rest of the set, by Gareth Stevens in 2015.  The booklet is now printed in the USA.  I do not find a listing of the artists in this copy.  It is curious that I needed to buy this American-printed copy from a British bookseller!  I believe that the format of these booklets has become smaller.  There are still fourteen fables on 40 pages, but the pages may have shrunk.  The pages still contain little characters around the edges.  Throughout this volume, the frame including these animals is the same.  Dragonflies and mice adorn the tops of pages.  A lion and frogs are along the bottom and the right hand side.  One of these symbols appears with each moral.  Every fable is illustrated.

Here is a 2015 hardbound version of the 2013 paperback booklet listed with the other nine among "Miles Kelly Aesop's Fables."  Now the publisher is Gareth Stevens.  All ten of the booklets are pictured on the back cover.  Not only the publisher but the publishing is now in the USA.  I wonder why Amazon's price is so high.  Fifteen fables on 40 large-format pages.  As I wrote there, this is the first of this series of books to feature a story without illustration: "The Boy and the Nettle" (12).  Perhaps the best illustration in this volume is that for "Jupiter and the Monkey" (22).  I believe that this is the first time that I have seen mosquitoes in this fable usually about leeches or bloodsuckers: "The Fox and the Mosquitoes" (13).  The word "storys" (32) has been corrected to the American "stories."  The text is taken over largely from the classic version by Joseph Jacobs.  It would be fascinating to know how much of that borrowing Parker has done for his versions.  The pages still contain little characters around the edges.  Throughout this volume, the frame including these animals is the same.  Here there are caged birds on top and, along the bottom, a lobster, starfish, spiral shell, nautilus and peacock.

This expensive little pamphlet has led me to several places.  Like two others in the collection, it belongs to a set done by Gareth Stevens in the USA in 2015, presenting in smaller format (6.4” x 9”) the stories and illustrations from a larger (8.5” x 11”) edition by Miles Kelly in 2013.  In fact, the stories’ texts go back to "200 Aesop's Fables: Favourite Fables to Share," which Miles Kelly published in 2012.  Thus the titles of several fables go back to the 2012 larger edition.  "The Stag and the Vine" here was "The Deer and the Vine" in 2013 (4).  "The Boy and the Filberts" here was "The Boy and the Nuts" (29).  The plane tree here was a sycamore there (31).  "The Thrush and the Fowler" here was "The Blackbird and the Hunter" there (38).  As I noted in that 2013 version, "The Two Neighbors" is for me a new version of what we generally know as "The Greedy Man and the Envious Man" (6).  Two neighbors ask Zeus to give them their hearts' desires.  Zeus decides to give the greedy man the gold he wants but his envious neighbor twice as much.  The greedy man's delight is short-lived when he learns of his neighbor's even better fortune.  The envious man is unhappy because his neighbor has received anything.  He wishes that his neighbor would lose one of his eyes.  It happens, and the envious man loses both of his own eyes!  The envious man here ends up totally blind; in the traditional story, he is happy to pay the price of one eye to see his neighbor go blind.  In "The Miser and His Gold," the neighbor advises the miser to come every night and look at his now empty hole. "It will do you just as much good" (22).  "The Boy and the Nuts" is particularly well illustrated (29).  Fourteen fables on 40 pages.  The pages still contain little characters around the edges.  Throughout this volume, the frame including these animals is the same.  Butterflies and a snake adorn the tops of pages.  A tortoise and hare travel along the bottom.  One of these symbols appears with each moral.  Every fable is illustrated.  Might the texts be based on Joseph Jacobs’?