1910 A First Reader. By Burchill, Ettinger, and Shimer. California State Series. ©1909 by Silver, Burdett and Co. ©1910 by the People of the State of California. Sacramento: Superintendent State Printing. See 1909/10.

1910 A Second Book in English for Foreigners. Isabel Richman Wallach. NY: Silver, Burdett and Company. $1 at Pageturner's, Sept., '95.

One of the sixty-seven chapters in this unusual book is devoted to Aesop's fables, surprisingly in the midst of Columbus' discovery of America, banks and checks, the Liberty Bell, and U.S. government (Ch. XXI on 75-77). The introduction to fable speaks of the experience of finding a second and often a third moral in one story. Two fables are presented: "The Boy Bather" and "The Father and His Sons." The former has a good moral: "Scolding (or advice) without help, is of little use."

1910 Aesop's Fables. With eight full-page colored illustrations by Arthur Cooke, NA. Hardbound. Stories for the Children. London: Ward, Lock & Co. £15 from Rose's Books, Hay-on-Wye, Jan., '02.

Here is another little book with plenty of curiosities. It was done by Ward, Lock, & Company about the same time that they did a larger-format book with, apparently, the same texts and the same eight full-page colored illustrations by Arthur Cooke. In that book they also had abundant black-and-white illustrations by Harrison Weir. Here, as there, Cooke's illustrations include LM, TH, DM, DS, BF, FG, "The Kid and the Wolf," and DLS. They are slightly smaller proportionally here than in that Weir edition, which I have listed under "1910?" Though Cooke is not mentioned on the title-page or in any other text, he signs each of the illustrations. There is neither preface nor T of C nor AI here. There are 95 pages in a book of smallish format (4¼" x 6"). FG is reproduced in full color on the front cover. A sampling shows the texts to be identical, but I cannot match them with any standard translation that I know. There is something unusual about one of the colored illustrations here. This edition labels the second-last of the illustrations "The Kid and the Wolf" (64), while the Weir edition calls it "The Lamb and the Wolf" (206). The page-reference there is to the story of the lamb that fled for refuge to a temple (207). The picture fits that story well, since one sees a small animal safe in a building above the wolf. The title-reference here is to the story of the kid who dances before he will die (69). This story does not fit the illustration at all. "The Lamb and the Wolf," which would fit with this picture, occurs 26 pages later on 90. If I had seen this book on a bookseller's shelf, I would have guessed that I already had it.

1910 Der Lateinische Äsop des Romulus und die Prosa-Fassungen des Phädrus: Kritischer Text mit Kommentar und einleitenden Untersuchungen. George Thiele. Paperbound. Heidelberg: Carl Winter's Universitätsbuchhandlung. DM 48 from Munich, August, '98.

This book has been one of my bibles twice during serious summer investigation of Steinhoewel's edition. It is indeed a critical text, with helpful variants and questions and suggestions about the lacunae that occur. The texts of the ninety-eight fables (plus "Aesop's Statue") themselves occur on 8-306 after 238 pages of introduction. The most helpful overview of the book is thus the T of C on CCXXIX-CCXXXVI. There are helpful vocabulary and other indices at the back. My copy disintegrated from a combination of old age and use. I appreciate that Georg Olms Verlag brought out a reproduction in 1985.

1910 Fabeln des Lateinischen Äsop: Für Übungen Ausgewählt. George Thiele. Paperbound. Heidelberg: Carl Winter's Universitätsbuchhandlung. $NZ30 from Rowan Gibbs: Smith's Bookshop, Wellington, New Zealand, Jan., '99.

This booklet of 10 plus 72 pages came out at the same time as Thiele's Der Lateinische Äsop des Romulus. Here he shortens the introduction to a helpful five pages and selects twenty-four fables just as they are presented -- together with variants, parallel texts, notes, and commentary --in the larger book. I find it an ambitious challenge for students to take on these sometimes problematic texts, but I love the courage Thiele shows in taking his good research and letting students work with it. Have later critics agreed with Thiele's sense of the two different kinds of Aesop that Phaedrus himself was working from? I find it remarkable that I was able to find a copy of this book.

1910 Fables and Fairy Tales for Little Folk or Uncle Remus in Hausaland (First Series). By Mary & Newman Tremearne. Hardbound. Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons; London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co. £18 from Rose's Books, Hay-on-Wye, April, '02.

I tried the first two of the twelve stories here. The twelve take 135 pages in this 6¾" x 8¼" book. These are good folktales, but I think they are not fables. They lack the simplicity that I think fables need. The second story, "The Spider Deceives the Hippopotamus and the Elephant" (6), is close to fables I have read, but it cannot resist putting in a second and third phase to the story. Thus spider fools the two into a tug-of-war with each other, but then also shows, with the help of magic, that he is ultimately stronger than they are. He shows them--I do not understand how--that he, not they, draws them closer together. Then he puts on a hare-skin…. Need I go further? The upshot of this tale, as of many, I think, is aetiological. Here we learn why hippos and elephants do not go into gardens where there are spiders. The book is in good condition.

1910 Fables from Afar. By Catherine T. Bryce. With Illustrations by Ada Budell. Hardbound. NY: Aldine Supplementary Readers: Newson & Company. $27.50 from Abracadabra by mail, Nov., '98. Extra copy, tighter, with the lettering on the spine inverted and with "(19)" rather than "(9)" after the copyright date for $10 from the Collectors Gallery, Cedarburg, WI, Oct., '99.

Most of these stories are taken from fable sources outside the normal Western tradition, though perhaps a quarter are traditional Aesopic material. My Abracadabra copy has "Third Grade" pencilled in, and that is about the appropriate age for the stories. The fifty-eight fables are divided into four sections ("Tales from the East," "Tales from the West," and so on), but I am unable to sense the division or identify the sources. We read on iii "It is in the hope that you will enjoy them as much as the children of long ago in India, China, Japan, and the Isles of the Sea that this little collection of the old, old stories has been made." "Tales from the West" include a number of La Fontaine fables. Among my favorites overall are "A Dumb Witness" (9), "The Fox and the Goose" (113), and "The Ant and the Glowworm" (115). Here a gnat stings a lion, and the lion never even notices it (79)! See "Perseverance" (162) for one of those stories that "proves" that "He who earnestly wills can do anything." Here the poor man finally marries the princess. Each illustration includes one color.

1910 Fifty Famous Fables. Lida Brown McMurry. Richmond: Graded Classics Series: B.F. Johnson Publishing Company. $5 from Sherry Carroll, Warrenton, NC, through Ebay, Jan., '00.

A first unusual feature of this second grade reader is that its T of C (5-7) is organized by lessons to be learned, like "Desirability of Self-Control" and "Results of a Mean Joke." But these categories are never again mentioned in the book! There are full-page two-color illustrations on 10, 15, 23, 31, 37, 45, 57, 77, 83, 99, 107, and 117. I am surprised to see a book with mostly traditional fables begin with TT; in it, the tortoise's only motivation is indicated by the ducks: "to see the world." The evil frog is out from the start to play a joke on the unsuspecting mouse in FM (13); their purpose is to enjoy a holiday, and there is not a first phase in the mouse's territory. The members in the story of the belly are presented as feeders of a great mill (22). The lion is not in on precipitating the quarrel of the four oxen (27). The image of "The Hunter and the Farmer" (31), a story not often illustrated, is expressive. This book makes a brave show of the wrong-headed telling of "The Horse and the Wolf" (46), in which the wolf decides to try to convince the horse that the latter must need a doctor. "The Woodman and His Ax" (63) switches to a roadside, and the woodman does not know where he has lost his ax. He is helped not by Mercury, but by a stranger. "The Fox with His Tail Cut Off" (65) has the fox hiding his condition from the other foxes; thus it is enough for one of them to rejoinder "Before I reply, pray turn yourself around." There is an unusual illustration for "The Donkey and His Masters" (75), which shows him being lowered by a hoist into the third of his jobs, coal mining. He was already dissatisfied with working for a gardener and a tanner. Switching the order of employers loses the joke that even death cannot free him from getting a beating from the tanner. Apparently the rich man honestly wants to help the poor cobbler here (78). "The Wagoner" (98) features not Hercules but a worker in a field, who tells the wagoner to put his shoulder to the wheel. New to me are "The Leaves and the Roots" (42), "The Blackbird and the Dove" (70), "The Ice King" (81), "The Tyrant Who Became a Just Ruler" (113), and "The Pug Dog and His Shadow" (120). Page 47-8 is half-missing. How have I missed this book in my years of searching? And what a bargain!

1910 Fifty Famous Fables. Lida Brown McMurry. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Richmond: Graded Classics Series: B.F. Johnson Publishing Company. $21.50 from Tressa Hall, Tallahassee, FL, through Ebay, April, '00.

See my similar copy of this book under the same title and date, received from Sherry Carroll. By contrast this book takes the advertisement on the Graded Classics Series and puts it at the back. This may be the earlier book of the two, since the advertisement mentions fewer available titles. Those that overlap have the same price. The cover of this book uses the same design, including two wreathed torches around a lion, but puts "Graded Classics" first and does not give McMurry's name. The inside binding is disintegrating, and both the last page and most of the art work have received embellishments from a young hand. The title-page is identical with that in the Carroll version.

1910 Fireside Fables. By Edwin P. Barrow. Second edition. Hardbound. Printed in London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd. $10 from an unknown source, June, '97?

According to a note early in the volume, "The two series of Fireside Fables are here thrown into one volume, with some fifty more added. The Ten Stories at the end are intended to illustrate the main sources of Unkindness to Animals…." (vii). I have trouble situating these 258 little vignettes. Might they have been originally journalistic? They seem to be strong on humor. Many are little more than a good quip. I do not understand "fireside" here; are these the stories one tells sitting around in the parlor enjoying conversation? Let me offer a sampling. A child looks up from his book and asks who could forgive the same person four-hundred-and-ninety times. "Only a mother," thought the father. "Only a child" thought the mother (17). A king who reigned for many years wished to honor those who could make his name honored in the years to come. After the poet, painter, and sculptor, the jester passed before him and held out his hand. King: "No man has spoken more ill of me." Jester: "Think rather how much I have left unsaid." "At this the king frowned, then smiled, and gave him a rich reward" (45). A rabbit found a keeper's gun leaning against a park wall and declared himself for peace and liberty when a loose stone fell and a weasel popped his head out. "Shoot!" cried the rabbit (53). A young knight knelt before a picture of St. Martin dividing his cloak with a beggar. He vowed to do the same. He realized only later that giving away half meant wearing only a half--amid the jeers of his friends (91). For me at least, as a body these little pieces have a dulling effect. After I have read ten, they all sound the same.

1910 Little Plays for Little People. By Marion I. Noyes and Blanche H. Ray. Boston: Ginn and Company. $1 at Vintage Bookseller, North Platte, Jan., '94.

Two very simple dramatized fables: TMCM (18) and TH (46). In the former, a boy and a cat set the mice scurrying to a hole. There are great vintage photos of children in the book, but unfortunately none for these two fables.

1910 The Blodgett Readers by Grades: Book Two. By Frances E. Blodgett and Andrew B. Blodgett. No illustrator acknowledged. Boston: Ginn and Co. See 1905/10.

1910 The Fables of Jane. Written by Harold Simpson; Music by Marie Horne. Paperbound. London: The John Church Co. £ 4.99 from Trevor Holmes, Essex, UK, through eBay, August, '04. 

This is a twenty-page oversized pamphlet of music featuring four songs. Page 2 offers the lyrics for them all. An introductory lyric proclaims "A baby's like a guinea-pig,/School crocodiles we know:/And men are hares or tortoises,/They're either fast or slow./And Mothers are like clucking hens/When children cause them pain;/So there you have in fables four/The history of Jane!" I cannot say that I "get" the fable in either of the first two instances, namely guinea-pig and crocodile. In the third instance, Jane at seventeen is wooed by two men, one as fast as a hare and the other as slow as a tortoise. Jane asks her mother's advice, who notes that the hares among men will make love anywhere and advises going with the tortoise. Jane promptly does the opposite--and a month later ends up taking her mother's advice after all. "The Hen" tells a story of Jane's naughty daughter doing three things. First, she tells Jane that Jane probably did the same naughty things when she was young. Secondly, she runs away. Thirdly, in so doing, she makes Jane wish that she had behaved better as a child. Very good condition for a piece of ephemera almost one hundred years old.

1910 The First Book of Stories for the Story-Teller.  By Fanny E. Coe.  Boston/Cambridge: Houghton Mifflin Company/The Riverside Press.  $13.50 from Suzanne & Truman Price, Columbia Basin Books, Monmouth, OR, June, '03.   

An illumining preface offers this little book's collection to the parent and teacher.  In a surprisingly specific statement, Coe says that her endeavor has been to gather the many fables, fairy tales, and myths that are specified by name for the first grade in the schools of Illinois, New York, and Boston.  Eight fables then begin the book: LM, SW (told in the better form), DS, TH, FG, BW, "The Lion in His Den," and CP.  There are no illustrations beyond the stamped scene of storytelling on the tan cloth cover.  The material here seems to surpass what has usually been expected of first graders.  This book is in exceptional condition for coming up on its hundredth birthday!

1910 The World's Greatest Books, Volume XX: Miscellaneous Literature. Joint Authors Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton. Wm. H. Wise and Co. $1 at Silver Spring Thrift, Oct., '91.

The ultimate in cheap culture, straight from a good old junk shop. Here between Addison and Arnold is Aesop (10-17), represented by twelve fables told in straightforward fashion. First the book spends almost as much time on his life, beginning its first footnote with this classic statement: "It is in the fitness of things that the early biographies of Aesop, the great fabulist, should be entirely fabulous."

1910/20? Fifty Famous Fables. Lida Brown McMurry. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Richmond: Graded Classics Series: Johnson Publishing Company. $5 from The Book Eddy, Knoxville, TN, April, '00.

See my comments on the 1910 version of this little book that I have from Sherry Carroll. This version has a gray cover that gives no initials for Johnson but does add "VA." to Richmond. The title-page, otherwise the same, does not add Atlanta or Dallas to Richmond as sites for the publisher. This volume, unlike either of the two listed under 1910, does not include advertisements for the Graded Classics Series. This book is in by far the best condition of the three. How quaint that I would have found this book three times in the past four months after missing it for years!

1910? Äsops Fabeln für die Jugend: 108 Fabeln. Mit vielen Illustrationen von Chr. Votteler. Seventh edition. Hardbound. Stuttgart: Loewes Verlag Ferdinand Carl. $1.99 from Rebecca Gibson, Hopkins, MI, through eBay, May, '03. 

Neu bearbeitet und mit moralischen Anmerkungen versehen. Again, there is the surprising magic number of 108 fables. This book has seen heavy wear. There are some tears and some pencilling. Pages 7-8 and 23-26 are missing. Other pages are loose. Overall there are 102 pages of fables and two pages of advertisements. There are two kinds of illustrations here. First, there are the full-page black-and-white illustrations; the best of these may be the "Woodman and the Fox" (56). There are also the smaller and better designs worked into and around the texts. A good example of this genre is on 31: three men pull the ass out of the hole he deliberately "fell" into. On the cover: a fox reads before King Lion.

1910? Aesops Fabler. Bearbejdede af S.L. 16 Helsides Illustrationer og Omslagstegning af P.I. Billinghurst. First printing: 2000 copies. Hardbound. Copenhagen: E. Jespersens Forlag. $32 from Alibris, June, '99.

Here is a lovely book with Billinghurst's "The Fox and the Mask" on the pictorial board cover. Inside there are fifteen excellent Billinghurst illustrations for fifteen prose fables. Each fable gets four pages: two for the text, one for the illustration, and one blank. If the text is not long enough for two pages, the second page is a blank. My prizes go to BF (15), GGE (31), and FC (59). I believe this lovely book constitutes the second Danish holding in the collection.

1910? Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by Harrison Weir. London: Ward, Lock & Co. ("Harpers" on spine.) $24 by mail from Dorothy Meyer, Nov., '95.

This is in many ways a standard Weir book, with illustrations often poorly inked. It has the usual 114 engravings, duly tabulated in the list of illustrations at the front. It has the usual preface and life before that. The unusual things about this edition include the eight colored illustrations by Arthur Cooke. I surmise the date of this edition from the "/10" after his name on these illustrations. I know of no other book of mine that includes Cooke's work. Also, this seems to be the first time that Ward, Lock, & Co. publish Weir; and what is "Harpers" doing on the spine? Hmmm.... I did learn in my research this time (from Hobbs) that Weir first published his engravings in 1860. The engraving of his that she presents there is, again in this instance, not the one used here (TB, 23).

1910? Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by Harrison Weir. Hardbound. London: Ward, Lock & Co. £10 from Ripping Yarns, June, '02.

This book with Arthur Cooke's colored illustration of LM in a circle on its red cover is only my second Ward, Lock publication of Weir's work. It is smaller in format and thinner in inches but not in page count than that book, which is unusual for having "Harper's" at the base of its spine. This book has, other than that cover picture, only one other illustration by Arthur Cooke, namely DS as a colored frontispiece. These are the only two books in the collection with Cooke's work. The title-page here places Ward, Lock and Company in London and Melbourne but not--as in the other edition--in Toronto. This copy is inscribed in 1920. It has thinner margins, but it reproduces the illustrations in the same size. In fact, the books share the same pagination and thus, apparently, the same plates. The run of the illustrations tends to the less distinct here. Like the other edition, this has the usual 114 engravings, duly tabulated in the list of illustrations at the front. It has the usual preface and life before that. It appears to be a standard Weir edition.

1910? Aesop's Fables. With numerous illustrations by Ernest Griset and Harrison Weir. Hardbound. NY: McLoughlin Brothers. $20 from Walk a Crooked Mile Books, Philadelphia, Jan., '01.

Here is yet another variation in a book I have already in three other forms, listed under "1900?". This copy has a simple brown cloth cover and spine without illustration. Both cover and spine read simply "Aesop's Fables." The title-page adds a small circular logo "Books and Games/Educate - Amuse/McLoughlin, Est. 1828." The verso of that page has another logo in the upper left, apparently of Mother Goose. This copy is in very good condition. The illustrations are printed as well as I have seen on this kind of blottery paper. I will guess that this is a later printing, and so I put it at "1910?".

1910? Aesop's Fables: A New Edition with Proverbs and Applications. Samuel Croxall. With over One Hundred Illustrations. Hardbound. NY: Frederick A. Stokes Company, Publishers. $12.50 from Riverow Bookshop, Owego, NY, through Interloc, Jan., '98.

See my remarks on what I take to be the original book, published by Bliss, Sands, and Company in 1897. This edition is notable by contrast for its cheaper paper and, therefore, for the poorer precision of the illustrations. The book is slightly smaller in format, but seems to use the same plates. This book belonged at one time to the Free Public Library of Summit, NJ, and to Dwight Edwards Marvin. As I mention there, I found this book three times within about two years after not finding it for some twenty years!

1910? Aesop's Fables: A New Revised Version From Original Sources. With Uwards (sic) of 200 Illustrations by Harrison Weir, John Tenniel, Ernest Griset and Others. No editor acknowledged. NY: Hurst & Company. $15 from Greg Williams, Nov., '95.

This book is done from the same plates as three others with the same title: from Allison in 1884, Worthington in 1887, and Phoenix in 1892. This edition has the dubious distinction of displaying two young men--a golfer and a rower perhaps?--on its cover. It makes a big mistake on "uwards" but spells Weir's name correctly, as many do not. See my comments on the other editions, especially the Allison edition. The early part of the book has some stains. The four editions together would make a fascinating study on endurance of plates and quality of paper.

1910? Aesop's Fables: A New Revised Version From Original Sources. With Uwards (sic) of 200 Illustrations by Harrison Weir, John Tenniel, Ernest Griset and Others. Hardbound. NY: Hurst & Company. $5.50 from Elizabeth East, Joplin, MO, through Ebay, May, '00.

This book is internally exactly the same as the book of the same title that I have listed in the same year. That it has exactly the same plates is clear, e.g., from the broken typeface at the top of 5. There are two things to notice about this book. The first is that it repeats the blooper of that other text on the title-page: "Uwards of 200 Illustrations"! The second thing to notice is that the cover has become even more outrageous. This cover-maker must have been having fun! On that edition he pictured two young men, apparently a golfer and a pole-vaulter. Here he has two men moving toward the reader in a canoe, the closer one holding a rifle across his lap. Are these the men who have come to shoot the one-eyed deer? The choice of image remains a mystery to me!

1910? Aesop's Fables Complete, With Text Based Upon Croxall, La Fontaine, and L'Estrange. With copious additions from other modern authors. Text of J.B. Rundell, unacknowledged. Illustrations from Percy Billinghurst, unacknowledged. Chicago: W.B. Conkey Company. $10 from Harold's Book Shop, St. Paul, June, '95.

Three unusual visual features mark this work. The first is the dramatic and colorful LM on the front cover's pictorial board. The second is the orange and blue frontispiece of "The Lion, The Ass, and the Fox" from Billinghurst. The third is the back cover's line drawing of a grouping of animals--bear, monkeys, stork, owl, goat, wolf, tortoise, mouse--and a shoe. Otherwise the collection is the standard JBR text with the addition, starting on 142, of twenty-six "Later Fables." The illustrations are full-page, printed on both sides, and interspersed unpaginated with text pages. The illustrations among the "Later Fables" are far away from their texts; e.g., those for 42 are between 144 and 145. Note other Conkey reprintings of the JBR text with Billinghurst's illustrations in 1920? and 1930?. This book has neither a T of C nor an AI.

1910? Aesop's Fables Illustrated. Hardbound. Printed in USA. NY: World Library Guild. $5.50 from Becky Pool, Batesville, AR, through Ebay, June, '03.

This well-worn book is close to several editions already in the collection. They are titled "Aesop's Fables Profusely Illustrated" and printed, as is this edition, by the Commercial Bookbinding Company of Cleveland. Both are listed under "1910?" This copy is missing the frontispiece but has the other three full-page illustrations announced just after the title-page. This copy is also missing the T of C at the front. Like the other two editions, it finishes on 181. See my comments on those two books to get a sense of the possible sequence of editions.

1910? Aesop's Fables Profusely Illustrated. No author or illustrator indicated. Cleveland: The Goldsmith Publishing Co. Gift of Elizabeth Willems, Christmas, '87.

A  lovely little edition. Delightful tellings, with good proverbial morals, and lively black-and-white drawings, some in silhouette (e.g., the bald knight on 173). AI at the beginning. Worth special notice: "The Fatal Marriage" (59, the sequel to LM); personalized trees (71); the boy biting his mother (78); and stone soup (133). Book advertisements at the end.

1910? Aesop's Fables Profusely Illustrated. No author or illustrator indicated. Dust jacket. Cleveland and NY: The World Publishing Co. $6.50 from the Hermitage Bookshop, Denver, March, '94. Extra copy for $4.98 at Half-Price Books, St. Paul. Another copy--over twice as thick, with no dust jacket but a bigger cover and larger-margined pages, inscribed in 1950--found in Spring, '92.

This edition is identical, right down to page numbers, with the edition by the World Syndicate Publishing Company with a few changes. The cover is different, the pages thinner, the index at the beginning is dropped, and the pre-title page is changed. The dust jacket advertises the "Classic Series." The World Publishing Company edition has "Classics Series" on its cover, and this one does not! The dust jacket's picture of Aesop is lively. See also Goldsmith (1910?).

1910? Aesop's Fables Profusely Illustrated. No author or illustrator indicated. (Blue cover.) Cleveland and NY: The World Syndicate Publishing Co. Gift of David Dreis, Dec., '87. Extra copy with dj for $7.99 from Al Childress of Villisca, Iowa, through Ebay, July, '99.

I have two copies of this blue-covered book, the first a gift of David Dreis in 1987and the second purchased through Ebay. The latter has a surprising dj that features a pirate, the Mad Hatter, Alice, and others--but nothing apparently dealing with fables! This is an almost identical but poorer replica of the Goldsmith edition. The paper is cheaper, and there is less ink on the illustrations. There are no advertisements at the end. If you line up Goldsmith as #1, this World Syndicate edition as #2, and World Publishing as #3, you can watch printing history. #1 prints by mistake on the back of 35's illustration and leaves 34 blank, but incorrectly lists 34 in the list of illustrations. #2 prints correctly but in my Dreis copy still has not changed the list of illustrations. My Childress copy of #2 corrects the list of illustrations. Then #3 does it right. I only hope that history did not actually reverse this nice theoretical order that I have created! Ironically, I received this book (for baptizing Joseph Dreis) a week after receiving the Goldsmith edition from Elizabeth Willems.

1910? Aesop's Fables Profusely Illustrated. No author or illustrator indicated. (Brown cover.) Cleveland and NY: The World Syndicate Publishing Co. Gift of Linda Schlafer, Dec., '94.

This book is essentially a reprinting of the 1910? Goldsmith edition with a brown cover given me by Elizabeth Willems. The cover is imprinted with the same design of lamps and books. The book shows the same mistake as does that #1 in my comment on the listing for the other copy from the World Syndicate Publishing Company. By comparison with that edition, whose bibliographical data are nearly identical, this book takes away the pre-title page and the mention on the title page of states after the two cities; it adds there "Made in U.S.A." The print seems darker and sharper, the paper thinner. This book adds four pages of advertisements at the end. The signature divisions are clearly perceptible in both books.

1910? Chr. F. Gellert's sämtliche Fabeln und Erzählungen in drei Büchern. Mit sechzehn Illustrationen von H. Leutemann. Hardbound. Neue Ausgabe. Hannover und Leipzig: Hahn'sche Buchhandlung. DM 35 from Dresdener Antiquariat, Dresden, July, '98.

"Nach den ältesten Ausgaben." There is a beginning T of C. I decided for this Gellert edition to examine the first eight illustrated fables. "Der Tanzbär" (2) presents a bear who has had to dance for his living; now he breaks away and rejoins the bears. He shows them his new skills. They try to do the same and fail. Soon they ask him to leave. Show skill and people will talk about you, and soon envy will follow, and your talent will become a crime. Also illustrated is "Das Gespenst" (17): you can use poetry, even or especially bad poetry, to drive away ghosts! "Der Hund" (22) tells of a miserly dog that, even in death, will not give up his treasured bones. "Der Bettler" (27) gives us a beggar; with a sword in his hand and a plea for compassion, he is like the writer who pays compliments and says that he trusts our sense of justice--but also uses threats. "Die zärtliche Frau" (39) is about a woman who at her husband's deathbed cries out "Death, come and take me!" When death shows up and asks if someone called, she points to her husband and says that he called. "Damokles" (53) is straightforward and true to the ancient anecdote. "Der grüne Esel" (61) is the story of instant notoriety and fast movement into being passé. "Die kranke Frau" (71) presents a woman who cannot be healed by doctors but only by a tailor's new dress! Because of its good illustration, I gave myself a bonus: "Der herzte Entschluss" (127). It is worth it! A condemned man finds an old spinster pleading for him. The judge says that he will spare him if he will marry her. The prisoner choses death and asks the judge to kill him now. This is a straightforward volume with nothing but four pages of Vorwort, the T of C, texts, and illustrations. The binding has cracked between VIII and 1. The cover shows "The Bears and the Apes."

1910? Christian Furchtegott Gellerts Fabeln und Erzählungen. Ausgewählt und mit einem Nachwort versehen von Professor Dr. Fritz Behrend. Mit 9 Bildern nach Heinrich Ramberg. Hardbound. Berlin: Volksverband der Bücherfreunde;Wegweiser-Verlag. DM 10 from Loschwitzer Antiquariat, Dresden, August, '01. 

This thin book of 106 pages contains, as the T of C at the end shows, forty-two fables, with appendices offering Gellert's statements about himself, Gellert and bibliophiles, and excerpts from literary exercises of Gellert's. The fables are portioned out in their original books. The pictures, which come out quite dark here, include an enlarged medallion of Gellert (frontispiece); "Die Nachtigall und die Lerche" (9); "Der Tanzbär" (13, perhaps the best of the lot); "Damötas und Phyllis" (35); "Der arme Greis" (67); "Die Bauern und der Amtmann" (77); "Die Frau und der Geist" (81); "Hanns Nord" (83); and "Der Held und der Reitknecht" (89). I checked out several fables here that are new to me: "Die zärtliche Frau" (41); "Der zärtliche Mann" (43); and "Der junge Drescher" (59).

1910? Das Reich der redenden Thiere. Neuestes Fabelbuch für die Jugend. Von G.F. Müller. Nürnberg: Verlag von J.L. Lotzbeck. $20 at Arkadyan, Aug., '94.

A curious and delightful sideways book that I find difficult to date. Twelve "tables" present ten engravings apiece, with a Gothic-script text, generally in verse, for each engraving. The texts follow the illustrations left to right, starting at the top; they often seem wordy and forced. Many of the fables tend to become punchless arguments. Sources include Kalila and Dimna--for example, for "The Fox and the Drum" (2), "The Lion and the Hare" (8), and TT (16)--and various authors like Lessing ("Zeus and the Horse," 3) and Lichtwer ("The Ape with the Watch," 57). Is that Krylov's "Quartet" pictured on the title page? I cannot find "Quartet" in the collection. Many of the fables are new to me, starting with the first, "The Dog and the He-Goat." Is that "The Musicians of Bremen" that we find as a fable on 8? A good story that is little known is "The Lion and the Rabbit" (2) about self-knowledge. The engravings are charming, starting from the cover engraving of Aesop writing. Among the best illustrations are "The Frog and the Mouse" (Table II), "The Cat and the Mice" (Table IV), "The Magic Lantern (Table V, though the fable is in my opinion very poorly told), LM (Table VI), and "Wolf" (Table XI). Table II and the backs of most illustration pages are pencilled in. Inscribed by Oscar Mayer.

1910? Das schönste Fabelbuch für brave Kinder. Eine Auswahl aus Deutschlands Fabelschatz. Dritte Auflage. Stuttgart: Verlag von Franz Neugebauer. $9 from Attic Book Shelf of Charles City, IA, at Stillwater, Oct., '95.

Animal characters pictured in color on cover boards. Inscribed in English. Loose frontispiece. Brittle pages. Fables are divided between prose and verse. Four wonderful colored illustrations: the lion's army (frontispiece), DM (16), the monkey and the miser (48), and FS (80). No T of C.

1910? Der Jugend Fabelschatz: Eine Auswahl der Schönsten Fabeln für die Jugend Bearbeitet. Von Julius Hoffmann. Mit vier Fabdruckbildern von C. Offterdinger und Fr. Specht. Hardbound. Stuttgart: R. Thienemanns Verlag. DM 100 from Bücherwurm, Heidelberg, July, '98.

This is a well preserved book with 148 pages of fables. There are perhaps one-hundred-and-thirty-five fables here, as the opening T of C shows. The title just above each text gives the source. Aesop seems to come up often. La Fontaine is included. Many, even most, of the fables seem to come from eighteenth-century German fabulists. The four colored illustrations--chromolithographs, I presume--are familiar. The frontispiece is Offterdinger's depiction of "The Monkey Throwing Away His Master's Coins." The other three are Specht's WC (48); Offterdinger's "The Fox, the Hunters, and the Woodcutter"; and Specht's FC (112). The latter is also pictured on the laid-in chromolithograph on the cover. Did I really pay one hundred Marks for this book?

1910? Der Neue Aesop: Eine klassiche Fabelsammlung von Lessing, Gellert, Pfeffel und Anderen. Mit 144 Illustrationen von Ernest Griset. Hardbound. Berlin: Verlag von J. Jolowicz. $30 from an unknown source, Dec., '00?

Here is a very frail old book, whose spine is deteriorating and pages are brittle. A T of C follows the title-page immediately, showing fables on some 287 pages. The one author I have noticed named but not mentioned on the title-page is Lichtwer. The texts are a mixture of prose and verse. Many are unattributed. Those attributed seem to come principally from Lessing, Gellert ("J.G."), and Pfeffel. The total of one hundred-and-forty-four images from Griset would seem to make this book dependent on the revised and enlarged version of Griset's work, which may have first appeared in 1874-5 with one hundred and fifty-nine illustrations. The first edition had appeared in 1869 with ninety-three illustrations. The very first images here are the full-page "Der Woelfe und der kranke Esel" (5) and the smaller, well-known "Die beiden Froesche" (7). A curious feature of this book is its first piece, "Statt des Vorworts: Die beraubte Fabel" by Lichtwer. In it, the goddess of all poets, Fable, wanders into a strange land, where evil creatures find her alone on the street. Her delivery purse is empty, and so they demand instead that she give up her clothes. When she takes everything off, she disappears and the naked Truth stands before them. They feel ashamed, ask forgiveness, and give her her clothes back. "Who can (bear to) see the truth naked?" I have no idea where or when I got this book, but it was certainly before July of 2002.

1910? Drittes Lesebuch für Evangelisch-Lutherische Schulen. Neue Serie. No author or illustrator acknowledged. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House. $4 at Second Chance, Omaha, May, '94. Extra copies in fair condition for $2 at Prosperity Corner, Nebraska City, Nov., '89, and in poor condition for $1 exactly one year later.

A remarkable little book. Lots of fables in its first part and a reading (86) on the meaning of fables. No illustrations for these. A nice verse rendition of MM (31). Further sections explore nature, history, geography, and Lutheranism.

1910? Erstes Lesebuch für Evangelisch-Lutherische Schulen. Neue Serie. No author or illustrator acknowledged. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House. $1 at The Lantern, DC, Feb., '89.

Seven fables interspersed among prayers, poems, and various pious pieces, all in Gothic script. Four of them get illustrations. The best of these is that of OF on 49. Lively little frogs!

1910? Fables and Classical Sketches by a Clergyman. By T.B. Murray, not acknowledged. Hardbound. Printed in London. London: John W. Parker and The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. $25 from East End Booksellers, East Hampton, NY, June, '98.

This small book (4¼" x 7") has thirty-one items on 95 pages. The first twenty-eight are fables, and the last three are sketches, ancient historical anecdotes. All the fables seem to be original. The author, as his preface declares, wants "to give some practical hints for the conduct of life, and to convey instruction, especially to the young, in a manner the least likely to offend…" (v). He points to his first fable as a (counter-) symbol of what he can offer; there a proud glow-worm refuses to help an ant. Having turned its light off, the proud glow worm is crushed by a human being passing in the dark. The preface even lists in respective order the vices to be learned about in each of these fables. Thus the proud beetle steps up to the blacksmith expecting to be shod when the Pasha's horses are being cared for (13). Or in the next fable the blacksmith's son, who has slept during the hours of labor, is turned away when he shows up to eat (16). I could take reading six or eight of these. Perhaps I am overly "offended" by their didactic transparency. The illustrations strike me as superior to the texts here. The tailpiece of two horses on 18 is, for example, well done. There is one small detailed illustration and often a tailpiece for each fable. At least some of the illustrations are labeled "F Parker." The spine of the book is starting to separate. The title is embossed in gold on the cloth cover.

1910? Fables Choisies de La Fontaine. H. Vogel, Gaston Gélibert, Mangonot, Godefroy, Etienne-Maurice-Firmin Bouisset, (Anatole Paul?) Ray, Job (=Jacques Marie Gaston Onfroy de Breville), and Gustave Fraipont. Cloth bound. Paris: Bibliothèque de la Jeunesse et de l'Enfance: Librairies-Imprimeries Réunies. $85 from Margolis & Moss, June, '95.

Folio, cloth-backed pictorial boards. This book replicates--except for the series--a book of the same title I have listed under "1900?". See my comments there. The illustrations here, magnificent as they are, may be one step away from the clarity and brilliance of the illustrations there. Compare, e.g., the signatures on GA in the two books (31). My prizes here go to Bouisset for "Le Héron" (15), to Manganot for "La Cigale et la Fourmi" (31), and to Job for "Le Pot de Terre et le Pot de Fer" (43). A lovely book!

1910? Fables de La Fontaine. M. Félix LeMaistre. Édition illustrée de gravures sur bois d'après les dessins de Staal. Hardbound. Paris: Garnier Frères, Libraires. $20 from Brookline Village Bookshop, Jan., '98.

Full text of the fables. There are several illustrations per book. Most are smaller replications of Grandville; I believe that one can generally start to catch the difference from Grandville by watching how much is included around the edges. Grandville's larger scenes included more detail. Six of the illustrations are simply different from Grandville's: LM (II 12), "The Ass and the Dog" (IV 5), "The Doctors" (V 12), MM (VII 10), "The Cobbler and the Financier" (VIII 2), and "The Old Man and the Three Young Men" (XI 8). On some I cannot find Staal's signature. All but two of these (IV 5 and V 12) are signed, sometimes along with Staal, by an "Emouard." There is an AI at the back.

1910? Fables de La Fontaine. M. Félix LeMaistre. Édition illustrée de gravures sur bois d'après les dessins de Staal. Hardbound. Paris: Garnier Frères, Libraires. $25 from John Baxter, April, '04. 

This book is a virtual replica of another that I have listed under the same date and publisher. This copy has the original red leather with raised bands and gilt spine lettering and decoration. On the front cover is the crest of the Lycée de Chateauroux. The printer's acknowledgement at the bottom of the final page has changed from "Paris.--A. Quantin et Cie, Imprimeur, 7, rue Saint-Benoit. [1053]" to "Paris.--Maison Quantin, 7, rue Saint-Benoit." My comments there follow. Full text of the fables. There are several illustrations per book. Most are smaller replications of Grandville; I believe that one can generally start to catch the difference from Grandville by watching how much is included around the edges. Grandville's larger scenes included more detail. Six of the illustrations are simply different from Grandville's: LM (II 12), "The Ass and the Dog" (IV 5), "The Doctors" (V 12), MM (VII 10), "The Cobbler and the Financier" (VIII 2), and "The Old Man and the Three Young Men" (XI 8). On some I cannot find Staal's signature. All but two of these (IV 5 and V 12) are signed, sometimes along with Staal, by an "Emouard." There is an AI at the back.

1910? Fables de La Fontaine. Édition revue pour la jeunesse. Illustrations by Carton Moore Park, unacknowledged. Paris: Nelson, Éditeurs. $10 from Book Discoveries, Nashville, April, '96.

The eight colored illustrations are a chief attraction of this book. See La Fontaine's Fables: A Selection from Nelson in 1905 for larger versions of these illustrations and Selected Fables from LaFontaine (1905?). Six of the eight illustrations in the latter coincide with this book's illustrations; LS (32) and "The Shepherd and the Sea" (72) are the two here not found there. The clue for finding the parallel set of illustrations was the weeping of the fox in the frontispiece! There is a list of the illustrations on 15. I would not have known that Nelson was also in Paris. There is an AI on 5.

1910? Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrations de Vimar. Hardbound. Printed in France. Tours: Maison Alfred Mame et Fils. $9.99 from Bill and Judy Cartmel, Lewiston, Maine, through Ebay, Sept., '00.

I can find no discrepancy between this book and Bodemann #376.1. Bodemann dates to about 1910 her "leicht veränderter Nachdruck" of the first edition of 1897. For all I can ascertain, this could even be the 1897 original printing. As she points out, there are 54 half-page illustrations, which I believe are photoengravings. Among the best of these are "The Rat and the Oyster" (241), "The Bear and the Gardener" (242), and "The Fox and the Turkeys" (387). In addition, there are 94 line drawings in various formats. I prefer these to the photoengravings. Among the best are these: "Death and the Woodman" (42), "The Lion and the Gnat" (62), WC (95), "The Wolf and the Hunter" (271), "The Mice and the Screech Owl" (351), and "The Cat and the Two Sparrows" (359). Vimar's foxes, wolves, and monkeys either laughing or in pain are particularly strong and engaging. Many of his endpieces are good fun. Thus a beetle wields a sledge-hammer against the eagle's eggs on 60. One can contrast the two methods dealing with one fable on 150-51. This book is in good condition. I consider myself extremely lucky to have found this book, and just as lucky to have found it for this price!

1910? Fables de la Fontaine, Album No. 2. Canvas spine. "Imagerie Nouvelle." Imagerie de Pont-à-Mousson, Marcel Vagné et ses Fils, Imprimeurs-Éditeurs. 250 Francs from Brancion Flea Market, Paris, August, '99.

This oversized book that staples together twenty posters seems to me to be a poor man's Pellerin. Each "Planche" is numbered, from 21 through 40. There is a good deal of crayoning evident in the book, on the backs of some pages and even on the front. By comparison with the work of Pellerin and Quantin, the designs are simple, even rudimentary. TB (Planche No 25) presents a scene that could not have happened, with the bear just behind one running man while the other stands nearby and looks on. (A tear in this page has been repaired.) One of the best images is wisely taken for the cover: "L'Enfant et le Maitre d'École" (Planche No 28). The killing-of-the-chicken scene on the following poster is humorous. It gives "Le Chat, le Cochet et le Souriceau" (Planche No 30) new meaning to dress the animals up and to give the cat a dish full of bonbons! Another of the book's best images is that of the old cat lying on the top shelf of a cupboard, while rat-children climb up onto the cupboard and an old rat with glasses looks at us and points to what is happening (Planche No 35). A fine addition to "L'Ours et l'Amateur des Jardins" (Planche No 36) is their formal photograph together! This book is in fair condition at best.

1910? Fables et Oeuvres Diverses de J. La Fontaine. Avec des notes et une nouvelle notice sur sa vie par C. A. Walckenaer. Inscribed in 1927. Paris: Firmin-Didot et Cie. $10 from Carl Sandler Berkowitz, June, '91.

Standard straightforward small-sized edition of the fables with helpful notes, followed by 120 pages of selected poems, letters, epigrams, and translations. There is a table of acknowledged sources and AI (by book and number) at the end. Originally sold in Geneva.

1910? Fables for the Little Ones. Hardbound. NY: Fairy Tale Series 0906: Charles E. Graham & Co. $24 from Irene Goodrich, Honeoye Falls, NY, through eBay, March, '04. 

This book is closely related to a volume published by The Hayes Lithographing Company, which I have listed under "1910?" That book is portrait formatted, while this has an unusual layout to its landscape pages. The longer title in that book fits the contents of this book as well: Fables for the Little Ones, Illustrated with Six Colored Pictures and Black and White Illustrations. The books include, in the same order, the same six chromolithographed pictures, alas, not well printed here: "The Fox and the Hunters," "The Two Fellows and the Bear," WL, FC, LS, and WC. The other stories (with the same names here as there) and their illustrations are here as well, including a new favorite of mine: "The Fox As a Hermit." When the wood-folk treat him as a saint, he preaches "Mundus vult decipi," and the people proclaim "'Tis Latin, we are blest." The binding is deteriorating.

1910? Fables for the Little Ones, Illustrated with Six Colored Pictures and Black and White Illustrations. Hardbound. Buffalo, NY: The Hayes Lithographing Co. $13 from Barbara Pio, Plymouth Meeting, PA, through eBay, Feb., '04. 

The chromolithography here is excellent! I have seen these six colored illustrations in other books--perhaps larger and later? They are "The Fox and the Hunters," "The Two Fellows and the Bear," WL, FC, LS, and WC. Curiously, the names used in the pictures and above the texts frequently differ. Thus the last illustration is labelled "The Wolf and the Crane," but its story is titled "The Wolf and the Stork." I am not sure whether I have ever before seen "The Fox As a Hermit." When the wood-folk treat him as a saint, he preaches "Mundus vult decipi," and the people proclaim "'Tis Latin, we are blest." Inscribed at Christmas, 1911.

1910? Fables: La Fontaine, Florian. Canvas spine. Apparent series title: "Imagerie Pellerin, Imagerie d'Épinal." Épinal: Pellerin. 500 Francs from Paris, July, '98.

Twenty posters (15½" x 11½") of wildly varying quality are here stapled together with a canvas spine around the staples. The front cover features a central cross of animals carrying each of the letters of "Fables" and at the four corners vignettes of dressed animals generally performing human actions. The back cover crowds in five more fables and illustrations, for those who have not had enough yet! Some illustrations inside this book are well conceived and very nicely executed, like the first: "Le Lièvre & les Grenouilles." Here the hare has become a soldier, and by the end of the poster, he is ready to execute a pleading frog. In others, like the second ("Le Chat & le Renard"), the art is primitive. This poster adds pictures of cats and foxes in other scenes beyond the fable and adds a picture and some information on La Fontaine. Some, like "Le Chat & un vieux Rat" near the end of the book, suffer from overly busy scenes and indistinct printing. Each poster is numbered either between 400 and 455 or between 3007 and 3088. Some have a cartoon-like quality, e.g., "Le Chat, la Belette & le petit Lapin" (#455). True to the cartoon medium, the story finishes in violence. Among the best realized is the six-cartoon series "Le Lion & l'Ane chassant" (#3025); here human dress, expression, and gesture come together well. I can make out the signature "A. Chauffour" on "Les deux Mulets" (#3056). Enjoy watching BF (#3061) as one bird kicks another's bottom!

1910? Fables of Aesop and other Eminent Mythologists with Morals and Reflexions. By Sir Roger L'Estrange, Kt. The Third Edition Corrected and Amended. London: R. Sare, B. Took, M. Gillyflower, A. & J. Churchil, G. Sawbridge, and H. Hindmarsh; Reprinted and Published by W.H. Allen and Co. See 1699/1910?

1910? Fables of Aesop and other Eminent Mythologists with Morals and Reflexions. By Sir Roger L'Estrange, Kt. The Third Edition Corrected and Amended. London: R. Sare, B. Took, M. Gillyflower, A. & J. Churchil, G. Sawbridge, and H. Hindmarsh; Reprinted and Published by John Gray and Co. See 1699/1910?

1910? Fables without – Facts within. Advertising booklet distributed by Tillmann & Bendel. $6 from Barense, Foster City, Feb., '97.

I wondered for some time whether this little four-page, one-staple, two-story, two-picture, one-fable pamphlet belongs among the books or in the advertising section. The first story is "The Bird-Catcher and the Serpent" (Perry 115) told in standard fashion. The second story is "The Magic Horse." The covers have nicely colored illustrations, in which the actors are children. "As regards anything in the line of food products—remember that if it's Tillmann's it's good."

1910? Fireside Fables and Indoor Walks. By E. Walter Walters. With Twelve Full-page Colored Illustrations by A.E. Hardbound. Printed in Norwich, England. London: J.W. Butcher. £ 9.53 from Abbey Antiquarian Books, Winchcombe, July, '98.

This children's book is divided into two sections according to the title, with eight fireside fables in the first section and four indoor walks in the second. There is a colored illustration for each of the stories. I read the first two. They are similar in pattern. In the first, two lumps of coal are complaining to each other that they have been reduced to kitchen duty. In the midst of their complaining, the steam kettle mentions that the water being heated is for tea for Her Royal Highness. After the cook pours some of the kettle's hot water into the best teapot, a face forms out of the steam of the kettle and confirms that they have the rare privilege of serving royalty. The coal lumps are proud of what they have done. The face chides them for fretting earlier about their unfortunate position--but they by their grumbling they have burnt themselves so low that they are now unable to speak. In the second story, a smoke fairy chides fireplace implements for thinking too much about themselves and being unhappy as a result. I could not take any more!

1910? Les Fables de La Fontaine. Choisies et recueillies pour les enfants par Kathleen FitzGerald. Illustrées par T.C. Derrick. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs. Pre-title page has "The Alden Press: Letchworth, England." $20 from Titles, Chicago, June, '88.

The most curious thing about this beautiful little book is its international sources: American, English, French. It is in a small format, and has only sixty pages. The colored pictures are excellent; the best is of the raven and fox on 13. Good etchings, too.

1910? Les Fables de La Fontaine. Choisies et recueillies pour les enfants par Kathleen FitzGerald. Illustrées par T.C. Derrick. London: Siegle, Hill et Cie. Pre-title page has "The Alden Press: Letchworth, England." DM 30 from Antiquariat Stenderhoff, Münster, June, '96.

After the cover, this book is exactly the same as the edition I have from the American publisher George Jacobs (also found under "1910?"), right down to the last page of advertisements for FitzGerald's other books. This cover is light brown and includes the same tipped-in cover picture of LaFontaine with children gathered in his storyteller's embrace. I guess at 1910 as the date for the book because Derrick in several illustrations adds "1910" to his "D" signature. See my comments on the Jacobs edition.

1910? New Light Through Old Windows: A Series of Stories Illustrating Fables of Aesop. By Gregson Gow. Hardbound. London: Blackie & Son. $34 from Alibris, Sept., '01.

I enjoy this book more than I thought I would. It contains eight stories of about thirty pages each, with each concretizing the fable announced in its title. I read the first two: "The Cock and the Jewel, or Amos Doon's Nugget" and "The Jackdaw in Borrowed Feathers, or the Vicar's Little Treat." They are decidedly juvenile literature, but these two stories do what they set out to do. In the first, a moderately prosperous grower in Australia sets off for the gold fields and actually finds a great nugget--but does not find what he wants. In the second, a case of cheating leads to a very embarrassing moment. There are three illustrations, listed on the verso of the T of C at the front of the book. At the rear, there are thirty-two pages of Blackie advertisements.

1910? Old Gold: A Book of Fables and Parables. Edited by Stephen Southwold. The Kings Treasuries of Literature. NY: E.P. Dutton and Company/London: J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd. $7.50 through Bibliofind from Richard Owen Roberts Booksellers, Wheaton, IL, August, '97.

A compact little book presenting ninety-five Aesopic fables and twenty-six of Jesus' parables cleanly and simply. The fable selection includes La Fontaine, Krylov's "The Monkey and the Spectacles," and one fable new to me, "The Two Peasants and the Cloud." (After heated argument between the two peasants over whether hail or rain is coming, the cloud simply blows away.) There are several nondescript designs along the way, the four full-page illustrations and the frontispiece having been done by an "M. Board." Besides an introduction and T of C at the beginning, one finds a note by the editor and twenty-four quiz-questions at the end. There are no morals given; the editor gives a very sensible reason on 122: "in the few instances where they are not obvious, the task of supplying them would make a pleasant exercise for the children for whom the book is intended."

1910? Reineke Fuchs: Neue, freie Bearbeitung für das deutsche Haus. Von Jul. R. Haarhaus. Bilder von K. Wagner. Boxed. Hardbound. Stuttgart: Anton Hoffmann Verlag. €25 from Antiquariat Goethe & Co., Heidelberg, August, '06.

I remember this book as one I found on an excruciatingly hot day in Heidelberg as I went from one hot used book shop to another. I hesitated, since Renard is not the precise focus of this collection, and the man in the shop practised great salesmanship by encouraging me to take the book. I am happy that he did. This book has outstanding colored illustrations tipped in: eight of them, by my count. Perhaps the best of them presents the courtly ball (90). I notice the fox-cubs' toy on 101: a roll-around chicken! There are also frequent black-and-white engravings along the way. "Reineke" is presented here in rhyming couplets. Boxed. Place-marking ribbon. Inscribed in 1914. This copy once belonged to the Realgymnasium in Weinheim.

1910? Reynard the Fox Profusely Illustrated. Edited by Charles Walter Brown. Illustrated by Ernst Griset et al (NA). Canvas-bound. Printed in Chicago. Tom Thumb Series. Chicago: M.A. Donohue & Co. $20 from Bertram & Williams, Booksellers, Williamsburg, VA, August, '00.

I have tried to put a few representative versions of Reynard in the collection. This well-worn canvas-bound book represents a popular children's format nicely. It contains serious text and copious illustration. The illustrations are on almost every page of the first thirteen, then on about every second page, and then about every third page. The psychology behind this picture-placement would be interesting to discuss! One of the illustrators is Ernst Griset; sometimes one can make out his name or initials. Several other illustration styles are present. The cover shows a fine colored illustration of Reynard in a monk's garb speaking with a sword-bearing rooster in the presence of several hens. On the back cover is a simple line-drawing in green of a girl reading a book.

1910? Sheldon and Co's Modern School Third Reader. Title page missing. $2 from the Antique Mall, Iowa City, April, '93.

Two fables find their way into this little book: "The Lark and Her Young" (47) and "Trying to Please Everybody" (MSA, 73). The latter has a distinctive and lively illustration. This book is in terrible condition: one missing and many torn pages, foxing, a weak binding, and coloring all help to keep its value down! There are strong engravings of children in this book. Some child has written on 238: "Do let me sleep"! The binding now exposed shows a fascinating use of a small iron bar, heavy mesh, and nails.

1910? The Fables of Aesop (?). (Based on the Texts of L'Estrange and Croxall.) Title-page missing. Introduction by J.W.M. Illustrations after Billinghurst. T.Y. Crowell & Co. Gift of Susan Brown of Thetford Center, VT, Oct., '95.

The text plates for this small edition are identical, even including pagination, with those in both editions of The Fables of Aesop (1930?), though this edition adds seven illustrations after Billinghurst and has smaller margins. As there, the fables are listed alphabetically on xi. This edition is inscribed in 1913 to Max Mitchell Ferguson from his mother. The endpapers also contain some fascinating scribblings about who is marrying whom. The cover has a pleasing presentation of BF in three colors. Five of the seven illustrations (frontispiece, 31, 48, 116, 170, 202, and 220) are of fox fables.

1910? The Fables of Aesop Selected and Told Anew. By Joseph Jacobs. Done into Pictures by Richard Heighway and Others. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Boston: The Favorite Library: DeWolfe, Fiske & Co. $4.25 from newton19620, N. Ridgeville, OH, through eBay, March, '09. Extra copy for with fragile spine and loose pages for $6.99 from C. Smith, Oneonta, NY, through eBay, Dec., '03.

Here is yet another reprinting of Jacobs and Heighway. This book (5¼" x 6¾") adds several features that I think I have not yet found in a Jacobs/Heighway edition. First it uses the curious phrase "Profusely Illustrated" on the cover but nowhere else. Second, it is in a series "The Favorite Library"; the list of books in this library is presented on the verso of the title-page. Third, this edition includes nothing else in addition to the fables, which start on the next page with "The Jay and the Peacock" and end on 176 with "And this is the end of Aesop's Fables. Hurrah!" Thus there are no introductory essays, and there is neither T of C nor AI. Fourth, this edition includes four lovely colored pictures that I have seen before as a set, but not--I believe--in a Jacobs/Heighway edition. These are: WL (frontispiece); WC (16); TB (65); and FC (80). I believe that I have seen them before in larger format. Fifth, I am not sure that I have ever seen an edition whose title-page mentions pictures "by Richard Heighway and Others." Heighway's black-and-white illustrations are well done here.

1910? The Fables of Pilpay. Revised edition. With illustrations. The Chandos Classics. London: Frederick Warne and Co. $15 at Ten Editions, Toronto, Dec., '93. Extra copy lacking outside spine for $10 from Richard Barnes, Evanston, Oct., '94.

This book uses the plates of the 1872 Hurd and Houghton/Riverside edition. Now the title page design is not colored. "With illustrations" is new on the title page. The margins are broader. See my comments on the text there. Pages 65-66 and 101-4 of the Ten Editions copy are torn. Many of the pages of the book were uncut when I found it. The extra copy has a weak spine and some foxing on the early and late pages; it lacks the advertisements at the end but has an indication of the printer facing the title page.

1910? The Fables of Pilpay. Hardbound. London: Frederick Warne. £8.50 from Richard Smith, Covent Garden, London, May, '97.

This book is almost identical with Warne's "Chandos Classics" for which I have guessed a date of 1910. One can see that the plates are the same by noting the places where the numbers are least clear in the two early T of C elements, "General Heads" and "Contents." One big difference here lies in the much larger margins in this larger-formatted book. A second difference is that this book has no connection with the "Chandos Classics" series. The cover here includes a gold embossed title. The spine is lacking. The last page of this volume has no printer information underneath "The End." There are here no following advertisements, as in the Chandos Classics copy. Like the Chandos copy, this book uses the plates of the 1872 Hurd and Houghton/Riverside edition.

1910? The Fox and the Grapes and Other Tiny Tales. One-staple binding. Fairy Gold Series No. 3. Printed in England. London: J.M. Dent & Sons Limited. $3.99 from Sue Alexander, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada, through Ebay, Oct., '01.

This edition starts with one of the longest versions of FG I have seen. Each of ten fables gets at least one full-page illustration. The illustrations have either one color or two, blending red with either black or brown. Strongest among the illustrations may be those for SW (13, 15) or for FS (22, 23). In the illustration for CP, the crow seems to be perching on the edge not of a pitcher but of a mountain! Did the publisher perhaps steal an illustration from some other book? The other stories are WL, BF, DM, "Mercury and the Woodman" (also on the cover and in the frontispiece), LM, and FK. The spine is weak, and the covers are coming loose. The art in this booklet is much better than I thought it would be. What a deal!

1910? The Heath Readers: First Reader. No author or editor acknowledged; no title page. The first sixty-six pages are missing. Boston: D.C. Heath and Co. $1 at Anthony's in Minneapolis, July, '89.

Some of the illustrations are colored in, and there is significant discoloration from paint or mud. The book closes with three fables: "The Birds and the Frog" (traditionally TT), "The Bee and the Dove" (Aesop's AD), and SW, which makes the mistake of having the characters decide to "make him take his coat off."

1910? Three Hundred Aesop's Fables/One Hundred Picture Fables (Cover: Aesop's Fables: Colored Illustrations). Rev. Geo. Tyler (sic) Townsend/Otto Speckter (sic). Harrison Weir/Otto Speckter. Hardbound. Philadelphia: David McKay. See "1885?/1910?"

1910? 101 Neue Fabeln. Herausgegeben von Frida Schanz. Illustriert von Fedor Flinzer. Sixth edition. Hardbound. Berlin: Globus Verlag. $25 from Antique Enterprises, Detroit, through abe, Sept., '98.

This book belongs in Bodemann #369. She lists only the first, third, and fifth editions. This is the sixth. By comparison with my apparent first edition (under "1888?"), this is a larger book (9" x 11½"). It happens to be in much better condition. It lacks the embossed seal of the old publisher, which was on the back cover of the first edition. The publisher has changed from Ambrosius Abel in Leipzig to Globus Verlag in Berlin. Let me quote some of my comments there. A long list of fellow authors appears on the title-page, including Julius Sturm and Johannes Trojan. The authors are noted both in the beginning T of C and at the end of each individual fable. Perhaps the cleverest illustration is that of the dog smoking a cigarette (26). I have read most of the first fifteen fables. Many are rather predictable. Several strike me as engagingly clever. The shark, e.g., laughs at the ostrich for eating stones, and then dives down to eat shoes, nails, and half of a sail (6). A caterpillar's idea of mind-expanding travel is to eat the next branch clean (16)! One fable from Sturm presents a mouse in winter begging a hamster for something to eat. The answer is "Not today. Ask again tomorrow." The mouse dies before tomorrow can come. A suicidal nightingale laments the loss of light (19), and a glow-worm answers "I will illumine you." I took notes on those stories which I read while waiting in a doctor's office. I have included those notes in the first edition of the book.

1910?/29? Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrations de Vimar. Hardbound. Printed in France. Tours: Maison Alfred Mame et Fils. $27 from Alibris, Jan., '01.

This book seems very close to the edition I have listed under "1910?" and which Bodemann lists as #376.1. It has a plain binding, not the colored picture of the frontispiece that one finds on that copy. On the pre-title-page, one reads not "Série 11" but "Série 11a"--though below both is "No 1115." The bottom of 399 there had "40245. -- Tours, impr. Mame." Here one reads rather "42232. -- 1929. -- Tours, impr. Mame." Between those differences, everything seems the same. See my comments there. Many pages are poorly cut. The spine is disintegrating.

1910/29? Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrations de Vimar. Hardbound. Tours: Maison Alfred Mame et Fils. $24.99 from Kenyon Cadwalder Books, Naugatuck CT, through eBay, Sept., '05. 

This book seems to be a hybrid of two items I have listed under "1910?" and "1910?/1929?".  It has all the features of the latter but adds a colored front cover illustration of various animals arranged around a bust of La Fontaine. I will repeat comments from both of those editions. Bodemann lists the 1910 edition as #376.1. As in the latter edition, on the pre-title-page, one reads not "Série 11" but "Série 11a"--though below both is "No 1115." The bottom of 399 in the earlier edition had "40245. -- Tours, impr. Mame." Here as in the other edition of "1929?" one reads rather "42232. -- 1929. -- Tours, impr. Mame." As Bodemann points out, there are 54 half-page illustrations, which I believe are photoengravings. Among the best of these are "The Rat and the Oyster" (241), "The Bear and the Gardener" (242), and "The Fox and the Turkeys" (387). In addition, there are 94 line drawings in various formats. I prefer these to the photoengravings. Among the best are these: "Death and the Woodman" (42), "The Lion and the Gnat" (62), WC (95), "The Wolf and the Hunter" (271), "The Mice and the Screech Owl" (351), and "The Cat and the Two Sparrows" (359). Vimar's foxes, wolves, and monkeys either laughing or in pain are particularly strong and engaging. Many of his endpieces are good fun. Thus a beetle wields a sledge-hammer against the eagle's eggs on 60. One can contrast the two methods dealing with one fable on 150-51. This copy has gilt page-edges on three sides.

1910?/65 Aesop's Fables Profusely Illustrated. Hardbound. Cleveland/NY: The World Publishing Co. $6 from Adams Avenue Book Store, San Diego, Jan., '01.

This book is almost a facsimile of the edition I have listed under "1910?" from the World Syndicate Publishing Company. The division of material per page seems exactly the same, but the typeface is different. Occasionally, a careful eye can see that the words are not exactly aligned as they were in the original book. I found this book by chance in the first store I located on a short expedition during a convention break. Its surprising feature is that the face of Abraham Lincoln is wrapped around the covers and spine. I have no notion what Abe Lincoln has to do with fables. Is he meant perhaps to represent traditional wisdom? In contrast to that earlier edition, this one drops the early AI. Neither has anything following 181. The surprises never end!

1911 Aesop at College. By George Fullerton Evans. Illustrations by Frederick Noble Evans. Boston: Smith. $15 at Goodspeed's, March, '89.

Forty fables, as the cover advertises. Though they are of varying quality, some are quite witty. Many, like TMCM and "The Sheep in Wolf's Clothing," are played against the traditional grain, as in Ambrose Bierce's work. The best of the stories are "The Grasshoppers and the Ass," "The Ass and the Little Dog," "The Mischievous Dog," FG, and "The Fox and the Goat." The best illustration is of the goose on 17.

1911 Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by E. Boyd Smith. First edition. NY: Century. $10 at Renaissance Airport Store, Feb., '88.

A wonderful find! A nice title page illustration starts the book, and pleasant soft green borders remain throughout. There are 200 fables, indexed alphabetically at the front. The best illustrations include MM (15), AD (61), FM (89), the horse and the loaded ass (127), and the mice in council (149).  As far as I can tell, this edition uses Rev. Thomas James' texts throughout; his first edition is listed in 1848.

1911 Aesop's Fables. Edited by W.T. Stead. Paperbound. Boston, MA: The Palmer Company. $25 from Marsha Komarnicki, through eBay, Oct., '02. 

This book occurs at a fascinating point in publishing history. Stead's name in England is connected with "Books for the Bairns." What I have seen of this series indicates that it follows a format of dividing every printed page between text in one vertical column and a series of two to four small illustrations in the other column. That is exactly the format of this book. I do not know what relation this pamphlet thus bears to the two series of fables in "Books for the Bairns." The cover here is only heavy paper, but it seems more substantial than what I remember on the "Books for the Bairns" series. Notice the reference to New York in TMCM (21). This booklet uses promythia well to articulate the point of the fables. And there is definitely a charm in the series of small pictures presented here. An excellent example is CW on 39. Successive scenes show the man attending to the cat, looking down in front of a woman, marrying her, and then watching her crawl after a mouse. The woodsman actually kicks the amorous lion in the buttocks after he has been declawed (44). FM (52) and GGE (60) offer other excellent synoptic series of illustrations. Are the illustrations perhaps by or after Brinsley le Fanu? There is a T of C at the front.

1911 Aesops Fables (sic; inside title: The Fables of Aesop). Advertising pamphlet. Printed in Toledo, OH. Toledo: The Bour Company. $9.50 from Stephen Szanto, Bainbridge Township, OH, through Ebay, Jan., '01. Extra copy for $3.99 from Darrell and Jule Rider, Kokomo, IN, through Ebay, May, '00.

This is a ten-page pamphlet, 4½" x 6", with "The Cunning Fox" on the cover with a gallows. On the cover, the Bour Company advertise themselves as "Master Makers of Coffee," and on the title-page they are also the packers of Royal Garden Tea. There are seventeen Aesopic and one "modern" fable, the latter a blatant advertisement, along with eight fable illustrations inside the book, all in black-and-white. The second story is of "The Cunning Fox" who actually gets hanged on that gallows! LS, WSC, and DLS are clearly from Jacobs. FC is very similar to Arnrid Johnston's version in 1944. The old master on the Bour can stares out from the middle pair of pages; on the back cover he is presented as "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." In the second copy several pages, including this back cover, are heavily crayoned. The first is torn and fragile. I delight in gathering fable ephemera like this piece.

1911 Children's Classics in Dramatic Form. Book One. Augusta Stevenson. Illustrated by Clara E. Atwood. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. $5 from Florence Shay at Titles, Highland Park, August, ’96.

Check the 1909 Book Two and the 1908 Book Three of the same series. Here eleven of the twenty-four stories are acknowledged as fables. There are twenty-two simple illustrations. Some things are different here. The hare asks the tortoise for a race (5). The lion and his mate discuss and execute a common strategy in "The Tracks to the Den" (44). The sky is the mother of both moon and stars (49). "The Clever Cock" (55) is new to me in this form, where the cock above gets the foxes beneath to wake up the dog by imitating church bells. In "The Fairy and the Cat" (69), the fairy changes the cat into a little girl to be a playmate for the princess. The book belonged to the Ashland, WI, board of education and was returned to them once in 1927 in fair condition. Many of the pages are slightly torn.

1911 Die Fabeln des Jean de LaFontaine. Ins Deutsche Übertragen von Theodor Etzel. Mit Reproduktionen nach den Küpfern von J.B. Oudry. #382 of 1000. Munich: Georg Mueller. $25 at Bookworks, Chicago, Sept., '91.

A magnificently preserved book. Eighty-two fables done in nicely rhyming German, with about thirty small reproductions of Oudry interspersed. T of C at rear.

1911 House of Play. Verses-Rhymes-Stories For Young Folks. Selected by Sara Tawney Lefferts. Illustrations by Florence England Nosworthy. NY: Cupples and Leon Company. $4.95 at Finders Keepers, Omaha, April, '93.

This book has its cover missing; it has been hacked up, colored, and water-stained. It is not in good shape! It includes four fables: Emerson's "Fable" (6) featuring the mountain and squirrel; TMCM (16) with a full-page gray illustration accompanying a version that includes the "ant" image for country life, interruptions by a man and a maid, and flight into a crack and a hole; GA (50) in verse, following LaFontaine's version; and BC (eight pages from the end). I rescued this book during a "going out of business" sale.

1911 In Fableland. By Emma Serl. Illustrated by Harry E. Wood. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company. $15 at the Book Gallery, El Paso, August, '96. Extra copies as a gift from Dianne Mosbacher, Jan., '98, for $6 at Gallagher's Gizmos, New Orleans, Dec., '92 and for $12 from Walk a Crooked Mile Books, Sept., '92.

A delightful little book, found twice in a few months after years of never seeing it. I am keeping two copies in the collection. The first is the cleanest by far. How nice to have found something in El Paso! The Gallagher copy has delightful coloring, almost certainly not from the publisher, in tones of beige and lime; it also has many torn pages and much foxing. The Mosbacher copy has its endpapers reversed; it comes from the Antioch School. The Walk a Crooked Mile copy is missing the back endpaper and has some crayoning. I like Wood's illustrations, for example of the fox leaving the goat in the well (71), the city mouse with its nose up in the air (82), and the cat getting chestnuts from the outdoors fire (155). They remind me of Harry Rountree's work. The animals all have names here, and there is a good deal of interaction between them, sometimes in order to tie stories together. Thirty-four fables. Some stories are expanded, e.g., FG (35) and "The Lion's Share" (39). There are several fables here from fabulists other than Aesop: "The Hare and Her Friends" (30), "The Blue Wolf" (109), and "The Lion and the Echo" (160, new to me). The hare has never seen a tortoise before (130). There is a surprising addition to "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing": the shepherd sees two of his sheep, but one of them is eating the other (146)! The cat and monkey drop the chestnuts into the coals (153). The morals are often announced, especially by the fox, within the story, sometimes without much provocation.

1911 Luthers Fabeln. Nach seiner Handschrift und den Drucken neubearbeitet von Eernst Thiele. Paperbound. Zweite Auflage. Halle a S.: Neudrucke deutscher Litteraturwerke des XVI. Und XVII. Jahhunderts #76: Verlag von Max Niemeyer. DM 12 from Antiquariat Carl Wegner, Berlin, August, '97.

This is a disintegrating paperbound booklet of 42 pages. The cover has already come loose. It seems to me that most of what Thiele does here is included in Dithmar's edition of 1989, redone by the Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft in 1995. Thiele begins with some history of Luther's involvement with fable, turns then to Luther's sources and gives Steinhöwel's Latin and German for the appropriate fables taken up by Luther. Further sections then offer critical texts of Luther's manuscripts and the resulting simple text of what Luther wrote. An appendix offers further instances of Luther using fables. Thiele points out at the beginning of the booklet that he has shaped this second edition of his work especially for work in student seminars. Dithmar includes Thiele in his bibliography and points out that the first edition of this work came out in 1888.

1911 Reading-Literature: First Reader. Adapted and Graded by Harriette Taylor Treadwell and Margaret Free. Illustrated by Frederick Richardson. Chicago: Row, Peterson & Company. $6.60 at Georgetown Books, Bethesda, April, '97.

See my copy of the second reader in the same series (1912). As there, so here Richardson does excellent three-color illustrations throughout. The book is in surprisingly good condition. Two fables are presented as folk tales, Swedish and Norse respectively. "The Boy and the Fox" (49) is built on the pattern of MM; here the boy shouts and awakens a fox. He had already killed this fox in his mind and sold the fur and planted rye, and people admire his field so much that they are intruding in it…. TMCM (57) centers around a pair of Christmas visits. After a woman disturbs the mice in the city, a cat enters and catches the country mouse by the tail. Luckily, the cat is frightened by a banging door and lets go of the mouse.

1911 Reading with Expression: First Reader. By James Baldwin and Ida C. Bender. NY: American Book Company. $6 from Time Traveller, June, '93.

Again I find an American Book Company reader in unusually good condition and with unusually good color printing. There are two fables here: "The Wolf and the Kid" (74-5) and LM (82-3). The format is unusual. A first page offers an introduction, a picture (colored on 82), a dialogue, and some individual vocabulary. The second page gives a text of the fable. LM breaks off at the end of the first episode to resume on 88-89. This version has the unusual feature of having the mouse see the black man setting the net. After the mouse comes to the roaring lion, the story breaks off with these questions: "How did the mouse help the lion? Did the lion try to bite the mouse? Who can roar like a lion?"

1911 Reading with Expression: Second Reader. By James Baldwin and Ida C. Bender. NA. Hardbound. NY: American Book Company. $10 from Beck's Antiques & Books, Fredericksburg, VA, Dec., '98.

The collection has had the first and third readers in this series, and now it has the second. I find just one fable: FS (109) including a full-page colored picture. The male fox's dinner provokes the female crane's breakfast invitation for the next day. The story begins by presenting the two as "very good friends." The story's first move is to have the two compliment each other. The book is in good condition.

1911 Reading with Expression: Third Reader. By James Baldwin and Ida C. Bender. NY: American Book Company. $15 from Drusilla, Baltimore, May, '92. Extra copy for $2.75 in less good condition, with one different mark on the back of the title page, from Cameron's, Portland, July, '93.

A pleasant reader in very good condition, with varied, lively, distinct illustrations. Baldwin's work for American Book Company is well represented in my collection: I have School Reading by Grades for the first through the third grades (all 1897) and two editions of Fifty Famous Stories Retold (1896 and 1896/1924). This reader has a "Sheaf of Fables" (124) containing four specimens from Aesop, Segerstedt, and LaFontaine. The grasshopper comes, without meeting the ant again in winter, to the realization that it is best to lay up something for rainy days. A. Segerstedt and "The Little Plant" are new to me. "The Hunter and the Woodcutter" and "The Miser" have good illustrations. In the latter, the neighbors advise him to look at the hole, not at a rock which he should put into it. "The Panic of the Beasts" (84) is the story from India about the mistaken belief by the rabbit that the sky is falling when in fact only a dead branch falls. On 114 is a prose version of La Fontaine's "The Merry Shoemaker."

1911 Resawed Fables. By Douglas Malloch. Chicago: American Lumberman. $3.60 at The Prince and the Pauper, Aug., '94.

Here is a curiosity. This book seems to combine some harmless yarns spun with good talk, predictable morals, and lumber. The "good talk" is the stuff of after-dinner speeches, like this description of a man buried under 75,000 feet of boards: "When they got Mike out he looked like the Busy Part of a Railroad Collision" (21). I do not remember a fable book given to one area of life like dealing in lumber! I read the first five fables and got the idea. Would the lumbermen's association have given out copies of this book for Christmas?

1911 The Book of Knowledge: The Children's Encyclopedia. Volume XII. Editors-in-Chief Arthur Mee and Holland Thompson. Various artists. NY: Grolier. $4.00 at San Francisco Flea Market, Aug., '88.

Eight fables with old transfer-like illustrations on 3852-3. The illustrator of the delightful little vignettes is JF or something similar, unknown to me. A good book for an exhibit of traditional use of Aesop.

1911 The Riverside Readers: Third Reader. James H. Van Sickle and Wilhelmina Seegmiller. Illustrated by Ruth Mary Hallock. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. $2.50 at More Books, Omaha, Oct., '90.

This book includes one fable, "The Fox in the Well" (89), which I did not know previously. It is closest to "The Drowning Boy." A passing wolf asks all sorts of questions. The fox answers, "Get me out first, and I will tell you about it afterward." Good one-color pictures throughout. The book is in excellent condition.

1911 The Talking Beasts. Edited by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith. Illustrations by Harold Nelson. First edition? Inscribed 1911. Children's Crimson Classics. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, and Company. Gift of Wendy Wright from Seattle, July, '92.  Extra copy for $25 from Moe's, Berkeley, June 20, '01.

After I had searched for years, Wendy and I found this book at almost the same time: see my comments on the 1911/28 edition, particularly on the text. This book is a little treasure. As against the later edition, this edition has a gold-embossed cover and spine; smaller size because of the smaller margins; an acknowledgement before the title page of the Children's Crimson Classics series; Gay quoted on the title page; acknowledgements; seven illustrations; a list of illustrations; two colors added to the illustrations; and an advertisement at the end for the whole Crimson Classics Series. In this advertisement one learns that Wiggin and Smith are sisters. When compared with the black-and-white illustrations in the 1928 edition, the illustrations here show the power of adding two simple colors. The best of the illustrations are WL (facing 4), " Quartet " (220), and " The Woodman and Mercury " (302). Of the twelve sections, those on Aesop and LaFontaine receive sixty or seventy pages each, while the others average about thirty pages. Wiggin's introduction is historically surprisingly accurate. There is a typo on 128. The good copy is inscribed in 1911. The only difference I can find in the extra copy is that it adds "Talking Beasts" at the bottom of the reverse of the title-page.

1911 The Talking Beasts. Edited by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith. Illustrations by Harold Nelson, unacknowledged. Children's Crimson Series. Dust jacket. NY: Grosset & Dunlap. $8 at Book Discoveries, Nashville, April, '96. Extra copy with more tattered dust jacket for $18 by mail from Dianne Mosbacher, Jan., '98.

There are probably many things to learn about the background of this particular printing. Compare the book with my Doubleday, Page, and Company edition of the same year and with the Doubleday printing I have listed under 1911/28. This book is like the 1911 edition in size and in the almost identical series titles (here "Children's Crimson Series," there "Children's Crimson Classics"). This printing is closer in its art to the 1911/28 book. It drops the same illustrations, does not color any of the engravings, does not list Nelson's name except in the illustrations themselves, and gives no list of illustrations. A painting of "The Squirrel and the Horse" is on both the dust jacket and the frontispiece; it seems to be modeled on the engraving facing 340 in the Doubleday 1911 edition. I strongly suspect that this Grosset printing came in fact some years after 1911. See my comments about the fables and illustrations under the other two printings.

1911 Traditional Nursery Rhymes. With their Old Tunes and New Accompaniments. Collected by John Graham. Eleventh edition. London: J. Curwen and Sons Ltd. $1.90 at Glasgow Flea Market, July, '92.

#46 of this book of tunes is FG, set to the same tune as FM, presented earlier in the volume. The version is nice and clear, identifying the grapes as "fine ripe" and the fox's exertions as taking an hour. I begin to think that you can turn over almost any rock and find something of Aesop's under it!

1911/1922 The Talking Beasts. Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith. Harold Nelson. Hardbound. Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Co. $8.50 from Roberta Gammon, Rossvile, GA, through Ebay, August, '03.

Here is an earlier, but poorer, copy of a book I already have in its 1928 printing. See my comments there. The original for both was 1911. This book was published by Doubleday, Page & Company, whereas that was published by Doubleday, Doran & Company. Here the paper quality is poorer, and the book has been worn by usage. It has no dust jacket.

1911/28 The Talking Beasts. Edited by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith. Illustrations by Harold Nelson. Dust jacket. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, and Company. $12.50 at Logos in Santa Cruz, July, '92.

After I had searched for years, Wendy and I found this book at almost the same time: see my comments on the 1911 edition. This book is a little treasure. As against the earlier edition, this edition has the dust-jacket's picture also pasted on its cover; larger size because of its larger margins; Gay quoted two pages after the title page; and only five illustrations (dropped are those facing 302 and 340 of the first edition), done in black-and-white. The editions share common pagination and an AI of titles at the end. The tellings are generally very good; they show a storyteller's eye and ear. No separate morals are offered. The "Aesop" section wisely begins with "Demades." The stork among the cranes has broken his leg (31). New to me in "Aesop": "The Discontented Ass" (10), "The Falcon and the Capon" (43); "The Chameleon" (50); "The Eagle, Jackdaw, and Magpie" (52; the eagle gives the great rule, that the greater fool shall have precedence); "The Country-Fellow and the River" (57); and "The Spectacles" (60). The "Bidpai" section is told in very flowery language. "The Snake and the Sparrows" (65) uses fire, not a necklace. This section gives a new twist on FM (92): a crow lifts both aloft. Many stories in the "Bidpai" section are new to me. Particularly good are two from Yriarte: "The Bear, the Monkey, and the Pig" (342-3) and "The Duck and the Serpent" (345).

1911/81 Kalila und Dimna: Syrisch und Deutsch. Friedrich Schulthess. Die Altsyrische Version des Indischen Fürstenspiegels (Pantschatantra) oder Bidpai's Fabeln. Nebst Burzoes Einleitung zu dem Buche Kalila wa Dimna übersetzt und erläutert von Theodor Nöldeke. Amsterdam: APA-Philo Press. $8.95 at Powell's, Portland, March, '96.

Here is a big fat treasure to work with the next time I teach Kalila and Dimna. A cursory glance through the German translation surprises me only in that there are no big surprises in the early material. That is, the versions I have read seem to be quite close to the sources translated here. Note on the back of the first page the four other related reprints that this publisher makes available. I could not resist checking "Die hinterlistige Kupplerin" (16) to see if these sources present the earthy version that I enjoy--and they do!

1911? Aesop's Fables. Edited by W.T. Stead. Paperbound. London: Stead's Publishing House. £ 0.68 from Carlos Machado, Coimbra, Portugal, through eBay, July, '04.

Strange things happen when one delves into publishing history. This is a pamphlet of at least 62 pages, followed by four pages of advertisements. I could not find a match with any of the "Books for Bairns" volumes of Aesop's Fables, which were published first in the 1890's by "Review of Reviews" and then again in 1926 by Ernest Benn. This pamphlet seems nearly identical rather with a volume published in the US by the Palmer Company in 1911. There seem to be only two differences: the US copy makes reference to New York in TMCM (21), whereas there are no local references here. Secondly, this copy does not have a T of C at the front, though the pages before the title-page are currently lacking. Like that volume and the "Books for Bairns," this book follows a format of dividing every printed page between text in one vertical column and a series of two to four small illustrations in the other column. As I mention about the Palmer copy, there is definitely a charm in the series of small pictures presented here. An excellent example is CW on 39. Successive scenes show the man attending to the cat, looking down in front of a woman, marrying her, and then watching her crawl after a mouse. The woodsman actually kicks the amorous lion in the buttocks after he has been declawed (44). FM (52) and GGE (60) offer other excellent synoptic series of illustrations. This coverless pamphlet is well worn; the advertising pages are severed from the binding.

1912 Aesop and Hyssop. Being Fables Adapted and Original with the Morals Carefully Formulated. By William Ellery Leonard. No illustrations. First edition. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co. $30 at Old Children's Books, New Orleans, Dec., '92.

How nice to find a first edition of this favorite! I like this little book very much. There is more than a bit of whimsy in it, composed as it is (in verse) by its author in grief over having lost his wife or best friend. Besides some 175 Aesopic fables, there are some twenty-seven originals composed by Leonard. The versifying is part of the fun. Two sections of the "Dedication" help give perspective on this work. Speaking of Phaedrus, LaFontaine, and Gay, Leonard writes on iv:

and

and about Socrates in the preface on v:

I find his fables often ingenious and wonderfully pithy. FG moral (#29) is still a classic. Among my favorites in this careful '97 reading: #1, 12, 13, 46, 54, 56, 90 (a gem for pithiness!), 136, 140, 145, 147, 149, 152, and 184 (his original on the adoring squirrels). Some of Leonard's gift verges on trivializing or at least "matter of facting" what he reports. He tends to offer a kind of signature at the end of the narrative, marked by concrete details, a touch of the macabre, and a strong rhyme. #130 ("The Snapping Dog") offers a good example of Leonard's work, which will include a strong finish in the narrative bolstered by a good rhyme, with a moral that is often pithier than those in prose editions. I object to his frequent double subjects (e.g. in OF "The dame she swelled with furious puff," #139) but to little else here. Different: the heron wipes out the whole race of frogs (#16)! I need to check my first edition in Omaha to see what it does with the asterisked portions of #155, "The Cat and the Birds."

1912 Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by Charles Folkard. Preface (and translation?) by Gordon Home. First edition? London: Adam & Charles Black. $150 by mail from Old Friend, Portland, April, '96. Extra copy of the 1916 second printing for £40 at the Hotel Russell Book Fair, May, '97.

Expensive but worth it. The twelve colored and the thirteen black-and-white illustrations are wonderful! The best of the former include "The Blackamoor" (8), MSA (40), and "The Ass and the Little Dog" (160). Illustration and text work together well when the fox calls the grapes green which the colored frontispiece shows to be purple. For me the best of the black-and-white illustrations, unfortunately few as they are, are LM (77) and "The Man and the Gnat" (99). The simple illustration of the fox on 67 is duplicated on 88, 145, and 167. 194 fables; it would be fun to see which few fables of Croxall's Home left out. One story told in unusual fashion: the miser's money is stolen by a servant, and the neighbor tells the miser to look at the hole itself (2). There are generally separate morals in caps. There is an AI at the front, and a list of illustrations on xix-xx. Inscribed in 1915. There is a great cover-illustration embossed in gold for the title and for the crown of the new king of frogs. Not in Ashby, Hobbs, McKendrick, Quinnam, or my favorite private collector, but the illustrations are featured in Ash and Higton (cover/dust jacket, 35, and 63). Now in '97 I have done a careful analysis of the texts, which are almost always Croxall's narratives with the long applications dropped and excellent short morals attached. Home prefers to start fables with the indefinite article for the key character(s) where Croxall preferred the definite. Croxall's favorite "could not forbear" here frequently becomes "could not help." Not from Croxall are "The Ape and the Dolphin" (#9), "The Goatherd and the Shegoat" (#25), MSA (#33), and "A Boar Challenges an Ass" (#159). The last fable is entirely new to me. Home tends unfortunately to suppress Croxall's earthiest vocabulary, e.g., "guts" in "The Frogs and the Fighting Bulls" (#188). There are some few substantive departures from Croxall's stories. Thus "The Cat Woman" (#148) follows Jacobs' line of development, and even some phrasing, but is distinct in its timing of the key mouse-trick. "The Ape and the Fox" (#118) changes from "backside" to "back." Check "The Satyr and the Traveller" (#177) for a significant set of changes concerning venue and "The Owl and the Grasshopper" (#185) for the same concerning fiddling rather than singing. In "The Old Woman and her Maids" (#92), the ending is completely reworked. Check "The Fir and the Bramble" (#119) for three changes from Croxall and "Sheep's Clothing" (#121) for partial changes that do not succeed fully. The 1916 printing does not correct any of these possible errors.

1912 Aesop's Fables. A new translation by V.S. Vernon Jones with an introduction by G.K. Chesterton and illustrations by Arthur Rackham. First edition? London: William Heinemann/NY: Doubleday, Page, and Co. (the latter also acknowledged on the spine). $60 from Vintage Books, Framingham, at Silver Spring, Sept., '91. Extra copy of the 1919 impression a gift of the Zeidler Family of Los Gatos, Jan., '98.

T of C and list of illustrations. Both the colored and black-and-white illustrations are very well done. The colored illustrations come alive in this early edition, e.g., "The Crab and His Mother," "The Blackamoor," 2P, "Venus and the Cat," and "The Gnat and the Lion." I am thrilled at last to have a good edition of this overly reproduced book! Now in 1996 I have gone through the versions thoroughly. This book is plentiful, offering 284 fables. Jones seems to have developed his versions very largely by adopting James’ stories. This edition and at least some of my reprints have in "The Kid and the Wolf" on 152 a typo whereby the gods gave chase to the wolf, when clearly dogs is asked for by the story. Jones offers good versions, often supplying narrative connectives left out in ancient versions. He explicitates emotions helpful to understanding the events. He is faithful to the tradition. I do not find much variation from the Greek sources or much that looks like innovation. These texts are used in Yap Yong Cotterell’s The Illustrated Book of World Fables (1979), in Anno’s Aesop, and in the Penguin "Little 60s" series. The 1919 impression continues to use titled slipsheets for each full-page colored insert.

1912 Aesop's Fables. A New Translation by V.S. Vernon Jones. Illustrations by Arthur Rackham. Introduction by G.K. Chesterton. First edition. Suede covers. Hardbound. London/NY: London: William Heinemann/NY: Doubleday, Page, and Co. $127.49 from Lujomac, through eBay, March, '04. 

This book has a twofold claim to fame. First, it is a first edition of Rackham's Aesop's Fables. Thus the colored illustrations are thus very well done, and protected by slipsheets with the name of the illustration at the middle of the sheet. The second unusual feature of the book is the suede cover that surrounds the book. It is imprinted with the design on the cover of most editions, with animals in the four corners and designs of grapes and leaves beneath the top two animals, the lion and the bear. Underneath embossed gold printing is the central design that gathers a number of animals. Alas, the suede is just beginning to deteriorate. The end-papers inside are already in poor condition. The spine, which is hard to get a sense of with this cover, is weak, and pages are starting to separate. T of C and list of illustrations. Both the colored and black-and-white illustrations are very well done.

1912 Boys' and Girls' Bookshelf. Volume Two. Hamilton Wright Mabie et al. (including John Martin). Various illustrators. NY: The University Society. $3 at Pageturners, July, '91.

Twenty-three Aesopic and eleven Indian fables are included in "Favorite Fables" on 246-52. The texts are the same as in the 1927 and 1927/48 Bookshelf editions, but there is a different selection, and here there are no illustrations. With this edition, are we back at the source of the "Bookshelf" series? Inserted is a letter from John Martin to children. There is here a wild variety of verbal and visual material.

1912 Child Life in Tale and Fable: A Second Reader. By Etta Austin Blaisdell and Mary Frances Blaisdell. Illustrations by Sears Gallagher. Seventeenth printing. NY: The MacMillan Company. See 1899/1912.

1912 Fables by Yehoash. Hardbound. NY: S. Bloomgarden. $25 from Henry Hollander, Bookseller, San Francisco, Nov., '02. 

Ninety-nine Jewish fables on 218 pages, with a T of C at the front. No illustrations. An earlier owner of this book was B. Koss from Southend-on-Sea.

1912 Fables frae the French in Braid Scots. By A.O.W.B. (the publisher?) Paperbound. Many uncut pages. Edinburgh: Andrew Baxendine. $1.33 at Second Story Warehouse, Rockville, Sept., '91.

Who would ever have known that this book existed? T of C at the beginning identifies the French source for each of the 108 fables. The Scots vocabulary makes reading here tough. There are nice advertisements inside the covers for books about Scots clans and for Scots songs.

1912 Jataka Tales. Re-told by Ellen C. Babbitt. With illustrations by Ellsworth Young. First edition. NY: The Century Co. $7.50 at Bookdale's, St. Paul, July, '94. Extra copy without "1912" on the title-page for $5.98 from Half-Price Books, Dallas, Dec., '99.

Eighteen fables, with a T of C on ix. These stories are clearly written for children. Some of the stories have more potential than is realized in these somewhat simplified and moralized tellings. "How the Turtle Saved His Own Life" (10) may be the best of a lot that is largely new to me. The glory of this book lies in the deft silhouette-like illustrations, one or two for each story. Outstanding examples of these are on 22, 47, 76, and 86.

1912 Phaedri Fabulae Aesopiae. Iterum recensuit J.S. Speyer. Bibliotheca Batava Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum. Lugduni Batavorum. $4.50 at Straat Bookstore in Amsterdam, Dec., '88.

A fine scholarly pamphlet in poor physical condition from a series that I gather did not go much further. Notice the interesting shift from the cover's resensuit to the title page's recensuit.

1912 Reading-Literature: Second Reader. Adapted and Graded by Harriette Taylor Treadwell and Margaret Free. Illustrated by Frederick Richardson. Chicago: Row, Peterson and Co. $25 from Chris Russell at Baltimore Antiquarian Fair, Aug., '91.

A good reader in excellent condition, including Richardson's three illustrations of Aesop: WS (11), GGE (15), and "The Jay and the Peacock" (19, a very humorous illustration). Among the twelve Aesopic fables: CP ("Where there's a will, there's a way") and BW (with only one joke by the boy).

1912 The Big Book of Fables. Edited by Walter Jerrold and illustrated by Charles Robinson. First edition? Originally sold by J. & H. Bell, Ltd., Nottingham. London: Blackie and Son, Limited. $160 from Dorothy Meyer, April, '95.

One of the more lavish books I have. There is gold here--gold inlay on the red cover and spine, with pages gilt all the way around. There are 147 fables, with twenty-eight colored plates, a hundred black-and-white plates, and many smaller designs. The introduction (vii) is strong on morals: "There are some people who pretend to dislike these morals, but they are short-sighted folks who think that a thing should be only beautiful, and do not see that it is still more beautiful if it is useful as well. Fortunately most people do not agree with those short-sighted folks...." The versions include many verse renditions. "A Huntsman and a Currier" (8) is a variation, new to me, on TB. Jerrold tells MSA differently when he has the old man in anger throw the ass into the river (279)! The designs include good silhouettes of the young man and swallow (31), the lion's allies going to war (66-67), and the wolf turned shepherd (145). My favorite colored illustrations are FG (104) and BF (178). On 293, the book itself makes an appearance in the book's final illustration. See the 1987 reprint with the same title, but with colored illustrations done by Jane Harvey.

1912 The Book of Knowledge: The Children's Encyclopedia. Volume XV. Editors-in-Chief Arthur Mee and Holland Thompson. Various artists. NY: Grolier. $5.00 at The Old Book Shop, Independence, May, '93.

Compare with Volume XII of the 1911 edition: it has color, where this volume is only black-and-white. Six French fables on 4644 and 4755 include a new one to me: "The Judge and the Pears." (The English for these can be found on 2843 and 2929 in some other volume that I do not have.) Pages 4804-5 have six English fables in the same format, and 4704 gives a full page to AL. There are various illustrators, including Harry B. Neilson (?) and the "JM" or "JF" artist noted in the earlier edition. This book gives a sample of where and how fables belong in an educated person's background in the early twentieth century.

1912 The Junior Classics. Volume 1: "Fairy and Wonder Tales." Selected and arranged by William Patten. NY: P.F. Collier and Sons. $1.50 at Schroeder, July, '87.

Some thirty fables at the end of this volume. Is the translation from Jacobs? No illustrations. I have volumes in a revised and in a new Junior Classics Series. This series has an introduction by Charles Eliot and looks like an offshoot of the Harvard Classics.

1912 The Maker of Rainbows and Other Fairy-Tales and Fables. By Richard Le Gallienne. With illustrations by Elizabeth Shippen Green. NY: Harper & Brothers. $28 from Barbara and Bill Yoffee, March, '94.

I have tried the first five or six of these fifteen stories, and the accent is clearly on fairy tale. The stories tend to include large doses of magic, dreams, and even fairies. In a typical story a man with something in his eye makes his way through New York and mysteriously collects a crowd. It turns out that he has pity in his eye "in the most pitiless city in the world." A clever prologue story locates the book in the pocket of a suit sold for $1.75 by a poet who needed money to buy a rose for his lady love. This prologue story indulges in some of the strongest anti-semitism I have seen in print.

1912/13 The Elson Readers: Book Three. By William H. Elson. H.O. Kennedy. Hardbound. Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company. $7.50 from Magus Books, Seattle, July, '00. Extra copy for $2 from Serendipity, Berkeley, Dec., '99. 

As in Elson's Book Two (1926/27), the T of C at the beginning announces a fable section (here 48-53) containing five stories, the first and the last with a good black-and-green illustration. As there, there is no identification on 48 of a new section beginning. "Old Horses Know Best" (48) features a young horse drawing a cart of jars, dishes, and bowls; he decides to show the old horse how to get down a hill in a hurry. And he succeeds! "The Miser" is a standard telling of the well known fable. "The Dog and the Horse" comes from Krilov (8: 16); the dog claims that the farm does not really need the horse. FC and "The Clown and the Countryman" finish out the quintet. The latter is told more simply than in Phaedrus. The countryman finishes by saying "You do not know a pig's squeal when you hear it."

1912/16 Reading-Literature: Second Reader. Adapted and Graded by Harriette Taylor Treadwell and Margaret Free. Illustrated by Frederick Richardson. Sacramento: The State Board of Education. $18 from Vicarious Experience at Will Tree Antiques, Sebastopol, Sept., '96.

Almost exactly identical with my 1912 first edition from Row and Peterson. Curiously, this book does not add the blue coloring to the three multi-colored fable illustrations by Richardson. The spine is weak, and the cover has lost much of its definition. See my comments there.

1912/18 Jataka Tales. Re-told by Ellen C. Babbitt. With illustrations by Ellsworth Young. Hardbound. NY: Century. $20 from Bookhouse, Arlington, April, '92.

This is a cleaner and thinner printing of the book I have listed under its first edition by the same publisher in 1912. See my comments there. Other than the quality of the paper (and therefore of the illustrations) I see no difference between the two editions.

1912/23 Jataka Tales. Re-told by Ellen C. Babbitt. With illustrations by Ellsworth Young. School edition. NY: The Century Co. Gift of Steven Cieluch, Nov., '96.

See my comments on the first printing of the regular edition (1912). It seems that "School edition" means only that the size of a page is smaller because the empty margins are reduced!

1912/50 Aesop's Fables. Preface (and translation?) by Gordon Home. With Eight Page Illustrations in Colour by Charles Folkard. Hardbound. London: Adam & Charles Black. £10 from Stella Books, Monmouthshire, UK, through ABE, Dec., '98.

For this reprint, see my notes on the 1912 original. It reduces the numbered of colored illustrations from thirteen to eight and fortunately includes two of the three I had chosen as the best: "The Blackamoor" (8) and "The Ass and the Little Dog" (160). Unfortunately, the illustration for MSA has been dropped. The black-and-white illustrations have become rather feint. There is no longer an illustration on the cover, which is plain yellow cloth. The book is in very good condition.

1912/1962 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. Canadian $25 from Contact Editions, Toronto, June, '03.

This edition has a dust jacket but seems otherwise to reproduce my 1950 reprinting of the 1912 original. The colored illustrations are particularly well done here. This is what I wrote on that 1950 reprinting: "It reduces the numbered of colored illustrations from thirteen to eight and fortunately includes two of the three I had chosen as the best: 'The Blackamoor' (8) and 'The Ass and the Little Dog' (160)." Whereas the black-and-white illustrations had become rather feint for the 1950 reprinting, they are quite strong here. The cover is the same plain yellow cloth. The book is in very good condition.

1912/63 Aesop and Hyssop. Being Fables Adapted and Original with the Morals Carefully Formulated. By William Ellery Leonard. No illustrations. La Salle, IL: Open Court Publishing Co. Hardbound for $6 from Powell's in Chicago, May, '89. Paperbound from Cardijn for $6.95, '84. Extra hardbound for $2.98 at Half-Price Books, St. Paul, '97, and an extra paperbound for $3 at Occult Bookstore, Chicago, May, '89..

See the 1912 original for my comments. It looks like the only differences between the original and the reprint are the embossed cover and spine in the original and the location of the publisher.

1912/68 Aesop's Fables. A new translation by V.S. Vernon Jones with an introduction by G.K. Chesterton and illustrations by Arthur Rackham. NY: Franklin Watts. $7 at Allen's, Baltimore, Nov., '91. Two extra copies of the 1969 printing, one with a dust jacket for $15 from (more) Moe's, Nov., '96, the other with some sun-damage to its covers for $4 at Pageturner's, July, '93.

An old Library of Congress book that was never taken out once and so is in excellent condition. Vastly superior in its illustrations to the Avenel facsimile (1975?). This is not a facsimile, for it omits the illustration of the blackamoor being scrubbed to death! Otherwise it fully represents the 1912 original except for its sturdy simple covers and binding. I will keep the dust-jacketed extra in the collection.  How can a book be an edition of 1967 and have a first-publication date of 1968?

1912/75 Aesop's Fables. A new translation by V.S. Vernon Jones with an introduction by G.K. Chesterton and illustrations by Arthur Rackham. Paperbound. A Piccolo Book. London: Pan Books. $3.20 at Ten Editions, Toronto, Jan., '94.

I had never seen this much-reproduced book in paperback before. The edition is noteworthy for its wide pages: 224 pages of print are reduced to 153. AI at the back, but no T of C at the front. A spot-check reveals some rearranging, but it appears that all the original fables and their morals are retained. Like some of the facsimiles and other reprints, this edition prints the colored illustrations on both the back and the front of their special paper; the eight colored illustrations are listed on 7. The black-and-white reproductions are sometimes quite faint.

1912/75? Aesop's Fables. A new translation by V.S. Vernon Jones with an introduction by G.K. Chesterton and illustrations by Arthur Rackham. Facsimile of the 1912 edition. Dust jacket. NY: Avenel Books: Crown Publishing Co. Clean first copy, '97. Extra copy from the Strand Bookstore in NY, given to me by Maureen Hester. Third copy with bleached dust jacket, '84?

T of C and list of illustrations. Many fables! The T of C goes on at length! The black-and-white illustrations are well done, but the colored are not well presented here. They look a bit drab.

1912/80? Aesop's Fables. A new translation by V.S. Vernon Jones with an introduction by G.K. Chesterton and illustrations by Arthur Rackham. Facsimile of the 1912 edition. Hardbound.  Dust jacket.  NY: Avenel Books: Crown Publishing Co. Gift of Veronica Pruhs, June, '99.  Extra copy without dust a jacket for $2.95, Spring, '92.

The ultimate in cheapo Avenel knockoffs. This edition is very similar to the 1975? facsimile edition except that it has a red cover and no ISBN number. It also gathers all the illustrations into one signature between 96 and 97. It still has the same Library of Congress number. Well, it is good to see good versions and delightful art get into people's hands economically!

1912/90? Aesop's Fables. A new translation by V.S. Vernon Jones with an introduction by G.K. Chesterton and illustrations by Arthur Rackham. Facsimile of the 1912 edition. Dust jacket. NY: Gramercy Books: Outlet Book Company: Random House. Gift of Mabel Leider, Sept., '93.

Publishing is strange territory. Avenel is no longer the publisher, but the ultimate publisher is in Avenel, NJ! This edition is in the line of my 1912/75? rather than my 1912/80? edition, since it does not group the colored illustrations together. The Library of Congress and ISBN numbers are still the same.

1912/94 Aesop's Fables. Translated by V.S. Vernon Jones. Introduction by G.K. Chesterton. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Paperbound. London: Wordsworth Classics. From Alibris, Feb., '02.

Several years ago I found in London a very inexpensive (£.90) paperback reproduced in 1995 from material in the Rackham/Jones edition of 1912. Now I have hit the other end of the financial spectrum in this country. I have paid more than the book is worth for this earlier 1994 edition, which zooms further out on the cover's scene of the TH argument outside a door. This 1994 edition also does a much better job rendering this one colored image. The back cover features a red frame around tan, and the spine is red. The interior seems identical except for the change of the date of publication on the back of the title-page. As I mention in commenting on the 1995 edition, this book includes apparently all the Jones texts and all the black-and-white Rackham illustrations. Again, the MSA silhouette suite (130-31) here occurs together on two facing pages with very good effect, since one can see all seven images at once.

1912/95 Aesop's Fables. Translated by V.S. Vernon Jones. Introduction by G.K. Chesterton. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Paperbound. London: Wordsworth Classics. £.90 at Bookshed, Victoria, London, May, '97.

Surprisingly, this paperback that costs only $1.44 includes apparently all the Jones texts and all the black-and-white Rackham illustrations. What a bargain! A suite like MSA's silhouettes (130-31) here occurs together on two facing pages for a very nice effect, since one can see all seven images at once.

1912? Äsops Fabeln für die Jugend: 108 Fabeln. Mit vielen Illustrationen von Chr. Votteler. Hardbound. Eighth edition. Stuttgart: Loewes Verlag Ferdinand Carl. DM 36 from Buchhandlung und Antiquariat J.F. Steinkopf, Stuttgart, July, '98.

Neu bearbeitet und mit moralischen Anmerkungen versehen. Here is the eighth edition. Again there are 102 pages of fables and two pages of advertisements. I find no difference from the seventh edition, for which I guessed a date of 1910. Even the advertisements at the back and their prices have not changed from the seventh edition. Thus there is again the surprising magic number of 108 fables. This book is in better condition than my copy of the seventh edition. It has no missing pages. The illustration of the bear and the two travelers, missing in the seventh edition, may be the best of the full-page illustrations (7). There are also the smaller designs worked into and around the texts. A good example of this genre is on 31: three men pull the ass out of the hole in which he deliberately "fell." The cover is simple black-marbled boards.

1913 Aesops Fabelbuch (Cover and spine: Aesop's Fabeln). In neuer Bearbeitung von Stora Max. Mit 13 farbigen Vollbildern und 39 Scharz-Weiß-Zeichnungen von Arthur Rackham. Hardbound. Munich: Kleinodien der Weltliteratur 1: Georg W. Dietrich. Gift of Dr. Wolfgang Schibel, July, '09.

A beautiful book to go with my early editions in English and Swedish. Good runs of the colored and other illustrations. Original decorated light red cloth. This is a very dear gift. Dr. Schibel gave it to me as we finished our second summer of fable study together. It had been given him by his mother, who received it from a woman from a publishing family, Ruth Landshoff. It is a heavy book. Watch the frame around the colored pictures; it tends to have picked up the letters of the facing page. It is a delight for me to have such an early German Rackham, and with such great personal associations! T of C at the beginning, but no indices. There is no date in the book, but I have little doubt that it is the 1913 first edition.

1913 Aesop's Fables. An Anthology of the Fabulists of All Countries. Edited by Ernest Rhys. Everyman's Library for Young People. London: J.M. Dent/NY: E.P. Dutton. £5.85 at Ripping Yarns, London, May, '97. Extra copy in excellent condition for £6 from A to Z Books, Surrey, UK, through Ebay, April, '00. Extra copy with weak spine for $8.50 through Bibliofind from Gutenberg Holdings, Brooklyn, Oct., '97.

Now I have worked my way back to a first printing of this classic! In keeping with previous annotations on this book, I will mention the distinguishing marks of the next printing (1918) as opposed to this one. The 1918 printing will add a number in the series (#657); it will add " Toronto " on the title-page, and it will change printers from Richard Clay to The Temple Press in Letchworth. I had hoped as I travelled to London that I would happen across a first printing of this book somewhere. I mentioned it on my second-to-last day there as I moved into Ripping Yarns. He said that they did not have it but that it should not prove too difficult to find. As he was talking, the book almost fell off the shelf into my hands! As has frequently happened, after long searching for a first copy, I have now found a second and then a third copy quickly. By the way, the first page with print (perhaps a pre-title-page?) has "Aesop's Fables: An Anthology of the Fabulists of All Time" while the title-page has "Aesop's Fables, an Anthology of the Fabulists of all Countries."

1913 Aesop's Fables. An Anthology of the Fabulists of All Countries. (Dutton spine.) Ernest Rhys.   Hardbound. London/NY: Everyman's Library for Young People: London: J.M. Dent/NY: E.P. Dutton. $6.27 from Lorie Travis, Cumberland Furnace, TN, through Ebay, Oct., '00.

The format of this book's cover is different from the three copies I have of the first printing. Like them, it has no printing date on the back of the title-page. All later printings seem to have such. It shares with them the anomaly of a pre-title page speaking of "The Fabulists of All Time" and a title-page speaking rather of "The Fabulists of All Countries." Like them, it is printed by Richard Clay. I thus conclude that it is also a first printing. This copy has a red cloth cover with no markings on either front or back cover. Its spine puts a design around the title with an empty loop beneath it. At the spine's bottom is "E.P. Dutton & Co." without any mention of Dent. The other first editions fill the spine with a floral pattern and mention both publishers. They also impress a symbol for "J.M. Dent Sons, Ltd." into the front cover. This copy lacks the specific "Everyman" endpapers found in the other copies. I suspect that the present book was published in the USA by Dutton.

1913 Aesop's Fables. Chosen and Retold in Easy Words by A.P. Williams. Illustrator not acknowledged. "Books for Young Readers" Series. London: G. Bell and Sons. $15 from Yoffees, Jan., '92.

A sturdy little pamphlet with canvas wrapping. Twenty fables, each marked as a lesson, and a farewell. The sentences are numbered and indented. The illustrations are quite clear and in good condition. I recognize but cannot place them; they are not from Tenniel or Weir. Check "The Goat in the Well" (#3) and DM (#8) as typical illustrations. A front-page advertisement mentions a colored frontispiece not present here. SW (#1) lacks the element of a bet and tells the story in the poorer fashion besides. New to me is the fox in the well being lectured by the wolf (#5). The morals are curious in this book. Almost all are negative. Typical are #10, "Do not be vain like the crow," and #15, "Do not be vain like the ass or you may suffer for it." The cat playing dead (#4) shows that you may not get rid of a bad name. #16 and #17 are one fable ("The Lark and Her Young"). This is another book I knew nothing of in years of collecting. See now also the 1925 reprinting of this booklet.

1913 Aldine First Language Book for Grades Three and Four. Catherine T. Bryce and Frank E. Spaulding. Illustrated by Ada Budell. NY: Newson and Co. $5 on the Oregon coast, Aug., '87.

This book makes use of the fable in teaching orthography, language, literature, and grammar. Fables appear at various places (see index on 279 under "fables"); 171-99 concentrate on fables, including a section on writing an original fable. No worthwhile illustrations.

1913 Fénelon: Choix de Fables & de Dialogues. De la Mothe Fénelon; Avec une Introduction et des Notes par P. Andraud. Hardbound. Paris: La Littérature Française Illustrée: Collection moderne de Classiques: Henri Didier. £ 2.50 from Hay Cinema Book Store, Hay-on-Wye, August, '01.

The T of C on 129 shows the twenty-four prose fables selected for presentation here. They are on 31 through 138. I notice that they get longer as we progress through them. Early fables may be one page long. One later fable extends to some sixteen pages. Six photographs are presented along with the texts, and another thirty are gathered at the back of this book. Those from #7 through #19 help create an impression in particular of the Duc du Bourgogne.

1913 Lectures Illustrées. (Éléments de Grammaire). Par E. Magee et M. Anceau. Various illustrators, including (for Aesop) Charles Folkard. Londres: Adam et Charles Black. $4 at McBurnie & Cutler, Toronto, Jan., '94.

An unusual book combining stiff-paged illustrations of varied sorts, readings, and grammatical explanations and exercises. Young Mary Bruce or someone else has pencilled in many vocables. In the midst of its potpourri, there are two fine short prose fables--"Le Lièvre et la tortue" and "L'Âne et le petit chien"--with outstanding colored Folkard illustrations the size of postcards (42-3). On 8 there is "Le Poulet et le renard," a simple and direct story about obeying one's mother, by Ratisbonne with two black-and-white images. This French-language book was printed in London, used in Montreal, sold in Toronto, and kept in Omaha.

1913 Little Dramas for Primary Grades. By Ada Maria Skinner and Lillian Nixon Lawrence. NY: American Book Company. $1 at Vintage Bookshop, North Platte, Jan., '94.

Ten or eleven very simple fable plays, including one each from Africa, Japan, and the Orient. FC (40) is hardly longer as a play than as a fable.

1913 Middle English Humorous Tales in Verse. Edited by George H. McKnight. Boston: D.C. Heath and Co. $8 at Constant Reader, Jan., '90.

A handy little volume including "The Vox and the Wolf." The middle English is sometimes fun and sometimes exasperating. There is an extensive introduction (comment on "The Vox and the Wolf" begins on xliii), notes, and a vocabulary.

1913 Nature Myths and Stories for Little Children. Flora J. Cooke. Chicago: A. Flanagan Company. $2 at Pageturners, April, '91.

Surprisingly enough, Aesop shows up twice in this book of stories for first and third graders: "The Donkey and the Salt" (59, well told) and FS (91). Neither is illustrated. The stories range from classical to Native American. Simple illustrations and decorations, some repeated.

1913 Nouveau Recueil de Fables d'Ésope. Corrigées dans le texte, graduées et annotées avec un lexique par E. Ragon. Huitième édition. Canvas bound. Paris: Ancienne Librairie Poussielgue. See 1893/1913.

1913 Pasakos apie paukscius. Zemaitische Tierfabeln. Text, Wörterverzeichnis und Übersetzung herausgegeben von Hugo Scheu und Alexander Kurschat. Litauische literarische Gesellschaft in Tilsit. Heidelberg: In Kommission von C. Winters Universitätsbuchhandlung. $35 by mail from Melvin McCosh, Feb., '95.

Eighty-one fables, listed in the T of C on 87-88. About thirty-three of them are acknowledged to be Aesopic. That T of C stands between the original texts and the vocabulary, which is followed by the German translations. Nice careful work.

1913 The De La Salle Series: Second Reader. By the Brothers of the Christian Schools. NY: St. Joseph's Normal College. $7 at Curiouser and Curiouser, Santa Fe, May, '93.

It is good to get something from the Jesuits' long-time competitors! This standard Catholic second reader contains four fables, two of them with surprise softening twists at the end. In FS (82) a while after the joke had been replayed, the stork poured out half of her food for the fox. I never saw that before! The fox was so ashamed that to this day he has never looked anyone in the face! I have not seen that turn of events either! In "The Donkey and the Salt" (124), the master similarly helped the unhappy donkey laden with dripping sponges. "The Deer, the Water, and the Lion" (99) and FC (144) are told in standard fashion.

1913 The Rational Method in Reading: Introductory Second Reader. Edward G. Ward and Mary A. Ward. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company. $2, Omaha, Fall, '92.

Formerly the property of the Omaha School System, this reader is in poor shape, with lots of tears and marks. See 1899 for the third reader in this series. This volume contains four fables. FS (86), embellished with three nice illustrations, plays on gender and class differences as Lady Fox sends her servant to Mr. Stork. At the end, she trips away sadder and wiser. "The Fox and the Cat" and "The Greedy Wolf" follow. Later (137), two fables are put together. The dog who lost his meat in the river is the petulant dog who stays in the manger when called to dinner. "Rational reading" includes letters crossed out, sounds marked, and syllables separated.

1913/1913? The Original Fables of La Fontaine. Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney. With coloured illustrations by the author. London: J.M. Dent and Sons/NY: E.P. Dutton. £5.85 at Ripping Yarns, Highgate, May, '97.

See my comments on the printings I have placed, sometimes by guess, in 1930, 1932, and 1938. Can I hope that this copy is a first printing? Like the 1930 printing, it has the misprint under the frontispiece; unlike that copy, it has the original green cover embossed in gold with a picture pasted on of the fox and the wolf in buckets in the well. Unlike the copy of 1932, it has the frontispiece misprint. Unlike the copy of 1938, it has the cover described above, not the simple blue printed cover with MM pasted on. Whether or not this copy is a first printing, I now have four distinct copies of this simple little book!

1913/1913? The Original Fables of La Fontaine. Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney. With coloured illustrations by the author. Hardbound. London/NY: London: J.M. Dent and Sons/NY: E.P. Dutton. $5 from Jackson Street Booksellers, Omaha, July, '99.

Again, I am surprised. I thought I had picked up a potentially better copy of a book I already have. Well, it is true that the interior of this book is exactly like that which I have listed under "1913?/1913?" from these same two publishers. Like it, this may be a first printing of a first edition. What is the difference? This cover has "E.P. Dutton & Co., New York" where that copy has "J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., London." The bottom of the spine has a corresponding difference. That makes five copies of this book, and of course it is included in a double volume with La Fontaine's fables by the same publishers in 1939. See my comments on the similar book for a sense of the similarities and dissimilarities with other copies.

1913/16 The Edson-Laing Readers: Book Two: Lend a Hand. Mary E. Laing and Andrew W. Edson. Illustrations by James Hall and Grace L. Hall. Hardbound. Chicago: The Edson-Laing Readers: Benj. H. Sanborn & Co. $8.00 from Greg Williams, Feb., '98.

Four fables. LM (26) is told as a simple drama, without illustrations. "The Flies and the Honey" (39) features a simple set of illustrations and this final line: "We drown for one little day of fun." "Nezumi the Beautiful" (67) is a Japanese version of the fable about the marriage of the rat to the strongest in the world. In BW (144) the boy played his trick "every day. At last the men would no longer run when the boy called 'Wolf!'" Fair condition.

1913/18 Aesop's Fables. An Anthology of the Fabulists of All Countries. Edited by Ernest Rhys. Everyman's Library for Young People. London: J.M. Dent/NY: E.P. Dutton. Gift of Linda Schlafer, June, '93. Extra copy of the 1925 printing for $5 from Powell's by mail, March, '95.

I am delighted at last to get an early "Everyman" edition. Compare this edition with that of 1913/42. There are surprising little changes, though the body of the introduction, the fables presented, and their pagination remain the same. These copies have a different cover material and imprinted design, a different spine design, and an elaborate frontispiece-and-title-page layout, including a quotation from Shakespeare. They do not title the bibliography as such. Some of the changes in the 1942 edition come, of course, from wartime restrictions. Perhaps most interestingly, the very first page of print here says "Aesop's Fables: An Anthology of the Fabulists of All Time." In 1942 it will say "The Fables of Aesop and Others: An Anthology of the Fabulists of All Countries." See my remarks on the 1942 and 1980 printings.

1913/30? The Original Fables of La Fontaine. Rendered into English Prose. Fredk. Colin Tilney. Illustrated by the author. London: J.M. Dent and Sons/NY: E.P. Dutton. Perforated by Library Association of Portland and stamped August 13, 1935. $1.50 in Portland, Aug., '87.

A novel approach in that the book presents only those fables of which LaFontaine was himself the originator. The translator insists in the introduction on the value of prose. On the frontispiece we read that the heart of Thyrsis left; in the list of illustrations his heart leapt! The book includes many fables commonly thought Aesopic, like MM and "The Acorn and the Pumpkin." The illustration of the she-bear and the lioness (89) is the most fun. Compare with the printings of 1932 and 1938.

1913/32? The Original Fables of La Fontaine. Rendered into English Prose. Fredk. Colin Tilney. Illustrated by the author. London: J.M. Dent and Sons/NY: E.P. Dutton. $5 at Caledonia Books, Glasgow, July, '92.

Almost identical with my 1913/30? edition. The cover here has a picture (not MM, which appears on the blue 1913/36/38 edition, but the fox and wolf in pails in the well), and the frontispiece picture does not have the erroneous caption "The heart of Thyrsis left" found in both of the other editions. The text seems identical with those in the other two editions.

1913/36/38 The Original Fables of La Fontaine. Translated and illustrated by F[rederick] C[olin] Tilney. Tales for Children from Many Lands. London: J.M. Dent and Sons/NY: E.P. Dutton. Reprinted '36; cheaper edition '38. $5 from Jane Choras, Cambridge, April, '89.

Compare with the printing from Portland (1930?). This printing has a lovely cover picture of MM. Tilney receives only "F.C." on a less elaborate title page. The illustrations of MM (34, a gem) and of the garret (47) are better in this printing. Two illustrations face in the opposite direction. There is a different printer's mark following 126. My, how printers fiddle with small changes while they let big mistakes go!

1913/42 Fables: Aesop and Others. An Anthology of the Fabulists of All Countries. Edited by Ernest Rhys. Everyman's Library for Young People. London: J.M. Dent/NY: E.P. Dutton. $1 at Vassar Book Sale, May, '92. Also a copy of the apparently exactly identical 1951 printing, complete with dust jacket, for $15 from Kelmscott, Aug., '95.

A packed little volume, with eighteen chapters divided by author. No illustrations. Good modern versions of people like Caxton. This book has been very helpful in preparation of the course on fables this past semester. Some pencil marks. The 1951 printing has some pencil lines in the margin of the introduction, but seems otherwise to be in very good condition.

1913/43? Aesops Fabelbuch. In neuer Bearbeitung von Stora Max. Mit 13 fargiben Vollbildern und 39 Schwarz-Weisss-Zeichnungen von Arthur Rackham. München: Im Verlag von Georg W. Dietrich. $65 from Serendipity, Berkeley, Feb., '97.

A beautiful book to go with my early editions in English and Swedish. Beautiful runs of the colored and other illustrations. Original decorated brown cloth. Serendipity's own comment points out correctly that the book is "a bit shaky" and that the first pages, including the frontispiece, are creased at the inner margin. As the same short blurb proclaims, it is "else a good copy." T of C at the beginning, but no indices. A wonderful treasure! There is no indication of printing date in the book, but 1943 is the only edition listed in LC.

1913/62 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!

1913/67 Juan Ruiz: Arcipreste de Hita: Libro de Buen Amor I. Edición, Introducción y Notas de Julio Cejador y Frauca. Décima edición. Paperbound. Printed in Spain. Clásicos Castellanos 14. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, S.A. $6 from Selected Works, Chicago, Nov., '95.

Here are the first 891 stanzas of this Spanish classic with an extensive apparatus criticus. There is an introduction on VII-XL. The book has experienced some water damage. For what I know about Libro de Buen Amor, see the translations done in 1933 by Kane and in 1970 by Mignani and Di Cesare.

1913/67 Juan Ruiz: Arcipreste de Hita: Libro de Buen Amor II. Edición, Introducción y Notas de Julio Cejador y Frauca. Novena edición. Paperbound. Printed in Spain. Madrid: Clásicos Castellanos 17: Espasa-Calpe, S.A. $5 from Selected Works, Chicago, Nov., '95.

Here are stanzas 892 through 1728, again with an extensive apparatus criticus. At the end there are three elements: an index of words and proper names, a list of refrains and proverbs in both volumes, and a T of C for both volumes. The book has experienced slight water damage. For what I know about Libro de Buen Amor, see the translations done in 1933 by Kane and in 1970 by Mignani and Di Cesare.

1913/71/80 Aesop's and Other Fables: An Anthology. Introduction by Ernest Rhys. Postscript by Roger Lancelyn Green. Dust jacket. Everyman's Library. NY: Dutton. $10 at Cardijn, Spring, '85. Extra copy for $5 from Moe's, Aug., '93.

Compare this with the 1942 printing. This edition has a new title, bigger pages, Henryson's "Vision of Aesop," and Green's postscript. The introductory material is otherwise the same, though repaginated. The fables seem identical and identically paginated. This is still a great little book. The last copyright was 1971, and the last reprinting 1980.

1914 Ade's Fables. George Ade. Illustrated by John T. McCutcheon. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, and Company. First edition. $20 at Constant Reader, Dec., '90.

Yet another of George Ade's funny fable books; see others done in 1899, 1900, and 1920. I read the first stories here. The best of these is "The New Fable of the Father Who Jumped In." A great deal of the fun lies in the slang. These stories seem longer to me than others of Ade's that I have read; perhaps they are played out too long. There is wise social criticism here of which Aesop would be proud. The typesetter should be less proud of "Abe's Fables" at the bottom of the first page of the T of C.

1914 Ade's Fables. George Ade. Illustrated by John T. McCutcheon. Printed in Garden City. Toronto: The Musson Book Company. $12 at Ten Editions, Toronto, Jan., '94.

I bought this book as an inexpensive extra copy. Now at home I notice that it is the Canadian equivalent of that US first edition. See my comments there on the fables. The only differences I can see are in the publisher, the publisher's monogram on the title page, the removal of the erroneous "Abe's Fables" from the first page of the T of C, and the lack of part of the copyright information on the back of the title page. Is the specification of the withholding of Scandinavian translation rights, which is retained from the US edition, a joke?

1914 Aesop's Fables. Edited by Edric Vredenburg. Illustrated by Edwin Noble. Hardbound. London: Raphael Tuck and Sons. $25 from Yesterday's Memories, April, '87. Extra copy for $14.99 from Diane Schiappa, Claymont, DE, through Ebay, March, '00.

This is a lovely book. Twelve beautiful colored illustrations, among which "The Deer and the Reflection" and WC are the best. The frontispiece, DS, has come loose but is still present. A copious set of black-and-white illustrations, too, including those around the beginning list of colored illustrations and the ending AI. A beauty! The extra copy has a 1914 inscription and advertisements at the end of the book. Several of its illustrations are already separated but present. It may be earlier, and so I will keep both copies in the collection. Not in Bodemann. Ash and Higton give 1914 as the date for the BC image that they use on 19 in Aesop's Fables (1990). That image appears here on 108. By my count, this edition contains 163 fables. Tuck also did a six-illustration version, using the same plates. I have it listed here under "1918?". It is thinner. Where this edition has TH on its cover, that has WC. Where this edition has DS as its frontispiece, that has DM. I count 155 fables in that six-illustration version. Noble did other work on Aesop later, typically in two rectangular segments on one page. Ash and Higton give a date of 1921 for that work, also titled Aesop's Fables. I have copies of that work from Coker, Crowell, and Harrap.

1914 Aldine Second Language Book for Grades Five and Six. Catherine T. Bryce and Frank E. Spaulding. Illustrated by Ada Budell. NY: Newson and Co. $1 at Antique John's, Carroll, Iowa, Sept., '95.

This book makes even more use of the fable than did Aldine First Language Book. Again there is a section on writing an original fable, this time on the pattern of Lessing's "The Donkey and the Race Horse" (51-9). Pages 70-75 then deal with a fable in rhyme (GA). The next chapter uses La Fontaine's "The Two Merchants" about the silver-eating rat (78-84). Chapter 18 returns to fables, using LM and DS and others as a basis for writing original fables (240-48). The first four stories for further study in Chapter 22 are fables (310-11). There is a curious insistence on good punctuation as one of the ways to make a "really good fable" (e.g. 244). Again no worthwhile illustrations. No index in this book.

1914 Fables. By Robert Louis Stevenson. Illustrated by E.R. Herman. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons. $75 from Maggie Page of Kingston, AR, at Stillwater Book Fair, Nov., '95.

A fancy (first American?) edition first sold by Lauriat in Boston. The binding is very fragile. I like both these whimsical stories and their dramatic illustrations. The first is, e.g., a conversation between Smollett and Silver on such topics as whether there is an author and what he does for and with them. Many of the texts might best be described, I believe, as pointed jokes. Among the best are "The Sick Man and the Fireman" and "The Citizen and the Traveller." See further comments under the Scribner's edition of 1923. I noticed Robin Greer selling a first edition from Longmans, Green for £140. His note says "Herman, about whom nothing is known, produced highly effective Art Nouveau plates. Most copies are dated 1915 but 1914 would appear to be the true first." Herman is distinctive, though not my taste. Perhaps his best work here is the frontispiece of Stevenson, Smollett, and Silver.

1914 Holton-Curry Readers: The First Reader. By Martha Adelaide Holton and Charles Madison Curry. Illustrated by Frances Beem. Hardbound. Chicago: Rand McNally & Company. $10 from Powell's, Portland, August, '00.

There is just one fable in this first reader. FG (37) is presented as a dialogue between Rabbit and Fox. Though the version is standard, the illustrations are suggestive. After a good large first illustration, there is a small one of birds holding grapes. The fox says at the end "Let the birds eat them." There is a last little three-color illustration of the rabbit waving his handkerchief at the fox, perhaps in derision? See my comments on the second reader in the series, published in the same year and containing six fables. I also have a copy, under "1916/23," of the third reader by Holton and Curry, done specifically in the California State Series. This book is in very good condition.

1914 Holton-Curry Readers: The Second Reader. By Martha Adelaide Holton, Mina Holton Page, and Charles Madison Curry. Frederick Richardson. Hardbound. Chicago: Holton-Curry Readers: Rand McNally & Company. $10 from Old Erie Street Bookstore, Cleveland, April, '99.

Six fables are told. "The Cat, the Monkey, and the Chestnuts" (13) has the monkey eating the chestnuts while the cat cries from her burns. "Why Cats Wash Their Faces After Eating" (16) has a caught mouse telling the cat that she must wash her face before eating him. After he runs away, she decides in the future to eat first and wash afterwards. GA (24) labels Grasshopper Green as foolish from the start. When the cold weather comes, Grasshopper Green is cold and hungry, but the wise little ant is glad. There is no asking for food or denying it. In DS (53) the dog jumps into the brook, wanting both bones. Each of these stories is listed as an "Old Fable." In "Stoning the Frogs" (131), a man coming along, not one of the frogs, chides the boys. It is listed as an "Old Tale." Lastly, listed as "A Fable," comes CP (148), told in standard fashion. Each of these stories has a nice Richardson illustration in black and two other colors (roughly grape and brown). Good condition, except that the very first page is apparently missing; this page would have matched the inside covering of the front cover.

1914 John Martin's Book: The Child's Magazine. Volume V, Number 3: March., 1914. $2.50 from Green Valley Antiques at the Sacramento Paper Fair, Jan., '97.

The only fable in this magazine is "The Puppy and the Crow Indians: An Indian Folk Fable" by Asa Patrick. It appears late in this unpaginated issue. A puppy left behind was adopted by the Crow Indians. He repaid the favor by alerting them to and leading them away from a Sioux attack. There are a couple of simple designs in the Martin manner with this one page of text.

1914 Le Liévre [sic] et la Tortuë Mis en Fable par Différens Auteurs. Limited edition of 155 copies. Paperbound. Paris: L'École Municipale Estienne. $42.69 from Librairie Biblos, Antibes, Pac, France, May, '04. 

Before writing anything else, I must point out what seems to me a major mistake in this student book. The first four presentations of "Lièvre" get the accent wrong! Those presentations are on the cover, on the first and second title-pages, and on the title-page for the first of the book's five fables. What a howler! This thirty-two page booklet is in excellent condition, especially considering that it was printed in 1914. It was produced by "les élèves compositeurs typographes" of the Estienne Municipal School at the conclusion of their apprenticeship. Is this craft anything more than that of "typesetters"? The booklet presents typography of Greek, Arabic, German, and Russian besides the native French. The specimens presented come from La Fontaine, Aesop, and Lokman. Translations into German and Russian complete the fivesome. There are several uncut pages. A booklet like this one answers directly to my desire for this collection, namely that it gather unlikely and rare fable publications. I doubt that I will ever see any of the other one-hundred-and-fourteen copies of this booklet!

1914 Literature for Children. Orton Lowe. NY: Macmillan. $3, Summer, '89.

A strong, sound appeal to get good books into the hands of children. There is a wonderful annotated bibliography of editions; Aesop's portion is on 263-4. Pages 200-1 speak highly of Rackham, Heighway, and especially Boutet de Monvel.

1914 Our Wonder World, Volume V: Every Child's Story Book. A Library of Knowledge in Ten Volumes. No editor acknowledged. Many artists, including Heighway, Monvel, and Rackham for fables. Chicago: Geo. L. Shuman. $1, Nebraska City, Nov., '90.

An excellent example of what "culture" meant for young people in 1914. Seventeen fables are retold (116-25) in Jacobs' version with illustrations from Heighway, Boutet de Monvel, and Rackham (his silhouettes for MSA are gathered on one page).

1914 Story Hour Readers: Book Three. By Ida Coe and Alice Christie. NY: American Book Company. $3 at Second Chance, April, '93.

A standard reader in excellent condition. It includes five fables and indifferent two-color illustrations by various artists. By a wonderful coincidence I happen to have a later version of this reader after fourteen years and three revisions. This original version uses two fables labelled Aesopic that show up there, but BW (125) uses a different version, though the same illustration. LS (127) changes the text only slightly but drops the one illustration here and puts in two others. "The Monkey and the Cats" is not here, nor is the fable of the larks. "The Frogs' Travels" (155 here) is continued but revised. This version adds "The Eagle and the Fox" (21) and labels it a fable. The story is new to me. The eagle drops the fox on an island, and the fox gets back to land by pretending to count the large sea animals across whom he walks. It also adds "The Wolves and the Deer" (143) as a fable: laughing shows a predator's teeth--or lack of them.

1914 The Beacon Third Reader. James H. Fassett. With Illustrations by Charles Copeland. Hardbound. Boston: Ginn and Company Ltd. $5 from Granary Mall, Walnut, Iowa, Oct., '08.

This reader features two items that belong in the fable world: "Androclus and the Lion" (46), attributed to "Roman Tradition," and "Reynard the Fox" (241), described as a German folk tale. There is one black-and-white illustration for the former. There are several black-and-white illustrations for the latter, including a good one of Bruin about to get stuck in the tree trunk when Reynard will knock out the wedges (255). This version of the Reynard story includes the Chanticleer tale and even the name Chanticleer. The thirty-page story has a clever ending. Reynard has been condemned. "Do you think Reynard was hanged? Oh no! he was far too cunning for that. Just how he made the king think that he was his best friend and how Reynard brought his enemies into disgrace is another long story" (272).

1914 The Graded School Speller: Part One. Frank E. Spaulding and William D. Miller. Hardbound. Boston: The Athenaeum Press: Ginn and Company. $3.50 from Dorothy Simpson, Las Vegas, NM, through eBay, Feb., '09.

This is the first of several sequential books to help students with spelling and vocabulary. Five fables are presented in curious fashion. The five are AD (8-9) and TH, "The Boys and the Frogs," FC, and DM (16-23). Each is presented in twenty-four disparate sentences on two pages. The book is surprising to me because it seems to belong to a series. Ginn and Company published several different sets of books for grade-school pupils, but Spaulding and Miller did not seem to be a part of their team. On the other hand, Spaulding published a series of grade-school books for Aldine in 1913. His co-author was Catherine Bryce. Is the series referred to here perhaps only a series of three spellers? This book has seen plenty of wear. One clever student has created a window on the first sheet that says "Come in." Open the window, and you will see the face drawn on the title-page! The book once belonged to a young John in Las Vegas, New Mexico.

1914 The Young and Field Literary Readers: Book Four. By Ella Flagg Young and Walter Taylor Field. Boston: Ginn and Company. $3 at Country Treasures, Walnut, Iowa, April, '93.

A standard reader including four fables. The end papers are written on, and some early and late pages have severe smudging. "The Brahman, the Tiger, and the Six Judges" (15) is well told as a drama; it has one illustration. From LaFontaine, we get FC in verse (23), translated by "W.T.F." with an illustration. FS is told in prose (27). Later in the book is Emerson's "The Mountain and the Squirrel" (119). Each reading is introduced well and then followed by good questions.

1914/15/23/28 Story Hour Readers Revised: Book Three. By Ida Coe and Alice Christie Dillon. NY: American Book Company. $1.50 in Louisville, NE, Oct., '92.

A standard reader in poor condition. The reader opens with three Aesopic fables--"The Monkey and the Cats," LS, and BW--and one American Indian story labelled a fable. Later on (51) there is the fable of the larks' family. The first has a good illustration by Rhoda Chase (6). The other illustrations are indifferent. BW has an unusual feature in that the shepherd loses his pet lamb among the victims of the real wolf.

1914/17 Miller-Kinkead English Lessons. Book I--Language. By William D. Miller and Robert G. Kinkead. Chicago: Lyons and Carnahan. $.35 at Milwaukee Antique Centre, Jan., '88.

Aesop (not usually labeled as such) is the backbone of this first reader. There are many fables, with good pictures, one or two even in rhyme. I can see why senior citizens say that Aesop was a big part of their early reading. The book is in poor shape.

1914/23 Story Hour Readers Revised: Book Two. By Ida Coe and Alice Christie Dillon. Hardbound. Printed in USA. NY: American Book Company. $26.50 from The Book House, Williamsburg, VA, August, '00.

There are two fables here, both well told and illustrated. In FM (39) Spry Mouse dances for Mr. Frog, who plays the banjo and sings. She also serves him tea and fresh flies. He then invites her to his home and, when she expresses reservations, offers to tie her foot to his with a blade of grass. By the time he pulls her down in the water, he is "Naughty Mr. Frog." Surprisingly, a hawk flying over the pond and seeing frog and mouse together, thinks "I must catch Mr. Frog for dinner." Miss Mouse pulls hard enough to break the grass and tumbles safe to the ground. There are four three-color illustrations. Perhaps the last picture of her, a bit beaten and bedraggled, is the best (44). "Mayor Rat's Niece" (52) has five three-colored illustrations. The mayor is upset over Mr. Gray Fur's intent to marry his niece. He goes successively to the sun, the clouds, the wind, and the wall, only to find out that Mr. Gray Fur is stronger than the wall. Mayor Rat is not happy to give up his niece to him, but he can do nothing about it. Many of the illustrations are signed "Maginel Wright Enwright." This book is in excellent condition.

1914/32/55 The New Wonder World: A Library of Knowledge. Volume V: Story and Art. No editor acknowledged; introductory message by Bertha E. Mahony. Various illustrators (Heighway and Boutet de Monvel for Aesop). Chicago: Geo. L. Shuman and Co. $4 at Ted's Used Books, Santa Barbara, Aug., '88.

A real encyclopedic treasure. Eight pages at the beginning are given to Aesop in Jacobs' version. Acknowledgements include Crane for Aesop, but none are included! The book is a wonderful, if dated, encyclopedia for children: great selections of literature, music, and art.

1914/70 More Russian Picture Tales. By Valery Carrick. Translated by Nevill Forbes. NY: Dover Publications. $1.50, Spring, '90.

Among the ten stories in this facsimile is "The Dog and the Cock" (45), told in a form true to the Aesopic tradition. The simple Carrick illustrations are sometimes delightful, e.g., of the dog biting the fox's nose at the end of this fable (52).

1914? Äsops Fabeln für die Jugend: 108 Fabeln. Mit vielen Illustrationen von Chr. Votteler. Hardbound. Ninth edition. Stuttgart: Loewes Verlag Ferdinand Carl. DM 25 from Buchhandlung und Antiquariat Friedrichsen, Hamburg, June, '94.

Neu bearbeitet und mit moralischen Anmerkungen versehen. Here is the ninth edition. Again there are 102 pages of fables and two pages of advertisements. I find little difference from the seventh edition, for which I guessed a date of 1910, or the eighth, for which I guessed a date of 1912. One of the two advertisements at the back has changed, although the prices have not changed from the seventh or eighth edition. Till Eulenspiegel is now in its sixteenth edition, whereas in the earlier editions it was only in its fifth edition. The printer for this edition has changed from the Stuttgarter Vereinsbuchdruckerei to Wagner in Freiburg. There is again the surprising magic number of 108 fables. The book is in fair condition. There are occasional markings, and the pages are loose. The illustration of the bear and the two travelers, missing in the seventh edition, may again be the best of the full-page illustrations (7). There are also the smaller designs worked into and around the texts. Good examples of this genre are on 19 and 31. In the former, the fox leaps out of the well with the goat's help, and in the latter three men pull the ass out of the hole into which he deliberately "fell." On the cover is now a colored presentation of FS, unusual for picturing many jars and bottles.

1914? Aesop's Fables. Edited by Edric Vredenburg. Illustrated by Edwin Noble. Presumed first American edition. Hardbound. Philadelphia: David McKay Company. $65 from The Antiquarian Archive, Los Altos, CA, August, '02. 

Here is the presumed first American edition. I have the 1914 Tuck edition from England, which seems identical except for the cover. This is a lovely book. It has twelve beautiful colored illustrations, among which "The Stag and Its Reflection" and WC are the best. A copious set of black-and-white illustrations, too, including those around the beginning list of colored illustrations and the ending AI. A beauty! Like the extra copy of my Tuck printing, this has advertisements at the end of the book. Not in Bodemann, Hobbs, or McKendry. My favorite private collector's first copy seems to be a 1932 Coker edition, though, as I say just below, that may be a different book.. Ash and Higton give 1914 as the date for the BC image that they use on 19 in Aesop's Fables (1990). That image appears here on 108. Tuck also did a six-illustration version, using the same plates. I have it listed here under "1918?". It is thinner. The seller here estimates a date of 1910. Noble did other work on Aesop later, typically in two rectangular segments on one page. Ash and Higton give a date of 1921 for that work, also titled Aesop's Fables. I have copies of that work from Coker, Crowell, and Harrap.

1915 Aesop's Fables: A Version for Young Readers. By J.H. Stickney. Illustrated by Charles Livingston Bull. Boston: Ginn and Company. $7.50 at Kelmscott, Baltimore, Nov., '91.

A curious reworking of Stickney and Ginn's Child's Version of Aesop's Fables (1891) with a new artist, whose illustrations are rather standard. The text seems basically the same; WL changes the lamb's sex to female. At 197 there is one fable from LaFontaine (down from fourteen), and at 201 there are seven from Krilov (down from twenty). A curious appendix redoes the first twenty-eight fables in a shorter form more appropriate to adults. Good condition.

1915 Fairy Plays for Children. Mabel R. Goodlander of the Ethical Culture School, New York. Illustrated with photographs from life. Chicago: Rand McNally. $6 at Dundee Book Company, March, '91.

From the Sixth St. School. A curious historical piece, unusual for its photographs of children acting out stories. The "naked" elves of the shoemaker story are not naked! The one fable included, "The Honest Woodcutter," does not include the usual second phase where a dishonest woodcutter comes to try the same trick. Excellent condition for a seventy-five-year-old book.

1915 Story-Hour Plays. Frances Sankstone Mintz. Illustrations by Clara Powers Wilson. Dramatic Readers Series: Book Three. Chicago: Rand McNally and Company. $3.50 at Antiquarium, May, '92.

Purchased in 1941 by the Bellevue, NE, school system. A surprising little book. All of its pieces are plays; most are fables. Yet none are from Aesop or LaFontaine; might Books One and Two have presented those fables? Ten sources are listed, but the attributions are questionable. "The Mouse Changed into a Woman" and "Minerva" are said to come from Bidpai! The book has a very nice three-color cover of a fox reading. The orange-and-brown illustrations in the text are enjoyable, especially for the way in which they dress up animals. Many of the fables seem too simple to engage even children. "How the Hare's Friends Deserted Her" (53) is good, using Gay verbatim at the beginning and end. Lessing's "Aesop and the Donkey" is on 88. New to me and good: "Who Killed Otter's Babies?" (78-84) and "The Fox and the Tortoise" (109). The latter indulges in some risky thinking for a school-reader early in this century when the fox answers the turtle boasting of his safe armor: "True indeed; but to escape misfortune is to want experience. Those that live in ease, live in ignorance. I do not envy you your life." In "The Mouse Changed into a Woman" (105) Jupiter, not Aphrodite, makes the change. "How the Tiger Was Caught" (129) replays the earlier trick--"Show me how it was done"--from "Ungrateful Adder" (99). The book evidences extensive repair work and pencilling.

1915 The Fable of the Stuffed Lion. How he conspired with the Frog and the Bear to Rob the Prussian Eagle and How the German Bird of Freedom punished all three. An historically accurate Narrative of Present War Conditions. Author: Richard M. McCann. Translator into German: Dr. Franz Koempel. Illustrations by Clarence Rigby. Pamphlet. Printed in USA. NY: Waterways & Commerce. $22.65 from Alex Pearlstein, Henniker, NH, through Ebay, May, '99.

"Ten cents the copy"! With a "trade discount to dealers"! Great propaganda. Full-page black-and-white line drawings on the left-hand pages of this sideways oblong pamphlet, including an excellent illustration of the frog bursting according to the traditional fable on 5. Most right-hand pages have parallel columns of English and German. The propagandistic positioning of the animals is enjoyable, but not calculated to soothe egos, as when the monkey of Japan comes riding the elephant of India. The Prussian eagle throws the monkey into the sea and tweaks the trunk of the elephant. The poor Prussian eagle is ganged up on by all the lackeys of the straw-stuffed British lion, including the hare of Belgium. Of course the French are a proud frog and the Russians a stupid bear. The back cover repeats the matter of the front cover in German. I wondered while auctioning if I was paying too much, but I am delighted now that I read through the pamphlet.

1915/16 Lectures Illustrées. E. Magee and M. Anceau. Charles Folkard et al. Hardbound. London: Adam and Charles Black. $17.50 from Abracadabra, Denver, March, '98.

This copy is a reprint in 1916 of the second edition in 1915 of a book first published in 1913. As I write there, it is an unusual book combining stiff-paged illustrations of varied sorts, readings, and grammatical explanations and exercises. In the midst of its potpourri, there are two fine short prose fables--"Le Lièvre et la tortue" and "L'Ane et le petit chien"--with outstanding colored Folkard illustrations the size of postcards (42-3). On 8 there is "Le Poulet et le renard," a simple and direct story about obeying one's mother, by Ratisbonne with two black-and-white images.

1915/22/24 Still More Russian Picture Tales. By Valery Carrick. Translated by Nevill Forbes. NY: Frederick A. Stokes Company. Gift of Jean Michael, March, '92, given to her by her mother and inscribed on Christmas, 1929.   Extra copies in good condition for $3 from the Sebastopol flea market, Nov., '97 and with slightly separated cover for $5 from Richard Barnes, Evanston, Oct., '94.

Typical Carrick style in a typically formatted Carrick book. Delightful finishes (e.g., a bunny beats a drum on the pull-toy on 13) and interludes. Note the great interlude that begins with the girl's question on 64: "Do you bite?" The dog answers on 65: "Yes!" Three Aesopic fables: FC (37), "The Fox and the Lobster Race" (61), and "The Hare and the Frog" (88). Otherwise many multiple-phase stories: a character goes to one after another for help. Two stories from the Renard cycle: the fox plays dead in front of the fisherman's cart (90) and gets the wolf to freeze his tail fishing (95). Relating this book to other Carrick books will be a good rainy-day project: More Russian Picture Tales (1914), Picture Tales from the Russian (1922), and Tales of Wise and Foolish Animals (1928).

1915/23 The Merrill Readers: Third Reader. By Franklin B. Dyer and Mary J. Brady. With illustrations by Rhoda Campbell Chase. NY: Charles E. Merrill Company. $7 at Librairie Bookshop, New Orleans, August, ’96.

A standard reader in very good condition. Owned by the Board of Education of Detroit. Seven fables, each with an illustration (some black-and-white, more orange-tan-and-black). Two are presented as plays: TMCM (51) and BW (131). "The Cowardly Bat" (76) adds a first phase in which both sides ask the bat’s help and are denied. "Pedro and the Saddle-Bags" (93) is a Spanish version of the salt and sponge story. Do not miss "I and We" (136), the fable about whether one man or two find an axe along the way. "A Covetous Neighbor" (182) from India is new to me and enjoyable; monkeys show one man a cave of gold, and his neighbor is too eager to repeat the experience. There are suggestions for study on each offering starting on 265.

1915/24 McFadden Language Series: Book One. By Effie B. McFadden. Illustrations by Milo Winter and Katharine Sturges Dodge. Chicago: Rand McNally & Company. $5 at Shakespeare & Co., Seattle, July, '93.

About fifteen fables appear in this volume. The fables are simply told and wonderfully accompanied by small marginal engravings. SW (told in the poorer fashion) gets a full-page, black-and-white illustration. None of the fables get any of the six-colored, full-page illustrations.

1915/70 Still More Russian Picture Tales. By Valery Carrick. Translated by Nevill Forbes. Unaltered republication of the work originally published by Blackwell in 1915. Paperbound. NY: Dover. $3.50 at Powell's, Portland, Aug., '93.

See my comments on the Stokes reprint (1915/22/24). This Dover work seems to reproduce the book exactly.

1915? Aesop's Fables. Adapted by F.C. Tilney, with coloured illustrations by F.C. Tilney. Tales for Children from Many Lands. London: J.M. Dent and Sons/NY: E.P. Dutton and Company. (Cover and spine identify the publisher as Dutton). $20 at Drusilla's, Baltimore, Nov., '91.

A very nice little book in good condition. Earlier I had found two editions of Tilney's LaFontaine (1913/30 and 1913/36/38) from the same series. This book deliberately omits fables included by the moderns. The texts are adapted from James and Townsend. The eight illustrations are surprisingly good, especially FG (cover and frontispiece), "The Lion in Love" (28), "The Man and the Satyr" (50), "The Boy Bathing" (96), and "The Old Man and Death" (112). There is a dramatic king stork embossed on the cover.

1915? Aesop's Fables. Paperbound. London: Tom Tit Series: Dean and Son, Ltd.. AUD $20.50 from June Barclay, Victoria, Australia, through eBay, Nov., '05. 

Here is a twenty-four page booklet with cardboard covers. The colored front cover features DS. There are four full pages of colored illustrations inside: WC, WL and TB, FG, and "The Monkey and the Cheese," in which the monkey judge is distinguished by his red judicial robe and spectacles. I think that I have seen these colored illustrations before. Twenty fables are presented, one to a page. The moral is usually listed right under the title, usually in the "Or" formula. Thus the title "The Stag and his Horns" is followed immediately by "Or, Appearances are not Everything." There is usually also one rather primitive black-and-white illustration with each fable. The black-and-white design on the title-page is exceptional. It reproduces very carefully the colored illustration of the monkey judge late in the book. Here is a British book that I would not have known of were it not for eBay and an Australian seller. The book is inscribed in 1919.

1915? Deutsche Fabeln aus Sechs Jahrhunderten. Gesammelt und bearbeitet sowie mit Anmerkungen versehen von Severin Rüttgers. Mit 16 Bildern. Paperbound. Breslau: Hirts Deutsche Sammlung, Gruppe V: Schwänke, Fabeln und Volksbücher, Band 9: Ferdinand Hirt. €1 from M. Heckroth, Wittmund, through eBay, July, '09.

This school edition combines the fables of some twenty-nine German authors. As the T of C (107-110) shows, the organization is not simply chronological. Kirchhof, Boner, Aesop, Luther, Lessing, and Gleim have the most works represented. The sixteen black-and-white illustrations come from various sources, including Ulm in 1475 and Naples in 1485. Rüttgers adds an essay "Die deutschen Tierfabeln" (99-101), and there is a list of sources (102-3), followed by three pages of comments on the fables. This is a particularly hard piece to date, since Ferdinand Hirt died in 1879. Can this paperbound book be that old? Did not his sons change the firm's name after his death? In any case, the "Hirts Deutsche Sammlung" must have been large, if it had a number of groups, each with a number of members.

1915? Im Spiegel der Tierwelt: Studien von Käthe Olshausen-Schönberger. Siebente Auflage. Hardbound. Munich: Braun & Schneider. See 1905?/15?.

1915? Mein liebes Fabelbuch. Otto Brandstädter. Mit farbigem Deckenbild und vielen Textillustrationen von Paul Leuteritz. Hardbound. Stuttgart: Lieblingsbücher der Jugend #4: Levy & Müller. DM 17 from Leipziger Antiquariat, Leipzig, June, '97.

The opening T of C gives the authors of these thirty-nine fables. Eleven come from Lessing, while five each come from Aesop and Grimm. I tried the five from Grimm as examples. Two are surprisingly traditional fables, "Der Wolf und der Mensch" (5) and "The Two Goats" (14). This version of the latter allows the goats to save themselves from the river into which they have fallen. A third Grimm contribution is "Treue Freundschaft," the Bidpai story of true friends, including the crow, mouse, turtle, and deer (16). A fourth Grimm story is "Der Wolf and der Fuchs," which goes through four pages of various incidents until the clever fox escapes through a hole in the farmer's larder, through which the full-bellied wolf cannot creep. The farmer beats the latter to death (33). The final Grimm story is "Eine spasshafte Froschgeschichte" (50). It is new to me. A farmer sells his calf at the market for seven Talers. On the way home, he passes a pond, from which the frogs croak "Ak, ak." He argues with them that he made seven, not eight, Talers. He keeps arguing and then throws them the Talers, so that they can count them for themselves. When they do not return his Talers, he tells them that he does not have all day to wait, and he walks home! The illustration shows all seven Talers being thrown into the water at once. The book uses Gothic script and simple black-and-white illustrations. The book's colored cover shows a farmyard scene of mother cat and kittens, a dog, and chickens.

1916 Aesop's Fables, with 100 Illustrations. By F. Opper. First edition. Hardbound. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott. $35 from Wendell & Muriel Smith, Brewster, MA, through Ebay, June, '00.

At last I am delighted to get back to a first edition of this important work. Mary Keane's gift of a second edition (1916/17) got me going; see my comments there. In fact, I had just finished an extensive review of that edition when I was lucky enough to find this one. Ash/Higton present Opper's work; in fact, they use the DLS colored frontispiece from here on their 71, but the text of DLS that they give on 70 is not from here. There are here about 370 fables, with a T of C at the beginning. The book is a gold mine for fresh interpretations. Some fables are told differently, like LS (54) and "The Lion and His Three Counsellors" (307, where the issue is one of seeing, not smelling). A company of mice run over the lion in LM (55). "The Monkeys and Their Mother" (102) seems half nature-lore and half fable. "The Hunted Beaver" (49) speaks with discretion of "a certain part" of the animal used as a drug. Opper's morals are lively, funny, homespun, and careless--often comments rather than morals. Some good ones: 208, 266, and 319. Particularly folksy morals: 37, 48, 83, and 113. Morals as comments: 117, 178, 248, and 251. Careless morals: 22 and 32. Sometimes the urge to comment turns the meaning around completely, as in DW's moral (97). The illustrations are above all playful. They remind me of a newspaper cartoon series I knew as a kid done by a fellow named Hatlo. The animals are in human dress. A strange thing occurs in the illustration of FC. Pages 100-101 here present a colored first stage of FC on the left page and a black-and-white second stage on the right page. The further colored illustrations--some half and some full page--are BC (63), "The Hares and the Frogs in a Storm" (135), GA (174). "The Wolf, the Fox and the Ape" (215), and "The Monkey and the Camel" (295). The best of the black-and-white illustrations are on 86, 95, 141-3, 160, 166-67, and 210. Though this book is between fair and good condition, its paper may be hardier than the paper in the second edition, which is in better-than-good condition. There is a misprint in the T of C: "The One-eyed Dove" (16). This book is a treasure!

1916 Fables de La Fontaine classées par Ordre de Difficulté. Avec Notice en Tète de chaque Fable et notes par A. Gazier. Hardbound. 30th edition. Paris: Librairie Armand Colin. 30 Francs from Kaba-Livres, Paris, July, '98.

Here is a very curious book, rebound in perhaps the most durable covers I have ever seen! It classifies and organizes La Fontaine's fables in three levels: suitable for little children, moderately difficult, and difficult. The book then drops those fables--and those parts of fables--not suitable for children and presents these three levels with simple notes and pictures less of fables than of the objects one finds in each fable. From the back, there is first of all a T of C, then an AI of fables presented here, then the classic division into twelve books with the corresponding page numbers here, and finally the fables, which seem to have lost a page or two when Fable #225 gets only three lines! Lots of pencilling, comment, and repair throughout. There is even a ribbon to mark your place.

1916 Half-True Stories for Little Folks of Just the Right Age. By Stanton Davis Kirkham. Illustrated by the Author. Inscribed in 1930. San Francisco: Paul Elder and Company. $7 at Pageturners, Fall, '94.

Twenty stories with twenty-eight illustrations--all on brown and brittle paper. These stories illustrate, I believe, the difficulty of writing fables. They tend heavily to narrative absorption with projection into nature; sometimes, by contrast, they are heavy on message. It is not easy to put the two together. I have read seven stories. The best of them is "Mr. Dog Acquires Knowledge" (95) where the porcupine and skunk impart kinds of knowledge that Mr. Dog has never had before! There is an occasional word in dialect.

1916 Lectures Illustrées. E. Magee and M. Anceau. Charles Folkard et al. Hardbound. London: Adam and Charles Black. See 1915/16.

1916 My Book of Ten Fables. Rosalie G. Mendel. Illustrated by Elsie M. Kroll. Hardbound. Racine: Whitman. $10.00 from A. Nutter Rare Bookman, NY, Sept., '98.

Ten rhyming verse fables, followed by ten others in prose. Ten two- or three-colored pictures. 47-8 are missing, including the BW illustration. Split spine. The two most interesting things about the book for me are its colorful cover illustration combining playful figures from many of the fables around a child reading a book on a treestump, and the moral of TH, which has the hare saying "I guess I was too sure" (10). Inscribed at Christmas, 1920.  See a better copy without missing pages under 1916/18.

1916 The Masterpieces of La Fontaine. By Paul Hookham. Illustrated by Margaret L. Hodgson with three full-page drawings by Van Quiller Allan. Hardbound. Oxford/NY: B.H. Blackwell/Longmans, Green & Co. £40 from Feiler, England, Oct., '98. Extra copy for £10 from Barbara Fisher, Dorset, through eBay, March, '04. 

The title continues "Done in a vein of phrasing terse /and fancy into English verse." Sixty fables. Thirty-one of them had appeared earlier and received a warm reception. Fine title-pieces and often humorous end-pieces; note the fox and wolf sitting facing each other in their buckets on 12, the rabbit with a turtle-house on his back on 26, and the lion and man, both artists, dueling each other on 57. Again, a cat rests by a bird cage with a "To Let" sign on it after "The Cat and the two Sparrows" (72). Van Quiller Allan (Allon?) has three full-page illustrations on 58, 82, and 128. Hodgson has full-page illustrations on 13, 17, 30, 38, 50, 70, 86, 94, 98, 106, 110, 116, and 150. The versions, chatty and engaging, appear to me to be both witty and faithful to La Fontaine. I want to look back at them during our fable course next semester. The title-page (like the cover) claims the book for Blackwell but the page before the title-page has "Longmans, Green & Co." on it. Might the latter be the American distributor? 1916 also appears on the back of the book.

1916 The Natural Method Readers: A Third Reader. By Hannah T. McManus and John H. Haaren. Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons. $3 at Cal's Books & Wares, Portland, July, '93.

A very nice book in good condition. Four fables, two done in the form of dramas. All have one black-and-white and at least one colored illustration. All four are well expanded. In "Long Ears" (11), the donkey "never quite understood why he couldn't be treated like a lap dog." He is stopped while prancing around the house; he never gets to the master. In "The Honest Woodman" (17, drama), a stranger finds and returns the axes. In BC (60), there are three suggestions at the mouse meeting. The first, drowning, is withdrawn when belling is suggested, but the second, poisoning, is maintained up until the "great idea" is voted in by the mice. "The Fox and the Wolf" (159) is told in an expansive version that gets around to "cheese in the well."

1916 The Whale and the Grasshopper And Other Fables. Seumas O'Brien. With a frontispiece by Robert McCaig. First edition. Hardbound. Printed in Norwood, MA. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. $35 from Elaine Woodford, Venice, FL, Oct., '99. Extra copy for $10 from The Read Leaf, Springville, Utah, May, '98.

Here is a gathering of twenty Irish short stories. I read and enjoyed the first two. The title-story has a fable-like title, but it would be a stretch to call it a fable in the strict traditional sense I try to follow here. The two stories I read are long on the Irish gift of palaver.

1916 The Young and Field Literary Readers: Book One. A Primer and First Reader. By Ella Flagg Young and Walter Taylor Field. Illustrated by Maginel Wright Enright. Boston: Ginn and Company. $4 in Colorado Springs, March, '94.

The reader (Part Two, beginning on 83) contains several fables: TH done in dialogue style (108), BW (112), and TT (with a nice illustration, 144). Two other pieces are very close to being fables: "The Mountain Lion and the Cricket" (135) and "The Wolf and the Cat" (147). There are many torn pages in this well worn book. See 1916 for my copy of Book Two and 1914 for Book Four.

1916 The Young and Field Literary Readers: Book Two. By Ella Flagg Young and Walter Taylor Field. Illustrated by Maginel Wright Enright. Boston: Ginn and Company. $6 at Book Discoveries in Nashville, April, '96. Extra copy in worn condition for $3 in Colorado Springs, March, '94.

This reader contains many fables, most with one or two simple illustrations of two or three colors: nine from Aesop (43-63), three Hindu (91-105), and four Russian (160-68). Good illustrations present a LM handshake (44) and an ant tipping its high silk hat to the dove (57). In "The Honest Woodcutter" (45), the dishonest woodcutter, having been refused the gold axe, asks for his regular axe back. "Get it yourself" is Mercury's blunt reply. WC (49) is presented as a dialogue. New to me among the Hindu materials is the good story "The Shoe" (and the owl, 97). See 1916 for my copy of Book One and 1914 for Book Four.

1916/17 Aesop's Fables, with 100 Illustrations. By F. Opper. Second edition, third impression. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company. Gift of Mary Keane found in Missoula, Spring, '94.

This book represents a major find, for which I am strongly indebted to Mary. This copy got me going on a major project, and I found Opper worthy of careful analysis. See my extensive comments on the first edition (1916). Here I will mention how this second edition differs. It lacks the colored frontispiece of DLS. It drops one fable, "The Bitch and Her Whelps" (on 155 there) and rearranges twenty-two others. Eleven of them shift position slightly, and eleven others come from the end of the first edition and fill in along the way in the second edition. Apparently, editors filled in gaps along the way. The result is that the first edition ended on 320, while the second ends on 312. The colored frontispiece of DLS is missing here. Pages 100-101 there presented a colored first stage on the left page and a black-and-white second stage of FC on the right page, both without text on their pages. Then followed, on 102, the text of FC. By contrast, in the second edition both illustrations are colored and both are accompanied by text on their pages. I notice that at least one set of illustrations is reduced in size from the first to the second edition: the two for "The Fox and the Goat" on 86. This book is in better condition than the earlier edition. Thank you, Mary!

1916/18 My Book of Ten Fables. Rosalie G. Mendel. Illustrated by Elsie M. Kroll. Hardbound. Racine:Whitman. Gift of Roni Pruhs, Dec., '98.

See my comments on the original 1916 edition. This copy is in far better shape, and it is not missing 47-8.

1916/20 Folk Stories and Fables. By Carolyn Sherwin Bailey. Illustrated by Frederick A. Nagler. For the Children's Hour Series. Inscribed in 1924. Springfield, MA: Milton Bradley Company. $3.85 at the Antique Mall, Iowa City, April, '93.

Seven fables simply told, beginning on 100. Non-Aesopic: "The Top and the Ball." FC has the best illustration: the fox doffs his high silk hat--to catch cheese? The fox says "Your feathers are whiter than a dove's!" The dog of DS (also illustrated) is going off to bury a bone where no one can see him. GA has a good interchange. Since the grasshopper danced all summer, he can dance now. SW follows the mistaken version. Others include AD and CP. On 105 "sung" is used erroneously as the simple past of "sing."

1916/23 California State Series: Third Reader. By Martha Adelaide Holton, Mina Holton Page, and Charles Madison Curry. Illustrated by Frederick Richardson. Sixth edition. ©1916 by the People of the State of California. ©1916 by Rand McNally & Company. $3.50 at the Book End, Monterey, Feb., '97.

Four fables are told, all with good Richardson two-color illustrations. "The Fox Family" (10) is labelled as a fable but may not be one. Children find the little foxes after they have caught their father and mother in their trap. "The Fox and the Rooster" (13) is the Chanticleer story concisely told. BC (35) has a good moral, "It is easy to propose impossible remedies," and is also dramatized (37). In BW (39), the trick works twice; the boy loses all of his flock to the wolf. This book has been well used over the years!

1916/24 Live Language Lessons: First Book. Howard R. Driggs. Lincoln: The University Publishing Company. $.54 at Henry Clausen, Colorado Springs, March, '94.

This first reader has a section introducing fables on 92, complete with a list of nine well known fables. The following two pages ask the student to fill in the blanks to complete BW and LM. I enjoy the photographs here, like the "Story Hour" on 91. This reader seems a real potpourri of material. Poor condition.

1916? Basni Ivana Andreevicha Krylova. A. Ypbyanova. A.I. Komarova. Hardbound. $5.50 from Darrin Lettinga, Grand Rapids, MI, through eBay, August, '05. 

The eBay seller opined that this is a pre-revolution publication, and he seems to be right. Has a page become detached, or does this book not even proclaim its publisher? As the closing AI indicates, there are here some 234 pages of fables. The full-page illustrations are signed by Komarosa. Several, like that depicting the hunting ass on 19 or WC on 152, seem to be dated 1916 and 1914 respectively. "The Wolf and the Shepherds" on 143 seems to be dated 1913. This book was once the property of the Russian Literary Club of Grand Rapids. It seems to be a pretty straightforward book.

1917 Calila y Dimna: Fábulas. Antigua version Castellana. Prólogo y vocabulario de Antonio G. Solalinde. Inscribed in 1929. Madrid: Casa Editorial Calleja. $6.50 at Moe's, Aug., '93.

Eighteen chapters. Vocabulary on 285. T of C on 291 lists individual fables with page numbers under their chapter headings. I notice one simple manuscript design on 109. Inscribed in Malaga.

1917 Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories. Edited by Hamilton Wright Mabie. Volume I, Young Folk's Treasury in 12 Volumes. NY: The University Society, Inc. Gift of the Creighton University Classics Collection, Aug., '93.

This book came originally from St. Cecilia Grade School in Omaha. It has two nice sections on the fables of Aesop and of India, respectively (220-225 and 226-31). Though Joseph Jacobs is on the editorial board, the translation of the fourteen Aesopic fables here is not from Jacobs. There are two excellent small illustrations of TH and FWT facing 224. The "S.R.P." who did them may well be Sophie Rosamund Praeger. The nine fables of India, adapted by P.V. Ramaswami Raju, include several that are new to me. Particularly good is "The Man and his Piece of Cloth" (227). Though Mabie also edited Boys' and Girls' Bookshelf, Volume 2, in 1912, the two texts seem to make a strenous and successful effort not to overlap at all in their choice of fables. This book is missing xvii-10.

1917 Jewish Fairy Tales and Fables. Aunt Naomi [Gertrude Landa?]. Illustrated by E. Strellett and J. Marks. Hardbound. London: R. Mazin & Co., Ltd. See 1908/17.

1917 Merry Animal Tales: A Book of Old Fables in New Dresses. By Madge A. Bigham. Illustrated by Clara E. Atwood. Hardbound. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. $10 from Rob Trumbull at Arnecliffe Books, Havertown, PA, through Bibliofind, Oct., '98.

Original copyright 1906. Based on La Fontaine. Thirty-five fables, with a T of C and list of illustrations at the front and "Suggestions to Teachers" and "Seat Work" at the back. The latter gives morals and manual training suggestions. The morals "were hidden on purpose, and the child alone should be allowed to find them" (202). This book represents a surprising delight for me. Bigham begins with young Blackie Blackrat's adventures, often connected to one another, which parallel Aesop's fables. Thus he meets a cat and a chicken for the first time, and later his father recommends belling the cat at a mice meeting. When they move from Madison Square to the country, Blackie, runs over a lion! A bit later Mr. Blackrat goes back to the city to give his old friends invitations to a house party in the country, but there in a reunion in the pantry, they are interrupted by a maid with a broom. When they return from the party, the cat first plays dead and then covers himself in a tub of meal. Soon Mr. Bullfrog comes to invite Blackie to his pool, and later Blackie squeezes through a crack into a little storehouse. Out for a stroll, Blackie and his father find an egg and carry it home in the tail-dragging fashion that La Fontaine's illustrators love. His old friend Ringtail goes to the ocean and finds an oyster. In fact he runs home with it clamped around his head! In a rare departure from La Fontaine's story lines, an elephant on parade overhears mouse Bobtail's boasting and shakes him in his trunk, but refuses to give him to the pleading cat. Mrs. Solemcholy lives in a cheese. Mrs. Grasshopper Gay lives in the same field. When hungry she goes first to Mrs. Buzzing-Bee, but there is no answer when she knocks. Stories are sometimes softened: thus Mr. Eagle only steals Mrs. Owl's ugly children and does not eat them. Ducks carry not the terrapin, but Kerchunk the Bullfrog on a stick using the terrapin's shell, which he cracks when he falls. But he walks home in one piece. Some pages are torn, 76 and 191 so badly that some print is missing. This book is a delightful exercise in applied imagination!

1917 Nights with Uncle Remus. By Joel Chandler Harris. With Illustrations by Milo Winter. Hardbound. Boston/NY: Houghton Mifflin: Riverside Press. $75 from John Michael Lang Fine Books, Seattle, Nov., '05.

I have long hoped to sit down with this classic and enjoy it. Now I had better acknowledge it in the collection, before I buy it again. There are twelve illustrations by Winter, and they are delightful. There is a list of them on xi. The frontispiece is enough to satisfy me, as Uncle Remus holds the boy spellbound. None of the illustrations seems to fix on a traditional fable scene, as far as I can tell. I know their style well from Winter's The Aesop for Children. I am glad to include this treasure in the collection! This is apparently the first Winter and Houghton Mifflin edition. The copyrights acknowledged begin in 1881.

1917 Oral and Written English: Book One. Milton C. Potter, J. Heschke, and Harry O. Gillet. Hardbound. Printed in Boston. Boston: Ginn and Company. $1 from Seven Mile Fair, Milwaukee, Sept., '99.

This book is apparently the forerunner of Potter's 1921 Oral and Written English: Primary Book and Oral and Written English: Primary Book: Part Two. This book is intended for Grades 4-6. Like the later works, it uses fables and other literary works to teach all sorts of writing and speaking skills. From the 1921 works it drops GA but keeps "Two Goats" (12) and its illustration, SW (60), and MSA (92) and its two pages of colored pictures. It adds "The Blind Man and the Lame Man" (129), "Mercury and the Woodman" (132), Emerson's "Fable" (136), and Kriloff's "Fortune and the Beggar" (256). The book has the smell of musty old places.

1917 The Child's World: First Reader. Sarah Withers, Hetty S. Browne, and W.K. Tate. Illustrations by Rhoda Campbell Chase. Richmond: Johnson Publishing Co. $3 in the Twin Cities, June, '87. Extra copy of the Tennessee edition for $5 from White Way Antique Mall, Nashville, April, '96.

A cute little beginning reader with big print and nice pictures. "The Rooster and the Grasshopper" (50), "The Man and the Acorn" (51), "The Boy and the Fox" (53, like MM), TT (81), "The Pot and the Kettle" (84), and TH (118). The finish of TT, which is well told, is "And no one ever found out what she was going to say." TH is a three-way race involving a frog.

1917/19/44 Children's Stories and How to Tell Them. By J. Berg Esenwein and Marietta Stockard. The Writer's Library. Springfield, MA: The Home Correspondence School. $10.

This book offers engaging approaches to storytelling, supplemented by fifty stories for children. One, LM, is from Aesop.

1917/25 Everyday Classics Third Reader. With exercises in silent reading. By Franklin T. Baker and Ashley H. Thorndike. Illustrated by Willy Pogany. Fifteenth reprinting. NY: The MacMillan Company. $14.95 from Donaldson’s Bookstore, San Antonio, August, ’96. Extra copy missing some of the fable illustrations a gift of Lee Dolezal, Cicero, IL, May, '04.

The particular pride of this volume is, I believe, the orange-brown-and-black Pogany illustrations. The book presents eighteen fables in three early groups. The source for at least TMCM seems to be Joseph Jacobs. Among these, several are particularly well illustrated, including FG (19), TH (22), MM (35), and TMCM (43). Perhaps half of the fables are illustrated. The ox mutters a good moral to DM: "Ah, people often grudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves" (18). WS (24) is told in the poorer version. This version of LS (27) gives the lion unusual partners: a fox, jackal, and a wolf. The last comment to the miller in MLS (30) is well done here: "Why, you two are better able to carry the poor beast than he is to carry you." The book was first marked out in 1928.

1917/71 A Treasury of Jewish Fables. Translated by Gerald Friedlander. Illustrated by Beatrice Hirschfeld. Paperbound. Printed in USA. Oceanside, NY: Blue Star Book Club. $6 from Unknown source, July, '99.

This paperback facsimile replica of the 1917 hardbound edition published in London by Robert Scott, Roxburghe House, contains eight stories. They often involve magic and miracles. There are two Elijah stories. Three stories are of most interest to fable researchers. "The Two Jewels" (43) is a fable within a longer story, like Nathan's story for David. King Pedro asks Ephraim the Jew to give an honest opinion of whether Christianity or Judaism is better. Ephraim, on the day on which he is supposed to give his answer, comes agitated and tells this story. His friend, a jeweler, gave a jewel to each of his two sons. The sons brought the jewels to Ephraim for assessment. When he advised that they ask their father to assess the jewels, the sons abused him. King Pedro claims that they should be punished, and Ephraim admonishes him to listen to the words of his own mouth. In "The Clever Wife" (69), the loving husband will divorce the wife for her sake, for they have no children, and will allow her to take one thing from the household. She gets him sleepy and drunk and takes him! The last story is FC (87), acknowledged as the thirteenth fable in R. Berachyah's "Fox Fables." There are five simple illustrations (listed on viii), including one for FC (86).

1918 A Latin Reader for the Second Year. John C. Rolfe and Walter Dennison. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. $1 at Salt of the Earth Books, Albuquerque, May, '93.

How fitting that my 1500th listing should be a set of Latin fables! There are twelve prose fables with helpful notes on 481-7 of this standard Latin text.

1918 Fables de la Fontaine. Dix Lithographies Originales Dessinées par Lucien Rion. Oversize. Paperbound. Brussels: Collection du Petit Artiste: Editée par L'Art Décoratif C. Dangotte. Fr 150 from Michel Van Achter, Wemmel Belgium, through eBay, Nov., '01.

There are ten fables on 26 pages in this oversize booklet. It measures 9½" x 13". Among these very pleasing lithographs my favorites are those that are colored, especially FG, FC, and "The Bird Injured by an Arrow." Also colored are "The Monkey and the Dolphin" and "The Monkey and the Cat." Other fables presented here are "The Heron," "The Lion and the Mosquito," OF, WL, and "The Two Pigeons."

1918 Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks. Adapted from the French of La Fontaine. Written by W.T. Larned. Illustrated by John Rae. Chicago: P.F. Volland Co. $5.85 at Woodruff and Thush, San Jose, Nov., '96.

Apparently a first edition. See my later editions under 1918/24? This book lacks a dedication page, has a weak spine that has been taped together, and shows smudges and wear on some pages. Still, I have worked my way back on Larned and Rae to 1918, and I am delighted! Because of its superior condition, I think the Nashville copy of 1918/24? may represent the art best. See my comments there.

1918 Funny Fable Folk: A Children's Book of Tiny Animals and the Funny Tracks They Made. First Steps in Learning to Write. Story and Script by J.O. Peterson. Illustrations and Drawings by Alice E. Strong. Pamphlet. Columbus, OH: Zaner-Bloser Company, Publishers, Penmanship Specialists. $9.50 from Bertram & Williams Booksellers, Williamsburg, VA, August, '00.

The "tracks" that are made in these stories and their accompanying white-on-black drawings are letters of the alphabet in correct handwriting. Thus a very young bird who runs around, flies up but falls down twice, and then turns a somersault makes "Ow" (6). A frog jumping to lily-pads has the stuff for "m" and "n." Two mice playing tag make an "x." It takes a hump-backed fish to make a good "z" in the water. Of course, these stories really have nothing to do with fables! The advertisements for handwriting aids at the back of this book are a delight. Note for example the perfect posture and positioning of the six young women writing on the board, each holding the eraser behind her with her left hand. One can also attend Zanerian College in Columbus for a teacher's summer course in penmanship!

1918 Spanish Fables in Verse. Edited with Introduction and Vocabulary by Elizabeth C. Ford and J.D.M. Ford. Hardbound. Boston: Heath's Modern Language Series: D.C. Heath & Co. $11.50 from Kathy Arnold, St. Peters, MO, through Ebay, Jan., '01.

Fifty-one fables with notes and vocabulary and perhaps six illustrations in all. The authors represented are Iriarte (sixteen fables), Samaniego (eighteen), Hartzenbusch (three), Barroz Grez (ten), and Campoamor (four). The introduction advises setting aside the literary morals of Iriarte "and then the truths expressed are applicable to human nature in general" (viii). The same introduction notes that nineteen of Samaniego's 157 fables are original, the others being imitations of Aesop, Phaedrus, La Fontaine, and Gay. The introduction also offers simple help on the Spanish prosody here. Unfortunately, the only notes indicate the metrics for each poem. The vocabulary at the back is extensive. Of the three fabulists that are new to me, I find Barroz Grez the easiest to understand, e.g. in "Juan Lanas" on 74.

1918 The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse. By Beatrix Potter. London: Frederick Warne. $5 at the Great Northwest Bookstore, Portland, March, '96.

I was delighted to find an early (first?) edition of this little book, even if it is in poor condition. The spine is disintegrating; one piece of it I have placed inside the cover. Examination of the book at home has brought a new surprise. About one third of the pages are not printed! Here are the missing pages: 12-13, 18-19, 24-25, 30-31, 36-37, 42-43, 48-49, 54-55, 60-61, 66-67, 72-73, 78-79, 82-83. Those who have read these figures carefully will note that there are always four good pages between sets of unprinted pages up until the last interval, which allows for only two good pages. There is some mystery of printing at work here! What is here, though it is battered and botched, is fun. See my comments under 1918/87.

1918 The Winston Readers: First Reader. Sidney G. Firman and Ethel H. Maltby. Illustrated by Frederick Richardson. Philadelphia: John C. Winston Co.. $1, Summer, '89.

The Richardson illustrations are lovely. One fable on 44-48: "The Dog and the Cock" (and the Fox). Pages 49-50 are missing.

1918 The Winston Readers: Second Reader. Sidney G. Firman and Ethel H. Maltby. Illustrated by Frederick Richardson. Philadelphia: John C. Winston Co. $12.50 at Academy Bookstore, NY, April, '97. Extra copy in a plain brown wrapper for $1.50 at the Antiquarium in Omaha, June, '86.

Good several-color illustrations, of which my favorite is TT (17). As often with Richardson's work, the color alignment is sometimes poor. Other fables included are: "Fun for the Boys" (18), DW (19), and LS (23). Two fables are presented as plays: TMCM (28) and TB (101). Three non-Aesop fables show up, too: "Why the Lion Liked the Elephant" (Eastern, 21), "Why the Dog Is an Enemy of the Cat" (Russian, 25), and "The Stone in the Road" (Eastern, 61).

1918 The Winston Readers: Second Reader Manual. Sidney G. Firman and Ethel H. Maltby. Illustrated by Frederick Richardson. Philadelphia: John C. Winston Co. $1.50 at the Hamburg Main Street Antique Mall, May, '94.

A pamphlet for use with the reader published in the same year. Plenty of exercises, questions, and word-lists. The fable material is on 9, 16-21, 31, and 38. The only illustrations here are on the cover and title page.

1918/20 Studies in Reading: Third Grade. By J.W. Searson and George E. Martin. Illustrated by Ruth Mary Hallock. Hardbound. Printed in Lincoln and Chicago: University Publishing Company. $8 from The Book Eddy, Knoxville, TN, April, '00. Extra copy in poorer condition of the 1927 printing for $3.60 from Old Bank Antiques, Hastings, March, '94.

Twelve fables are sprinkled along the way, each with a fine blue, orange, and white illustration and questions for discussion. The illustrations are in especially good condition. DM (21) is illustrated by a dog standing at the barn door! GA (39) is done in verse. "The Camel and the Jackal" (49) has two illustrations and a great key line: "I always roll over after dinner." Here the jackal nearly drowned. "The Fox and the Wolf" is new to me; it is like "The King of the Apes." Also new to me is "The Fox, the Bear, and the Farmer" (160) in dialogue form. There is a non-dialogue version of the same story on 103 of New Education Readers: Book Three.) I first studied this book without any attention to the publisher and then was surprised to find that I had the second grade version and liked its illustrations too! The title-page in the 1927 copy shows that the firm expanded to Dallas and NY. Otherwise the copies seem identical. This book is inscribed in 1931; the 1927 printing had not yet supplanted this book in at least one school. This is the second time I have made a thorough study of this book, this time in my hotel room in Knoxville. I hope I recognize it the next time!

1918/20/29 Studies in Reading: Second Grade. J.W. Searson, George E. Martin, and Lucy Williams Tinley. Illustrated by Ruth Mary Hallock. Lincoln: University Publishing Company. $2 at Missouri Valley Antique Mall, June, '94. Extra copy of the identical 1926 printing with some missing pages from Country Collectibles, Louisville, NE, Oct., '92.

Could this be the first book I have that was published in Nebraska? Ten fables are sprinkled along the way, each with a fine blue, orange, and white illustration. "The Crows and the Dove" (102) usually features the stork and cranes. FWT (152) is well told. Others fables here include AD (22), "The Timid Rabbits" (70), FG (78), "The Boy and the Nuts" (94), "The Donkey and the Salt" (124), GGE (156), "The Hare and the Lion" (158), and SW (poorer version, 180).

1918/24? Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks. Adapted from the French of La Fontaine. Written by W.T. Larned. Illustrated by John Rae. Fifteenth printing. Inscribed in '24. Chicago: P.F. Volland Co. $45 at Dad's Old Book Store, Nashville, April, '96. Extra copy with weak spine for $9 at Renaissance, July, '91.

A wonderful little book! Eighteen fables, each done with four excellent, witty pictures. This printing comes off as very successful, especially in contrast with some other printings. Book detectives will want to compare with this edition the 1950 reworking of the book by Wise. The illustrations follow a pattern: opener, comment, full-page display, and "epigram." Delightful!

1918/27 The Winston Readers: Second Reader. By Sidney G. Firman and Ethel H. Maltby. Illustrated by Frederick Richardson. Hardbound. Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company. $3 from Serendipity, Dec., '99.

Here is the 1927 printing of a book I already have listed under "1918." I include it both because the publisher has added three new venues (San Francisco, Dallas, and Toronto) and because the alignment is particularly good on the Richardson illustrations. I will repeat here what I said there about the volume: Good several-color illustrations, of which my favorite is TT (17). As often with Richardson's work, the color alignment is sometimes poor. Other fables included are: "Fun for the Boys" (18), DW (19), and LS (23). Two fables are presented as plays: TMCM (28) and TB (101). Three non-Aesop fables show up, too: "Why the Lion Liked the Elephant" (Eastern, 21), "Why the Dog Is an Enemy of the Cat" (Russian, 25), and "The Stone in the Road" (Eastern, 61).

1918/50 Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks Adapted from the French of La Fontaine. Combined with Reynard the Fox and other fables from France. Retold by W.T. Larned. Pictured by John Rae. NY: Wise Book Co. $20 from Iliad, Burbank, Feb., '97. Extra copies with red-printed covers for $15 from The Old Book Shop, Independence, May, '93, for $10 from Delavan Booksellers, Aug., '87, and for $2.95 from Downtown Books Volume II, June, '93. Also a thinner extra copy printed with green ink, not red, on the cover for $12.50 from Academy, NY, March, '93.

A nice Volland reprint. Unfortunately the pictures often do not come out clearly. The printers seem to have had trouble with color separation and the exact matching of separate color impressions. One gets an impression of what must have been a fine book if it was ever printed carefully. Individual illustrations are sometimes very different in their coloring among the four copies. For now at least I will keep three in the collection: the green Academy edition and the Iliad and Delavan copies. The Academy edition adds one picture: a wintry hand removes the grasshopper's coat. At the corresponding point, the other copies show the grasshopper on the way to the poorhouse. That illustration is then repeated four pages later. The Iliad copy is in the best "book" shape but there may be questions about the quality of its colored printing. The Old Book Shop copy has a damaged front endpaper with a sticker on its back, and the paper seems to change from cream to white for a portion in the middle of the book. The Downtown copy seems to be fuzzy in its illustrations more frequently than the others. The "poorhouse" illustration mentioned above makes a good example of differing colors among the editions; another is the "Amor Vincit" medallion and the facing arch-like illustration for AD. Each fable is given both in prose and in verse, with the pictures sometimes repeated. The pictures show wit, right from the monkey reading in the frontispiece. I would love to get my hands on a first edition someday!

1918/60? The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse. By Beatrix Potter. London: Frederick Warne. 2.95$ Canadian, Russell Books, Montreal, Sept., '95.

See my notes on the 1918/87 version. This book has a slightly different cover and dust jacket, and does not proclaim "the original and authorized edition" or "new colour reproductions," as does the 1987 reprint. In fact, the illustrations here are less distinct.

1918/87 The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse. By Beatrix Potter. London?: Frederick Warne. $4.95, Summer, '89.

Delightfully told and illustrated. I believe this is the only Aesop done by Potter. Dedicated "To Aesop in the Shadows." The trips to town and back take place in a vegetable hamper. The city is the first site, the country the second.

1918? Aesop's Fables. Edited by Capt. Edric Vredenburg. Illustrated by Edwin Noble. Hardbound. Printed in Great Britain. London: The Treasure House Library: Raphael Tuck and Sons. £15 from Rose's Books, Hay-on-Wye, June, '97.

This book is apparently a direct descendant of Tuck's 1914 Aesop's Fables by the same editor and illustrator. See my comments there. It has a slightly smaller format, 155 instead of 163 fables, and 106 pages instead of 140. The texts are single rather than double-spaced. The illustrations that remain are the same size, but have smaller margins. This edition has WC on its cover, where that had TH. This edition has DM as its frontispiece, but that has DS. The paper for both text and illustration seems different. Vredenburg has become Captain Vredenburg. And the book is now included in a series advertised at the end as being "uniform with this volume." My suspicion is that during or just after the war, circumstances occasioned a simpler and less expensive volume. Thus I have guessed at 1918 as the date. It still has an AI at the back.

1918? Old Friends and New Fables. Told by Alice Talwin Morris. Pictured by Carton Moorepark. Inscribed in 1920. Printed in Glasgow. NY: Dodge Publishing Company. $55.90 from David Morrison, Portland, July, '93.

Twenty-four fables, sometimes overly simple, but with good morals. The moral, for example, of "Two Squirrels" is "Idle folk have to work the hardest in the end." For "The Cat and the Puppy" it is "Every wall has two sides." For "The Quarrelsome Stags" we read "We can never foresee the end of a quarrel." Twenty-four bold, dramatic colored illustrations, including the cover and frontispiece. Except for that on the cover, they are tipped in on heavy dark paper. The best of them may be for "The Shark and the Mackerel" facing 46. There are also some black-and-white designs near the beginning. The illustration page for "The Dog, the Fish, and the Swallow" is loose. The endpapers have a fox and a hare talking to each other on the telephone! There is some clever defacing of the cover illustration, and some pencilling of the back endpapers.

1919 Aesop's Fables for Children. With pictures by Milo Winter. No editor named. From The Aesop for Children. Chicago: Rand McNally. $10 at Pasadena Flea Market, Aug., '93.

Oversize picture pamphlet presenting eleven fables. I like the small colored illustrations even better than the frequent full-page colored illustrations here. I never knew this booklet existed. There is a crack around the center of the binding. Note the full-page illustration for TMCM of the two mice fleeing. Cooper Edens, Alexandra Day, and Welleran Poltarnees in An ABC of Fashionable Animals ascribe this to "Milo Winter, magazine illustration, n.d." Winter may have presented this illustration in a magazine, but I think its use to illustrate TMCM seems likely to have been prior.

1919 Child Life in Tale and Fable: A Second Reader. By Etta Austin Blaisdell and Mary Frances Blaisdell. Illustrations by Sears Gallagher. Hardbound. NY: MacMillan. See 1899/1919.

1919 Five Funny Fables and how to play them. By F.B. Kirkman. Illustrated by Allen W. Seaby. The Look and Listen Series. Inscribed in 1927. London: A. & C. Black, Ltd. $4.80 at The Book House, St. Louis, March, '95.

Five dramas. Good encouragement to adapt is built right into the first story, FG. FC is nicely elaborated. FS includes both Mr. and Mrs. Stork; the fox gets his muzzle caught in the pot. "How a Bear and a Man became Friends" gets into crazy "language" games: other animals cannot talk, but they think that there is something wrong with an animal that can talk. On the first day, the bear hits the man in the face with his paw. On the second day he piles grass on the man's nose. On the third day he asks a swallow to eat the fly. TH includes an ending comment (39) about the difficulty of playing the snake! The stories here are greatly elaborated. There are very nice monochrome illustrations, which I like a great deal, along with two poor full-page illustrations (frontispiece and 23). Beginning at 34 we find two-color art in green and brown.

1919 French Fables in Rhyme, Translated from La Fontaine. Profusely Illustrated by Brinsley le Fanu. Pamphlet. Printed in Great Britain. London: Books for the Bairns 272: Stead's Publishing House. £8 from Plurabelle Books, Cambridge, UK, through the Advanced Book Exchange, Oct., '00.

At least some of the texts are taken, without acknowledgement, from Elizur Wright's edition. That is a good choice for this presentation of La Fontaine. Artist le Fanu offers a valuable contribution here with his sketches, as he had done for Stead's Aesop earlier; see "1899?" and "1926." The layout there had tended to include both text and several images on one page. Here they tend to be on separate pages facing each other. I enjoy particularly le Fanu's series of four images for "The Lark and Her Young Ones" at the center of the pamphlet. Shortly thereafter, there is a good series of three sketches for "The Ass and the Dog." To my surprise, "The Bairns' Magazine" for February, 1919, appears after the unpaginated fables and takes up the last sixteen pages of the pamphlet. That fact at last makes sense of the surprising indication of a second publisher on the title-page. Besides "Books for the Bairns," there is "The Bairns' Magazine, edited by Estelle W. Stead."

1919 The Aesop for Children. Texts by Valdemar Paulsen (NA). Pictures by Milo Winter. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Chicago: Rand McNally. $39.00 from Constant Reader, Dec., '98. $32 from Yoffees, Oct., '91. $30 by mail from Shorey's, Seattle, Oct., '90. $16 from Midway, April, '96. 1928 edition for $15 from Richard Barnes, Evanston, Oct., '94. 1935 edition for $15. 1937 edition for $18 from Gloria Timmel, July, '87.

A green covered book with 146 fables on 112 pages. All the illustrations are colored. Patience has yielded four copies of the first printing. One copy, from Constant Reader, is in excellent condition. This copy was inscribed in 1925. Each of the others is slightly damaged, but with good color in the illustrations, especially those less than a full page. The Yoffee copy, inscribed in 1923, is missing the back end page. The Midway copy has a loose binding. I will keep all seven in the collection, including the 1928, 1935, and 1937 editions. I made, in 1997, a closer study of this edition's texts, which the later compilation, The Real Picture Book (1929), admits to having been done by Valdemar Paulsen. They have a steady eye on correct children's behavior. The stories' actions are carefully motivated, sometimes even over-motivated. In fact, the stories have a tendency to overkill. There are good statements from the characters, made to themselves when talk with others would be inappropriate. There are some double morals. I could find no obvious source for the tellings.

1919 The Boys' and Girls' Readers: Sixth Reader. Emma Miller Bolenius. With drawings by Mabel Betsy Hill. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. $2 at Book Nook, College Park, Feb., '92.

Contains three fable related materials: a good rendition of Phaedrus' "The Actor and the Pig" translated from LeSage's French (234); a Bidpai fable of the Brahmin fooled by a three man con group (216); and Gesta Romanorum's story of "The Nightingale and the Pearl" (236). I am surprised to see Aesopic material used in a reader for students this advanced. No illustrations for these items.

1919 The Winston Readers: Third Reader Manual. Sidney G. Firman and Ethel H. Maltby. Illustrated by Frederick Richardson. Philadelphia: John C. Winston Co. $1.50 at the Hamburg Main Street Antique Mall, May, '94.

A pamphlet for use with the reader published in the same year. Unfortunately, I do not yet have the latter! Plenty of exercises, questions, and word-lists. The fable material is on 10-11, 13, 16, 19-20. The only illustrations here are on the cover and title page.

1919 Tierfabeln des klassischen Altertums. Ausgewählt und erzählt von Victor Fleischer. Mit 24 Originallithographien und Buchschmuck von Ludwig Heinrich Jungnickel. Wien: Kunstverlag Anton Schroll & Co. $75 at Powell's, Portland, May, '98. Extra copy with crumbling spine for $65 from (more) Moe's, August, '93; it is inscribed, Christmas, 1918, and signed (?) under the illustration on 7.

A beautiful book. Sixty-four fables. The T of C at the book's back marks the full-page illustrations with an asterisk. These are the book's special treasure; I like them very much. They seem to be three-colored lithographs. Every other page contains one, without any text on either front or back. The best of the illustrations for me are: "The Stag and the Pool" (20), "The Rabbits and the Frogs" (30), DS (38, which has the dog actually in the water), OF (42), and "The Fox and the Goat" (44). I was very fortunate to find this book.

1919/26/29 The Bolenius Readers: Fourth Reader. By Emma Miller Bolenius. Illustrated by Mabel B. Hill and Edith F. Butler. Revised edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. $7.50 from Imagination Books, Silver Spring, Oct., '91. Extra copy for $5.25 from White Way Antique Mall, Nashville, April, '96.

This fourth reader seems to follow after Happy Days (second) and Door to Bookland (third), both from 1930. Five fables, the first three from Aesop and the last two from Bidpai: "The Lark and Her Young" (28); "The Cat, the Monkey, and the Chestnuts" (93); MM (124); "The Fox, the Hen, and the Drum" (216); and "Three Fish" (285). There is only one bit of title illustration for "The Cat and the Monkey." Excellent condition.

1919/30 Graded Readings in Gregg Shorthand. Alice Margaret Hunter. Aesop illustrations by Richard Heighway. Anniversary Edition. NY: Gregg Publishing Co. $1 at Finders Keepers, Omaha, May, '90.

A curious book built with Aesop as the main source; about ten of the forty-five stories are his fables. Aesop would be delighted at the surprising places where he surfaces!

1919/39 Favorite Fables from Aesop. Pictures by Milo Winter. From The Aesop for Children ©1919 (1939 edition). Chicago: Rand McNally. $10 from Book Stop, Albuquerque, May, '93. Extras a gift of Linda Schlafer from Dorothy Meyer, March, '93; for $12 from Greg Williams, May, '92; and for $1 at Powell's, Portland, Aug., '85.

A little edition taken from the bigger book. The original price of ten cents is still on the inside cover of the Powell's copy. The colored pictures are very good. The best among them are of the crab and its mother and of GA. The first three copies vary slightly. The Book Stop copy, in excellent condition, is marked CS 10-38 on the back of the title page facing a T of C. The Williams copy has CS 12-38 in the same position facing the same T of C. The Meyer copy shifts the copyright information to the title page, begins the text of the book (on a page marked "4") on the back of the title page, puts the T of C after 64, and is marked CS6-39 on the back of that repaired page. The Powell's copy is the same as the Meyer copy. It is strange to find so much variation in a simple book; it is also strange to have found the book three times in a short period after finding it only once in a long period.

1919/47/49 The Aesop for Children. Pictures by Milo Winter. No editor named. Eau Claire: E.M. Hale and Company. $18.70 at Aamstar, Colorado Springs, March, '94.

A tan book with 146 fables on 112 pages; the illustrations vary between colored and black-and-white. A kids' book as I remember kids' books. Unfortunately, few of the stories stand out for any special wit. Some fables have two morals. Though it has the full complement of fables, this book is considerably thinner than the standard Rand McNally editions of The Aesop for Children. The illustration for TMCM (19) shows a serious color-printing problem.

1919/47/62 The Aesop for Children. Pictures by Milo Winter. No editor named. Chicago: Rand McNally. $6.50 from Dundee Book, Aug., '92.

A red covered book with 103 fables on eighty pages. Alternating pairs of pages are done in color and black-and-white. The principle of selection of the original edition's fables is not easy for me to grasp, and those excised do not seem to form a block. My, how versions of this work have multiplied!

1919/47/84 The Aesop for Children. Pictures by Milo Winter. No editor named. Chicago: Rand McNally. $9.95. One extra copy with slightly torn binding.

An orange-covered book, with 126 fables on ninety-six pages; all the illustrations are colored. A kids' book as I remember kids' books. Lots of stories, three-fourths of which are illustrated with colored pictures well reproduced. Unfortunately, few stand out for any special wit. Some of the fables have two morals. T of C; no index.

1919/47/84? The Aesop for Children. Pictures by Milo Winter. No editor named. NY: Checkerboard Press. Gift of Kris Kalil and Bob Fulkerson, Dec., '90.

This orange-covered book, with 126 fables on ninety-six pages, is very similar to the Rand McNally edition dated 1919/47/84. This edition is on softer paper; the illustrations take on a different atmosphere.

1919/47/92? The Aesop for Children. Pictures by Milo Winter. No editor named. ©1919, 1947 Checkerboard Press, a division of Macmillan, Inc. Printed in Korea. NY: Checkerboard Press. $5 at Holmes, Oakland, Aug., '94.

Here is yet another edition done from the old classic. This edition presents twenty-seven fables with the smallest text-and-picture area of all the Winter editions I have. There is no T of C. The book does not acknowledge, as far as I can tell, that this is a reprint of the 1947 edition. There are no full-page illustrations included.

1919/47/93 The Aesop for Children. Pictures by Milo Winter. No editor named. Apparently first edition from this publisher. ©1919, 1947 by Checkerboard Press, Inc. NY: Barnes & Noble Books. $7.95 at Half-Price, Dallas, Sept., '94. Extra copies of the second impression, a gift of Pat Cullen, Dec., '94, of the third impression, a gift of Wendy Wright, Nov., '94, and of the fourth impression, a gift of Mary Pat Ryan, May, '96.

This is an attractive green-covered book. Its pages are slightly reduced in size from those of the classic Rand McNally editions but larger than those in the Clauss black-and-white reprint of 1984. The color reproduction work here is particularly good. This book seems to have attracted more editions in the last decade than it had over the years. The T of C erroneously uses the plural in "The Boy and the Nettles."

1919/1951 The Aesop for Children. With Pictures by Milo Winter. Hardbound. Chicago: Rand McNally. $12.50 from an unknown source, June, '01.

Only the cover material is different than it is in the 1962 reprint. "Edition of 1951" stands here on the title-page where "Edition of 1962" stands there. See my comments there. It becomes more and more difficult to number the different editions and printings I have of this book!

1919/84 The Aesop for Children. Pictures by Milo Winter. No editor named. Mattituck, Long Island: Jedediah Clauss and Sons: An Amereon Company. $19.95 from the publisher.

A black-covered reprint of the 1919 edition, and so it has 146 fables on 112 pages. All the illustrations are black-and-white. I did not know what I was getting when I sent for this book, but the publisher tells me that it is a limited edition of three hundred copies! Beautifully bound, with metal edges on the covers. I do not know why this publisher reprinted a book in black-and-white that was being reprinted in color for less than half the price.

1919/84 The Aesop for Children. Milo Winter. Hardbound. Mattituck, Long Island: Jedediah Clauss and Sons: An Amereon Company. $3.99 from gloriouswithin, Holiday, FL, through eBay, Oct., '08.

Here is a second version of this book that I have bought without knowing what I was buying! It was advertised on eBay as "Charlotte Mason Ambleside Sonlight Aesop for Children." Knowing nothing about those first four words, I bid on the book. It turns out to be a variation of the Clauss/Amereon limited run of 300 books from 1984. Might this book be much more recent than that? It seems brand new. The cover is now blue, and the metal protectors are gone from the cover's corners. It turns out that the name of Charlotte Mason is connected with a particular approach to Christian home schooling. "Ambleside" and "Sonlight" seem to be two curricula within that approach. Perhaps the book is being reprinted from a copy of the Clauss edition for this home-schooling work. I still wonder why people are republishing a book in black-and-white that is regularly offered very cheaply in color at Borders and Barnes and Noble.

1919/94 The Aesop for Children. Pictures by Milo Winter. No editor named. First Scholastic Printing. NY: Scholastic Inc. Gift of Kathryn Thomas, Nov., '94. Extra copy a gift of Maryanne Rouse, Dec., '94.

Here is the first paperback edition of this classic of which I am aware. The edition includes 126 of the original 146 fables. The color presentation of the partial-page illustrations is particularly good. The inked portion of a page is as large as the portions in the original Rand McNally edition, though the margins are smaller.

1919? Funny Fables. Retold for children by Lena Dalkeith. Paperbound. London/Edinburgh/NY: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd. £10.50 from Garden House, Northallerton, UK, through eBay, Dec., '06. Extra copy in poorer condition for $14.99 from Lynette Harman, Colorado City, TX, through eBay, June, '05.

This book is similar to a portion of Nursery Rhymes and Funny Fables published by Nelson and Sons. I have that book listed under "1930?" but now I see that this book is inscribed in 1919. I may have to reconsider the date for that book. That book presents twenty-seven fables out of Dalkeith's forty-seven in her work from the early twentieth century. Here we have forty-six. Did one fable get expunged? These texts seem faithful to those in the early edition, even including the gender confusion in TH (49), where the tortoise is twice referred to as male and once as female! Each fable is given one or two pages and one simple black-and-white rectangular illustration. Perhaps the best among these is that for FG (40) with the fox holding his nose high in the air. Do some of the illustrations echo those of Arthur Rackham? The astrologer's well (48) is very shallow! I would add on this viewing that the milkmaid has a "milk-pan" and a little girl with her (42). I find the illustration for DW (29) curious. It puts one animal behind a half-door. The scene thus does not fit well with the narrative, in which the wolf sees how fat the dog is. The illustration might be more appropriate for the story of the wolf and the young goat in the house. This edition adds four full-page color illustrations and a colored front cover. The latter is a humorous presentation of FS. The frontispiece presents UP. The other three pages illustrate TB, DS, and TH, the last of these done in two pictures. These illustrations show up elsewhere, I believe, but I cannot find them now.