1930 Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by Nora Fry. No editor acknowledged. London: J. Coker and Co. See 1921/27/30.

1930 Aesop's Fables Rehashed. Elizabeth Berger Nichols. Privately published. Signed presentation copy. Los Angeles: Kellaway-Ide Company, Printers. $3.75 at Bargain Bookstore, San Diego, Aug., '94. Extra copy a gift of Ron and Ronnie Pruhs, Nov., '01.

A strange book. 366 fables in verse of questionable quality, length, and insight. Phrases filling out the verse pattern seem frequent. I sampled five fables: "The Mountains in Labor" (65), "The Wood and the Clown" (93), "The Goat and the Ass" (135), MSA (195, in which the ass runs to the river), and "The Lion, the Mouse and the Fox" (276). Nichols always adds an explicit verse moral. There is an AI at the book's front. The cover lacks the apostrophe in "Aesop's."

1930 Choix de Fables de La Fontaine: Album pour les Enfants avec de nombreuses illustrations par J.-J. Grandville. Chromotypogravure de Brun et Cie. Illustrations from J.-J. Grandville and Jules David. Hardbound. Paris: Librairie Garnier Frères. 250 Francs from Brancion Bookdealers' Flea Market, Paris, August, '99.

With just a few changes, this book reproduces the first edition done by Garnier Frères in 1926; see my comments there. The additions are a front cover by C. Hirlemann, endpapers including the animal figures of Benjamin Rabier, notice before the last page of this 1930 printing by Paul Dupont in Clichy, and a full page at the end of advertisements for Rabier's books. The front cover shows La Fontaine observing a number of different animals, birds, fish, a stagecoach, and even one resting human. Might Grandville have been turning in his grave to have his work surrounded by that of other artists like these?

1930 Door to Bookland. The Bolenius Readers: A Third Reader. By Edna Miller Bolenius et al. Illustrated by Mabel Betsy Hill. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. $2 at Pageturners, Nov., '89. Extra copy in poor condition for $2.25 from A-A Books 'n Bargains, Grand Island, March, '94.

Two plays by Augusta Stevenson: TH (20) and "The Clever Kid" (and two wolves, 230). Minimal illustrations. In the same series as Happy Days (1930).

1930 Fables Choisies Mises en Vers par M. de La Fontaine, Tome I. Compositions décoratives de Pierre Laprade, illustrations de Edmond Malassis et Fred. Money, gravées sur bois en couleurs. First and only edition. Hardbound. Paris: Louis Conard. $36.33 from Roman Kotchetkov, Beaconsfield, Quebec, through Ebay, Sept., '02. Extra copy for $45 from The Bookseller, Inc, Akron, OH, through Bibliocity, Nov., '99.

Bodemann #425. Here is a real treasure! I think I did not realize what I was getting when I bid on this set of books. Each fable has a lovely colored woodcut about a third of a page in size. An early note indicates the woodcut plates were destroyed in the presence of witnesses after the printing of the book. This volume covers Books 1-4. I had found a copy of it, but not of the other two volumes, earlier. There are three sets of art work here. Each fable gets a small illustration above its title, done by either Malassis or Money. They are demanding work, as is clear from the start in GA. These illustrations often give the particular scene a large background, as in "Les Deux Mulets" (9). Some of these have a lovely design quality, e.g. "Le Dragon à plusieurs Têtes, et le Dragon à plusieurs Queues" (29). Among my favorites in this group is one of the few human depictions I have seen of TMCM (23). Also good are 2W (41); "L'Enfant et le Maitre d'École" (45); "L'Oiseau blessé d'une Flêche" (69); SS (81); "L'Ivrogne et sa Femme" (133); and "Le Lion amoureux" (163). The cat-woman chasing the rat is completely naked here (99). SM (117) has for its illustration a simple portrait of a French king surrounded with a sunburst. Perhaps the most curious of the illustrations is for "Le Loup, la Mère et l'Enfant" (207). The visual paradigms behind these illustrations are quite traditional. As Bodemann notes, many of the illustrations move out slightly beyond their rectangular margins. There is also a clever little design between each illustration and its title. Thus for "La Besace" (17), it is appropriately a mask. A third group of illustrations comprises the "decorative compositions" of Laprade placed at the beginning of each book. These are light and airy. Of the four here, I like best the image of ape and dolphin at the beginning of IV. There is a place-marking ribbon. Many of the pages are uncut. See 1931 and 1933, respectively, for Tome II and Tome III.

1930 Fables choisies, mises en vers par M. de la Fontaine. Illustrated by FranH ois Chauveau. #185 of 600 facsimiles. Original: Paris: Denys Thierry. Facsimile: Paris: Firmin-Didot. See 1668/1930.

1930 Fables of La Fontaine. Colbert Searles. NY: Henry Holt and Company. $10.00 from Healthnut & Hardcovers, Melbourne, FL, Sept., '98.

Seventy fables grouped effectively around themes of artistry, social groups, and seventeenth century ideas. The selection was made explicitly to help introduce students to La Fontaine as an artist and "as an interpreter of the age in which he lived" (iii). Extensive notes helpful to English readers, presumably at a university student level. Occasional full-page Doré illustrations. Vocabulary and AI at the back. I should find this book helpful in choosing and preparing La Fontaine fables for various fable courses coming up.

1930 Facetia Erotica of Poggio Fiorentino. Hardbound. Boxed. #1095 of 1250. New York: Privately Printed. $25 from The Book House on Grand, St. Paul, Jan., '00.

I have taken some time with this enjoyable little volume, especially because Poggio figures as a source for Steinhoewel, Macho, and Caxton. Should the title perhaps be "Facetiae Eroticae"? I took the occasion of reading this book to look back over the stories that the above three use from Poggio. I find an overlap in at least three stories: women argue over a cloth given in payment for erotic services (225 in Lenaghan, 66 here); a pseudo-physician's pills help a man to find his ass (227 in Lenaghan, 118 here); the hypocrite who is seduced by a woman but claims innocence since she, not he, will touch his member (215 in Lenaghan, 143 here). The stories here are short, funny, and frivolous. Some of my favorites include the story of the woman sent back by her husband to her family (39). Reproved by her father, she answers "I am not to blame, for I tried all the servants of the house and even the stableboy"! A peasant suspects a priest and so conceals himself under the bed. When the priest after sex with the wife cries out "I feel as if I saw the whole world stretched out before my eyes," the peasant asks "Did you see my lost donkey anywhere?" (70). A poor man cheats a ferryman by not paying after his ride is finished. In payment, he gives two pieces of advice: "Always collect payment first and never tell your wife that someone else has a larger penis than yours" (152). The poor fool goes home and tells his wife, who learns that their friar has a huge penis. She of course does not rest until she has established this truth for herself. Finally, a priest asks his congregation to explain a conundrum. During Lent, not one woman has confessed infidelity, but all of the men have confessed to sinning with the wives of their neighbors (158). The eleven woodcuts are dramatic but often not easy to read. The clearest and strongest shows a an apostolic secretary fulfilling a perspiring cardinal's ill-advised request to make wind for him (89).
 

1930 Fact and Story Readers: Book One. By Henry Suzzallo et al. Illustrated by Ruth M. Hallock et al. First edition. NY: American Book Company. $3 at 5^th Avenue Antiques, Milwaukee, August, ’96.

I find only one fable here, LM (136), very nicely illustrated with three colored pictures. "The Monkey and the Peas" (162) and "The Lion and the Elephant" (164) may also be fables. This book once belonged to the Butte des Morts School in Menasha. It has undergone significant wear.

1930 Fact and Story Readers: Book Three. By Henry Suzzallo et al. Illustrated by E.O. Eadie et al. NY: American Book Company. $5.60 at Bookhouse, Arlington, Oct., '91.

An excellent example of reader material and art. This copy is in very good condition: is it a later printing? "The Hen and the Fox" (37) crazily starts by saying that animals including the hen and the fox were at peace! What is left of the fable? Also "The Lion and the Rabbit" (140, the East Indian folk tale with the trick of looking into the well) and "The Elephant and the Monkey" (146, an African fable about muddying the water). Also enjoy "The Monkeys and the Bananas" (39, about getting stuck to a wax image).

1930 Favole Esopiche. Tradotte da Concetto Marchesi. Con tutte le xilografie "deltuppiane." Classici del Ridere. Paperbound. Rome: A.F. Formiggini Editore. £28.40 from Roy Sheffield, Roosterbooks, March, '04. 

The great claim of this book is that it presents all of del Tuppo's illustrations for the fables. It is a pleasure to find this paperbound book in fair to good condition. The printing of the illustrations is not superior and is unfortunately small. Simon Stern's edition is in that respect more helpful. The last illustration for the "Life of Aesop" is, by contrast, a full page in size. It is dramatic. This book offers one hundred and three fables, with a reference to the Halm number of each. I count sixty-three illustrations of fables. That compares with forty in the fable portion of the Simon Stern edition. There is a T of C in the back, including a listing of the fables.

1930 Happy Days. The Bolenius Readers: A Second Reader. By Edna Miller Bolenius et al. Illustrated by Mabel Betsy Hill. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. $10 from Ben Franklin, Worcester, Nov., '97. Extra copy for $6.85 in San Jose, Aug., '89.

This book specializes in turning stories into plays. There are five fables, several with unusual twists. After it is all over, the stork brings the fox grapes in a shallow dish (17). "The Bundle of Sticks" has seven sons. "The Fox and the Wolf" involves lifting out of the well without pails. Also GA and CP. Might "The Fox and the Crab" be Aesopic?

1930 Jean de La Fontaine: Fables. Illustrations de Suzanne-Raphaële Lagneau. Tome premier. #251 of 1040 copies. Paris: Henri Cyral. 900 yen at Book Brothers, Kanda, Tokyo, July, ’96.

How wonderful to find the first volume of this edition, when I had found the second by chance two years ago in Sonoma. And this bookstore deals principally in art books. When I took the two volumes to the desk and asked where they might have more fable books, the answer was "We don’t have that kind of book!" The colors of the fifty-nine aquarelles are wonderful. Some of my favorites are: the frontispiece of La Fontaine himself in great purple, the ant’s packed storehouse (45), "Death and the Woodman" (81), "The Hare and the Frogs" (131), CW (141), WC (173), and DLS (294). The brown monochrome designs are also fine. The book is in fine condition. It is perhaps the loveliest book I found in Tokyo!

1930 Jean de La Fontaine: Fables. Illustrations de Suzanne-Raphaële Lagneau. Tome second. Limited edition of 1040 copies. Paris: Henri Cyral. 900 yen at Book Brothers, Kanda, Tokyo, July, ‘96. Extra copy for $40 at Plaza Books, Sonoma, Aug., '94.

This book is a wonderful prize! One of my very favorites. The shop owner spoke disparagingly of the book because it had lost its first volume. I found this book in a few minutes I stole from lunch before further touring with family. There are about fifty-seven beautiful colored illustrations, including book titles, some half-page and some full. Are they "aquarelles"? The very best of them are on 88, 153, 180, 213, and 281. There are also many designs in brown ink around the titles of fables. The paper is "vélin de Rives" and the page-tops are gilt. Not in Hobbs, Bassy, or Quinnam. This extra volume is beautifully bound. Will I ever find a first volume to accompany it? (Yes, I did!).

1930 La Fontaine: Fables. Préface de Raoul Mortier. Hardbound. Printed in Strasbourg. Paris: Classiques Quillet: Librairie Aristide Quillet. 9.20 Euros from Bouquinerie l'Ex-Libris, Paris, Dec., '03.

This is a rather standard mid-sized (5" x 7") edition of La Fontaine's fables, but it adds several curious features. There are several illustrations, not of fables, but of La Fontaine and his home in Château-Thierry. The fables are gathered into twelve books and seem to be all here, but they are not numbered. However, they are listed individually and in order in the closing T of C. The biggest surprise is that 255 starts a special section not announced on the title-page: "Les Fabulistes." This section presents some 27 fables of Florian (with a portrait and numbered by book and poem) and individual fables from some twenty-three other fabulists.

1930 Spanish Fables. Edited by David Rubio and Henri C. Néel. Illustrations by F. Marco. Hardbound. NY: The Catholic University of America Romance Language Series: Prentice-Hall. $3.99 from Frank Mezatasta through eBay, Jan., '04. 

I discover as I catalogue this book that I have it twice. The first irony in that discovery is one I have experienced often: the books are not the same. The second irony is that the book which I think is older cost $46 less than the more recent one. Here is, I believe, the older of the two. It has a green cover that is stamped "The Catholic University of America Romance Language Series." The same series is announced on the pre-title page. Inside we have fifty-one pages of fables, followed by exercises and a vocabulary. Samaniego and Iriarte have the largest shares of the fables. The illustration of MM on 51 deserves a prize for suggesting weird perspectives.

1930 Spanish Fables. Edited by David Rubio and Henri C. Néel. Illustrations by F. Marco. Hardbound. NY: Prentice-Hall. $30 from Archives Books, Inc., Oklahoma City, OK, Dec., '98. Extra copy for $50 from Brookchild Books, Delevan, NY, through eBay, Jan., '02.

Integrating this book into the collection has brought several ironic twists. I discovered as I first catalogued it that I have it twice. The first irony in that discovery is one I have experienced often: the two books are not the same. A second irony is that the book which I think is older cost $46 less than the more recent one. This edition is, I believe, the more recent of the two. Why did I spend all that money when I could just have waited for the other copy?! Now I have found a second and better copy of the book, which I had apparently on my shelves for four years before I bought the poorer copy; this time the better copy is $20 cheaper than the poorer copy! This book has a red cover. Neither the cover nor the pre-title page indicates "The Catholic University of America Romance Language Series." As in the other (earlier) copy, we have fifty-one pages of fables, followed by exercises and a vocabulary. Samaniego and Iriarte have the largest shares of the fables. The illustration of MM on 51 still deserves a prize for suggesting weird perspectives.

1930 The Cat and the Fox. Verses by Carolyn F. Dexter. Drawings by Byron G. Culver. Oversize pamphlet. Rochester: Stecher Litho. Co. $25 from Arkadyan Books, San Francisco, Feb., '02.

This is a delightfully illustrated oversize pamphlet of twelve pages. It measures 7½" by almost 14". Mrs. Tiger Cat has to take care of her kittens before she goes out to find them some catnip. She hears counting, and it is Mr. Sly Fox counting his ninety-ninth and hundredth tricks for eluding pursuers. Even before the hounds appear, the cat asserts that her one trick might be better than his hundred. The centerfold may have the strongest illustration: the dogs attack the worried fox, while the cat looks on from its perch. When she gets back home afterwards, the kittens are disappointed that she has found so little catnip. She takes them by the "hands" and brings them to the elm tree to teach them "one good trick." The coloring seems to be heavy on yellows.

1930 The Cathedral Readers: Book Two. A Revision of the Elson Readers, Book Two. Rev. John A. O'Brien, Ph.D., William H. Elson and Lura E. Runkel. Apparently illustrated by L. Kate Deal, not acknowedged. Hardbound. Chicago: The Cathedral Readers: Scott, Foresman and Company. $6.00 from Twice-Sold Books, Omaha, Sept., '98.

See my extended comment on the book of which this is a revision, The Elson Readers: Book Two under 1927/28. This copy "Catholicizes" the book by adding Fr. O'Brien, a frontispiece of "The Pope of the Little Children," Biblical stories, sacred pictures, and--so the preface--ennobling memory lessons. Since almost all of this material comes later in the book, the fables are here just where they were there.

1930 The Fables of Jean De La Fontaine. Newly Translated into English Verse by Joseph Auslander and Jacques Le Clercq. Title-page and decorations engraved on copper by Rudolph Ruzicka. Volume I: Books I-VI translated by Joseph Auslander. NY: The Limited Editions Club. $75 (for two volumes) at Renaissance, May, '88. Second pair boxed for $36 from Lord Randall in Marshfield, MA, April, '89.

"The Goat and the Fox at the well" (Book III) and "The Monkey and the Dolphin" (Book IV) are the best of the small illustrations in this volume. I do not find them outstanding.

1930 The Fables of Jean De La Fontaine. Newly Translated into English Verse by Joseph Auslander and Jacques Le Clercq. Title-page and decorations engraved on copper by Rudolph Ruzicka. Volume II: Books VII-XII translated by Jacques Le Clercq. NY: The Limited Editions Club. $75 (for two volumes) at Renaissance, May, '88. #423 of 1500 signed by the illustrator. Second pair boxed for $36 (#1217) from Lord Randall in Marshfield, MA, April, '89.

"Death and the Dying Man" (Book VIII) and "The Boaster" (Book IX) are the best of the small illustrations in this volume. I do not find them outstanding.

1930 The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter. By Adolphe Danziger de Castro and Ambrose Bierce. Also contains Fantastic Fables. NY: Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith. ©1911 by Albert and Charles Boni, Inc. First issued in America in the Travellers' Library 1930. $18.99 at Estates Gallery, Fort Bragg, CA, Nov., '96.

Both the book and the circumstances here are unusual. The book is unusual because it begins with a statement by an Alphonse de Castro that he was the author of the original The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter under the name of G.A.Danziger. He recounts the story of its publication history, including Bierce's role. Nothing is said about how Bierce's Fantastic Fables come to accompany this short work in this book. I found the book in a small used bookstore after the Skunk train had reached its terminus and before we drove back in a cab to the train's starting point. This collection seems to contain, at its end, a number of stories not included in the Dover reprint of the 1898 original. The earlier stories are in an order only roughly approximating Dover's order. I suspect that some individual fables were dropped in either or both editions. Furthermore, some names are at least slightly different; thus "The Poetess of Reform" in Dover is "The Poet of Reform" in Cape, and "Life-Savers" loses its final s in the latter. Is it only a typo that changes "A Racial Parallel" in Dover to "A Radical Parallel" in Cape? (Actually, both titles fit this good anecdote!) No T of C for the fables, which are on 117-264.

1930 The Subtyl Historyes and Fables of Esope. Translated out of Frensshe in to Englysshe by william Caxton at Westmyrnstre in the yere of oure Lorde.mccc.lxxxiii. Initials and decorations by Valenti Angelo. Signed by Edwin Grabhorn. #199 of 200 copies printed. San Francisco: The Grabhorn Press. $250 from Serendipity, Berkeley, Oct., ’96.

What a wonderful find! I had seen it a couple of months earlier for $550 at the San Francisco International Book Dealers’ show. Slight round stain on the cover. This book presents the first six books of Caxton’s work, leaving off Avianus, Alfonso, and Poggio. Angelo’s few illustrations, marking the title-page and the beginning of each book, are delightful works in green, yellow, red, and gold. Of course I would have wanted more of this sort of work! The red initials are equally stunning, incorporating the animals of each fable. The text is utterly true to Caxton; in fact, I consulted it regularly as I worked my way through Lenaghan’s Caxton’s Aesop.

1930 The Third Book of Fables. The Road to Reading Supplementary Series. Third Grade. By Herbert McKay. London: Humphrey Milford/Oxford University Press. $1.43 at McNaughtan's, Edinburgh, July, '92.

Except for the covers and end papers, this little paperbound volume is in good shape. Simple but strong two-color illustrations and good tellings. Fifty-three fables, "chiefly Aesop's." The best of the illustrations is the leaping fox on 23. New to me: "The Frogs in the Milk" (10), "The Lambs and the Wolves" (58), and FM (61). Are there more fable books in this series?

1930/35 Make and Make-Believe. By Arthur I. Gates and Miriam Blanton Huber. Illustrated by George M. Richards. NY: MacMillan Company. $4 at Renaissance, Dec., '90. Extra copy of the 1937 printing for $5.75 from White Way Antique Mall, Nashville, April, '96.

A school reader in very good condition. Two fables: MM (39) has an excellent illustration. "The Hunter and the Rabbit" (41) is identified as by Aesop, but I think I have not seen it before. Its point is the same as that of MM. Here is a good example of the limited but important role Aesop was given in readers sixty years ago.

1930/39/49/56 The How and Why Program: Hero Unit. Edited by George W. Diemer; Contributing Editor Claude Merton Wise. Various illustrators. Cleveland: L. J. Bullard Co. $3.50 at Idle Time Books, DC, June, '89.

Five fables told in traditional fashion are mixed into this book. Only one has an illustration: "The Fox and the Goat" (309).

1930/39/49/56 The How and Why Program: Story Unit. Edited by George W. Diemer; Contributing Editor Claude Merton Wise. Various illustrators. Cleveland: L. J. Bullard Co. $3 at Second Story Books, Bethesda, June, '89.

Eight fables told in traditional fashion are mixed into this compact beginning story book. The illustrations are of indifferent quality; do not miss the fox and stork in the lower corner of 11.

1930/1943 El Libro de las Fábulas: Recopilación de las más famosas fábulas de Samaniego, La Fontaine, Iriarte, Hartzembusch, etc. Ilustraciones de Llaverías. Hardbound. Segunda edición. Printed in Spain. Barcelona: Editorial Juventud. $15.40 from Moneyblows Books and Music, Fort Worth, TX, through choosebooks.com, Feb., '03.

There are thirty-three fables here from several fabulists, including Samaniego, Iriarte, Hartzembusch, La Fontaine, Florian, and two fabulists new to me: Baeza and Clovis Eimeric. Each fable gets from one to three pages and two orange monochrome illustrations. The first illustration is a large quadrangle presenting a key moment in the fable, while the second is a frameless tailpiece, usually of one character in the story. The latter may show even more wit than the former, as when the tailpiece for "The Lion and the Man" shows a painter with his palette (17). Another fine tailpiece used twice shows the ass trumpeting and the hare delivering messages (26 and verso of the title-page). Do not overlook the fine first-illustration of Iriarte's naturalist scouring a book (15). Many fables that originate with La Fontaine are here given in the versions of Samaniego. There are no fables attributed to Aesop. I find it curious that Hartzembusch gets mentioned on the title-page but has only one fable here, while several fabulists like Eimeric and Florian have more than one fable and are not mentioned on the title-page. Is that the grasshopper (a vagrant with an umbrella and guitar) and the ant (a housewife with antennae) on the cover? There is a T of C at the end.

1930/58 El Libro de las Fábulas: Recopilación de las más famosas fábulas de Samaniego, La Fontaine, Iriarte, Hartzembusch, etc. Ilustraciones de Llaverías. Tercera edición. Hardbound. Barcelona: Editorial Juventud. $117.27 from Robin Greer, London, Oct., '04. 

Here is the 1958 third edition of a book I had already in its second edition from 1943. The monochrome illustrations here are not orange, as there, but rather black. There are thirty-three fables here from several fabulists, including Samaniego, Iriarte, Hartzembusch, La Fontaine, Florian, and two fabulists new to me: Baeza and Clovis Eimeric. Each fable gets from one to three pages and two monochrome illustrations. The first illustration is a large quadrangle presenting a key moment in the fable, while the second is a frameless tailpiece, usually of one character in the story. The latter may show even more wit than the former, as when the tailpiece for "The Lion and the Man" shows a painter with his palette (17). Another fine tailpiece used twice shows the ass trumpeting and the hare delivering messages (26 and verso of the title-page). Do not overlook the fine first-illustration of Iriarte's naturalist scouring a book (15). Many fables that originate with La Fontaine are here given in the versions of Samaniego. There are no fables attributed to Aesop. I find it curious that Hartzembusch gets mentioned on the title-page but has only one fable here, while several fabulists like Eimeric and Florian have more than one fable and are not mentioned on the title-page. Is that the grasshopper (a vagrant with an umbrella and guitar) and the ant (a housewife with antennae) on the cover? There is a T of C at the end.

1930? Aesop's Fables. Complete, with text based upon Croxall, La Fontaine, and L'Estrange, with copious additions from other modern authors. Texts by J.B. Rundell, unacknowledged. Illustrations from Percy Billinghurst, unacknowledged. Chicago: W.B. Conkey. $15 at Catchpenny, Seattle, July, '93.

This book is absolutely identical with the Homewood edition (1930?) of the same title except for the presence here of a frontispiece colored from Billinghurst's "The Fox and the Goat." That same colored illustration shows up on the cover of Conkey's The Fables of Aesop (1920?). The text here is thus the "JBR" text but without the preface or its writer's initials. 399 fables. See Burt's The Fables of Aesop (1920?) for more extensive comments on this text. Many of the "Later Fables" beginning on 142 are in verse.

1930? Aesop's Fables. Complete, with text based upon Croxall, La Fontaine, and L'Estrange, with copious additions from other modern authors. Chicago: Homewood. $3 in Portland, Aug., '87.

A curious melange. The text appears to be identical with that in Cassell's Aesop's Fables (1893/1893?) illustrated by Griset and in Hurst's The Book of Fables (1899?), also illustrated by Griset. The author, unacknowledged here, is J.B. Rundell. With the latter book this one shares a division point (here 142), after which come "Later Fables." The eighty illustrations are by Billinghurst, unacknowledged. T of C.

1930? Aesop's Fables No. 1. Illustrated by Harry Rountree. Pamphlet. Success Series. Printed in England. London: W.H.C. £ 3 from an unknown source, June, '98.

This is a curious little landscape pamphlet with paper wraps and twelve very thin interior pages. On both covers a dapper cigar-smoking mouse faces a country hick mouse with a shepherd's crook. After the inside front cover introduces us to Aesop's fables (with no apostrophe in the first of these two words), we find LM, DS, OF, DLS, TMCM, FC, and GGE. These texts may set records for brevity! Perhaps only in DLS and TMCM do we get enough room for the illustrations to be recognized as Rountree's. Might this pamphlet have been a promotional premium, found inside a breakfast cereal? Of course, the collector in me wonders what else is in the series if this is "Number 1."

1930? Aesop's Fables Retold for Children. By Elizabeth Hardie. Hardbound. Printed in Great Britain. London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, Ltd. $14.99 from Audrey Quinn-Carroll, Lancaster, PA, through Ebay, Sept., '99.

Sixty-two fables with four colored full-page illustrations and numerous black-and-white illustrations. This small book (5¼" x 6¾") has seven children dancing in silhouette across its green rag hard cover. The best of the black-and-white illustrations along the way include OF (16) with a weeping frog near a tombstone proclaiming "Here lies the frog who would be as big as an ox." Other good etchings show the miller returning home with his son (37) and the wolf standing over the dead lamb (56). I have seen before the colored picture of the fox weeping while the stork eats from the vase (96). The last black-and-white image accompanying "The end" is of a broken egg, while the last story is that of "Mercury and the Woodman." I do not understand. T of C at the beginning.

1930? Fables de la Fontaine. Illustrées par F. Philipp. Paperbound. Geneva, Switzerland: Vouga et Cie. £35 from Robin Greer, London, Dec., '04.

This is a remarkable--as Robin writes of it, "unusual"--pamphlet of some 24 pages. It offers, in French and Spanish, MSA in six lithographed colored scenes, each taking up a full page and each presenting a phase of this delightful fable. Facing each nicely colored lithograph on the left-page is a black-and-white version that takes up the full right page. It is there to be colored in. True to La Fontaine, this fable starts with the miller and his son carrying the ass. This medium is perfect for presenting the miller's dogged simplicity. Intervening pairs of pages present La Fontaine's text in Spanish verse (left) and the original French (right). What a lovely little treasure!

1930? Fables in Pictures. Paperbound. Melbourne: No. 93: Gunn & Taylor Pty. Ltd. $8.60 from Diane Lucas, Victoria, Australia, through Ebay, August, '02. 

"Bright Colored Pages for Girls and Boys," as each identical cover proclaims. There are bright colored pages: four of them, comprising TH and TMCM. All other pages are black-and-white! They present BW (two pages), "The Ringdove and the Fowler" (and the snake), FG, FC, GA, "The Groaning Mountain" (two pages), LM (two pages), "The Cunning Fox" (in the well), BC, FS (two pages), and DS. Each page has six or eight panels. 9¼" x 14¼". In BW, little Ivan from the snow-covered territory rousts people falsely from their beds twice in one night. The wolves kill all his sheep and him that very night. In TH, the tortoise is already asleep in the city when the hare finally gets there! "The Groaning Mountain" tells the whole story over two pages without ever involving the concept of birth. "Fancy a mountain making such a fuss over one tiny mouse." Does the story work without making the groans into labor pains? The mice in TMCM taste even the table cloth! The panels of DS are nicely matched to give side-by-side glimpses of parts of the same scene. Thanks to Ebay for making a book like this available. I may well not have come across it otherwise.

1930? La Fontaine: Fables et Épïtres. Introduction par Émile Faguet. Édition Lutetia. Dust jacket. Paris: Nelson, Éditeurs. Gift of Giuliano Gasca, S.J. in Turin, Sept., '97.

This is a rare little LaFontaine volume in several ways. First, it contains no notes. Second, it contains letters. Third, the sometime owner left many inserts in the book, particularly handwritten fables and fables by other authors. The book was originally sold in Turin and has a stamp of the book-dealer inside the front cover. This may be one of the most international volumes I have: I refer to the selling in Turin of a book of French literature published by an English firm that produced it in Scotland. Is that Oudry's tapestry of Aesop paying homage to LaFontaine in the frontispiece?

1930? Nursery Rhymes and Funny Fables (cover: Nursery Rhymes and Fables). Nursery rhymes chosen by Louey Chisholm; fables retold for children by Lena Dalkeith. With Pictures by F.M.B. Blaikie and Frank Adams. Hardbound. Printed in London/Edinburgh/NY: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd. £5 from Rose's, Hay-on-Wye, June, '98.

This book is a curious replica of a volume with the same title and publisher, which I have listed under "1935?" I believe this copy is from an earlier edition. Check my comments there. Let me note here the differences and add several more comments on the fables portion of the book. This volume is half the thickness of the other. It lacks the colored frontispiece of Little Jack Horner, but there may well have been a frontispiece here at one time. This copy's title-page is distinct in several ways. First, it seems to be a title-page only for the early portion of the book, i.e., "Nursery Tales." It adds "Chosen by Louey Chisholm with Pictures by F.M.B. Blaikie and Frank Adams." It places the publisher in only London, Edinburgh, and New York. The other edition adds Paris, Melbourne, and Toronto and puts "Crest Series" onto the title page, which is adorned with a black-and-white illustration of a crowing rooster. The present edition's title-page is adored with an illustration of a child pointing up at a crow in a tree. The colored illustration for "Little Jack Horner" comes not as frontispiece but between 12 and 13. The placement (and presence) of the colored illustrations in the "nursery rhymes" section is different. As in the other edition, there are here no colored illustrations in the fable section. On 121-22 there is the same T of C listing twenty-seven fables. As I mention there, my version of Dalkeith's work is listed under "1906/06?" and contains forty-seven fables. These texts are faithful to those, even including the gender confusion in TH (155), 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 (146) with the fox holding his nose high in the air. The astrologer's well (154) is very shallow! I would add on this viewing that the milkmaid has a "milk-pan" and a little girl with her (148). I find the illustration for DW (137) 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. The overall condition of the book is somewhat better than fair.

1930? Stories for the Children's Hour. Selected Stories Published by the Metropolitan Church Association. Waukesha, WI. No author, illustrator, or date. $2 at the Antiquarium, Nov., '87.

A hoot! All sorts of pious stories, including the evils of tobacco, what we want little girls and little boys to be, the gingercake man, the Last Supper, and Gethsemane. In the middle (34) of it all comes "The Bundle of Sticks" with a middling engraving. Endless rhymes.

1930? The Children's Treasury of Classics. No author or illustrator acknowledged; illustrator for Aesop: Harry Rountree. London: The Children's Press. $4 at Book Cellar in Bethesda, June, '89.

Rountree's illustrations for the six fables included are excellent, including a color plate for TH which is found in three different editions done by The Children's Press and Collins' Clear-Type Press (1932?). The book is in good shape.

1930? The Fables of Aesop. Based on the Texts of L'Estrange and Croxall. The World's Popular Classics. Art-Type Edition. No editor named. No illustrations. NY and Boston: Books, Inc. Gift of Lois Carlson purchased for $1 at an Alverno book sale, Aug., '87. Extra copy with different binding and no page acknowledging L'Estrange and Croxall, Sept., '93.

This straightforward volume has several claims. It contains a large number of fables, perhaps 275, listed alphabetically on xi. In the introduction, J.W.M. makes the claim "we believe this to be the first full English version which gives a moral in every case." Besides Croxall and L'Estrange "considerable new material has been obtained from other credible sources." Finally, the book makes an explicit effort at simplicity. It departs at some points apparently from the Lupton-Arlington-Homewood tradition of versions taken from the two authors and LaFontaine. Compare with my 1925? editions that list only NY as the site of the publisher.

1930? The Old Fox of the Wood and Daisy the Goose. By Benjamin Rabier. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. $4.75 at Castle Books, Edinburgh, July, '92.

I include this typical Rabier set of three stories--the third is LM--because the latter refers back to Aesop's fable when Leo the lion lets the mouse come forward to answer his question "Why am I great?" The mouse's answer is "Because I am small." Part of the fun with Rabier seems always to have to do with matching animals and technology. Here we watch Daisy the Goose make very deft use of a scissors.

1930? The Tales of Sir Apolo: Uganda Folklore and Proverbs. With an Introduction by the Translator, The Rev. Canon F. Rowling. Illustrated by Savile Lumley. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Printed in Great Britain. London: The Religious Tract Society. $20 from WellRead Books, Northport, NY, through ABE, May, '99.

This book is by and about Sir Apolo Kagwa, who rose from humble origins in Uganda to be prime minister and died in 1927. Early chapters describe his youth and life. The tales appear on 25-86 and are followed by several pages of Luganda proverbs. The early tales tend to be etiological. There are one or two simple small illustrations for each story, besides the frontispiece of Kagwa holding a huge ivory tusk. Most of the stories qualify as fables. Particularly good are "The Hare and the Elephant" (39), "The Clever Mongoose" (44), and "The Cooking-Pot and the Drum" (52). Good new material for me includes "The Stolen Pledge" (65). Many of the stories climax in a proverb, which Kagwa then explains. I do not think that I have ever seen thicker paper used in a book! This book seems the size of a regular book but is less than 100 pages long.

1930? The "Tiny Play" Reader Adapted from Aesop's Fables. By Anne E. Roberts. Illustrations by K.A. Rapson and R. James Williams. 3rd edition, revised and enlarged; 2nd impression. Paperbound. London/Glasgow: Charles and Son, Ltd.; ; Toronto: Clarke, Irwin & Company. $5 from D. Scott, British Columbia, through eBay, June, '04. 

Twenty-four one-page fables are presented in dramatic form, with polysyllabic words hyphenated. Some versions become unusual, perhaps under the pressure to keep them short and to express them in dialogue form. Thus the milkmaid dreams only of eggs, chickens, and then what she can buy with the profits from them (5). The old woman starts waking up the maids one line after they have killed the cock (18). Similarly the fox at the finish-line speaks one line after the tortoise says he must pass the fox quietly (22). "The Leopard and the Fox" has four characters speak once each (23); if I were a child hearing the story for the first time, I think I would be confused. The same pattern appears in DLS (29). The brevity may help the telling of a fable like "The Crow and the Doves," especially when the whitewashed crow is rejected when he returns to the crows (21). There are six full-page black-and-white illustrations.

1930? Three Animal Fables Selected from Aesop. Adapted and Illustrated by S.M. Spence. London: Thorsons Publishers Ltd. $35 at Books of Wonder, May, '91. Extra copy with creased front cover for £7.65 from Ripping Yarns, London, May, '97.

A delightful find. The pages are not numbered, and the binding is weak. Alternating black-and-white and color illustrations. The lion and hare drawings sometimes end up slightly odd. LM features a "Do not disturb" sign and a safari with movie cameras. TH is elaborate. The circular course is many miles long; a blacksmith lion is the starter. TMCM departs most from tradition and may destroy its own fiction. The town mouse arrives in a limousine and has an army of servants. The country mouse takes the train, gazes at a toy shop, gets help from a policeman, and knocks at the door. The extra copy has poor color alignment on the fourth page of LM.

1931 Aesop's Fables Hankie Book. No author acknowledged. Cover illustration (and others?) by Pearl Gilligan. Pamphlet. Printed in USA. Los Angeles: N.R. Woodard Co. $20 from Joe Jordan, Cape Neddick, ME, July, '99.

This is really a coloring book based on "Genuine Aesop's Fables Film Characters." What it has to do with a hankie neither the seller nor I can figure out. It measures slightly larger than 10" x 11" and has seven pages of black-and-white outlines to color in. They are in fact colored in by some youthful hands. The booklet helps to bring together two things I have found. One is a pinback button featuring "Countess" and labelled "Aesop's Fables" (see "Pins" under "Clothing"). The characters featured here are Puffie, Al Squirrel, the Countess, Don Dog, "The Fables Gang," and Waffles with a final picture putting Waffles and Countess together on a romantic picnic. One can also find many of these characters and even some of their themes in Aesop's Movie Fables: Cartoons, Stories, Song, Laughs, Morals, Fun, Movie Flips (1931). It is not as clear to me that this whole enterprise is connected with my two framed movie advertisements, "Love at First Sight" and "The Dissatisfied Cobbler."

1931 Aesop's Movie Fables: Cartoons, Stories, Song, Laughs, Morals, Fun, Movie Flips. Van Beuren Corporation, NY. Several illustrations signed by Ed Donnelly. Large-format pamphlet missing one page, half of a loose leaf. Printed in USA. NY: Sonnet Publishing Co. $29.99 from Stuff Your Mom Threw Out, Inc., El Cajon, CA, through ebay, April, '99.

Pages 9-10 of 16 are missing in this large-format three-color delight with some illustration on all but one page and a full-page illustration on the front and back covers, the inside-back cover, and 1, 8, and 13. I do not know what the "Movie Flips" are that are advertised on the bottom of the cover. There are three original fables, aimed clearly at supporting adult authority. In "The Cheese" (2) Milton Mouse bets that he can eat a whole wheel of cheese, and Big Brother Mouse holds him to his boast. Milton ends up sick and trapped in the hole he has created in the cheese. Milton cannot appear the next day at the Aesop's Movie Fable Studio, and so his understudy Walter Mouse replaces him. Milton, as Big Brother's note explains, bit off more than he could chew. In "The Lesson" Squeaky, the pig, boasts that he knows all the lessons. In a not very logical attempt to make the challenge fit the boast, Don Dog, the teacher, teaches Squeaky not to boast by making him carry a gold-fish bowl on his head. The goldfish's expression (7) is one of the best artistic features of the book! Another great feature throughout lies in the initials, e.g., the three mice on 11. "Mothers Know Best" (11) is simple: Tiny Bear does not want to eat all his hot cereal before a serious day out in the cold weather. The full-page cartoon on 13 turns a hippo's lower teeth into piano keys being played by a monkey in top-hat. A long piece of music, "Aesop And His Funny Fables," occupies 14-16. The basic fiction behind the stories is that there is a movie studio producing Aesop's fables, and the animals comprise the talent and the artists. The back cover illustrates the studio. In my years of collecting I had never known that such a series of booklets or films existed. Were any such movies produced? Now how large might the series of either booklets or films have been?

1931 Aesop's Movie Fables (Green and Red Cover): Cartoons, Stories, Song, Laughs, Morals, Fun, Movie Flips. Van Beuren Corporation, NY. Ed Donnelly. Paperbound. NY: Sonnet Publishing Co. $35 from Lisa Leighton, Woodlyn, PA, through eBay, August, '05. Extra copy of the covers for $4.95 from Carol and Jerry Keimer, Colorado, through eBay, March, '04.

This item is identical with an earlier find except for two important differences. First, this large pamphlet has a green and red cover differently designed from that white cover of a cat showing a movie to children. Secondly, this copy explains why pages 9 and 10 are missing there. That page is used to construct the "flip" promised on the front page of both copies. Here the "Directions" portion of the page still remains: "Make the Egg Hatch the Cat." My sense is that a child is meant to cut out the rest of Page 9 and arrange the smaller pages as a flip book. I also found separately just the covers of this edition of the pamphlet, and I note that here, though I will not keep that extra copy in the collection proper. I will repeat most of what I wrote about the white-covered edition. This large-format three-color delight has some illustration on all but one page and a full-page illustration on the front and back covers, the inside-back cover, and 1, 8, and 13. There are three original fables, aimed clearly at supporting adult authority. In "The Cheese" (2) Milton Mouse bets that he can eat a whole wheel of cheese, and Big Brother Mouse holds him to his boast. Milton ends up sick and trapped in the hole he has created in the cheese. Milton cannot appear the next day at the Aesop's Movie Fable Studio, and so his understudy Walter Mouse replaces him. Milton, as Big Brother's note explains, bit off more than he could chew. In "The Lesson" Squeaky, the pig, boasts that he knows all the lessons. In a not very logical attempt to make the challenge fit the boast, Don Dog, the teacher, teaches Squeaky not to boast by making him carry a gold-fish bowl on his head. The goldfish's expression (7) is one of the best artistic features of the book! Another great feature throughout lies in the initials, e.g., the three mice on 11. "Mothers Know Best" (11) is simple: Tiny Bear does not want to eat all his hot cereal before a serious day out in the cold weather. The full-page cartoon on 13 turns a hippo's lower teeth into piano keys being played by a monkey in top-hat. A long piece of music, "Aesop And His Funny Fables," occupies 14-16. The basic fiction behind the stories is that there is a movie studio producing Aesop's fables, and the animals comprise the talent and the artists. The back cover illustrates the studio. In my years of collecting I had never known that such a series of booklets or films existed. Were any such movies produced? Now how large might the series of either booklets or films have been?

1931 Ave Maria Readers: Book One. Rev. John I. Barrett and Mary F. Fanning. No artist acknowledged. NY: American Book Company. $2.45 at More Books, Omaha, Oct., '90.

About as Catholic a book as you can find! It contains one fable by Bidpai (TT, 28) and one by Aesop ("The Wise Mice," 54). Its colored pictures are simple: five and three respectively. TT is told differently: the pond dries, and all three want to travel together. The ducks say that the turtle "talked too much" and "could not keep a promise." This book is in great shape!

1931 Fables by Shchedrin. (Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov). Translated from the Russian by Vera Volkhovsky. Hardbound. London: The Phoenix Library: Chatto and Windus. $30 from DeWolfe & Wood, Alfred, ME, through ILAB-LILA, August, '02. Extra copy for $10.39 from Books Ulster, Northern Ireland, through abe, Feb., '03.

Here is the original of a book I have in a 1976 reproduction by Greenwood Press. Strangely, that book reports its original as published in 1941, whereas all indications here are that this book was published rather in 1931. As I mention there, there are here twenty-two highly political fables published at various times in Saltykov's life (1826-89). Though talky and longish, they are witty and often devastating. Some verge on Juvenal's satires. The translator's helpful introduction gives the social and political Sitz im Leben. "The Carp Who Was an Idealist" seems typical. "The Very Wise Minnow" speaks well of life as risk.

1931 Fables Choisies Mises en Vers par M. de La Fontaine, Tome II. Compositions décoratives de Pierre Laprade, illustrations de Edmond Malassis et Fred. Money, gravées sur bois en couleurs. First and only edition. Hardbound. Paris: Louis Conard. $36.33 from Roman Kotchetkov, Beaconsfield, Quebec, through Ebay, Sept., '02.

Bodemann #425. Here is a real treasure! I think I did not realize what I was getting when I bid on this set of books. Each fable has a lovely colored woodcut about a third of a page in size. An early note indicates the woodcut plates were destroyed in the presence of witnesses after the printing of the book. This volume covers Books 5-8. There are again, as in Volume I (1930), three sets of art work here. Each fable gets a small illustration above its title, done by either Malassis or Money. Among the best of these are "La Vieille et les deux Servantes" (19), "La jeune Veuve" (111), and "Le Mal Marié" (129). The bear here seems to be looking at the companion in the tree in "L'Ours et les deux Compagnons" (53). Is "Le Coche et la Mouche" (151) monocolor in the midst of all these polychrome illustrations? I have seldom seen "L'Horoscope" (241) illustrated. As Bodemann notes, many of the illustrations move out slightly beyond their rectangular margins. There is also a clever little design between each illustration and its title. A third group of illustrations comprises the "decorative compositions" of Laprade placed at the beginning of each book. These are light and airy. There is a place-marking ribbon. By contrast with Volume I, this volume has no uncut pages. See 1930 and 1933, respectively, for Tome I and Tome III.

1931 Fables de la Fontaine. Tome Premier. Illustrations en couleurs de Touchagues. Collection des grands textes humoristiques. #683 of 1000. Paris?: Éditions du Sagittaire. $45 from The Bookseller Inc., Akron, at Rosslyn Book Fair, March, '92. (See 1933 for Volume Two.)

It is exactly one year later as I at last have braved cutting the pages and have taken the time to enjoy the delightful, colorful aquarelles here. I like them very much. One can simply enjoy the color and composition of illustrations like the frontispiece or 107. In other eye-catching illustrations, the fox rolls away the cheese (6), the rats hold a meeting (51), the man on the sponge-laden ass spouts water (66), the girl trims the lion's nails (127), the long serpent bites the file (203), and the bear sniffs one companion (211). Perhaps two-thirds of the fables are either illustrated or decorated. I find no reference to this work in Bassy, Hobbs, Quinnam, or my favorite private collector.

1931 Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrations de Félix Lorioux. Cloth spine. Paris: Librairie Hachette. See 1921/31.

1931 Fables in Alcohol. By Allsop. Marblehead, MA: N.A. Lindsey & Co. $10 through Interloc from Snowbound Books, Norridgewock, ME, August, '97.

Here is a historical curiosity. Aesop and Prohibition! This is a selection of passages dealing with Prohibition. After many of them there is a "This fable teaches" section in italics. The book is so filled with irony that I am unable to be sure whether it is pro- or anti-Prohibition! My hunch on this reading is that it is pro-Prohibition. One surprise is to see G.K. Chesterton quoted so frequently here. I take it the real demon here is individual liberty. To drink is to take the law into one's own hands. It is to select one portion of the Constitution for disregard.

1931 Fables of Aesop according to Sir Roger L'Estrange. Sir Roger l'Estrange. With fifty drawings by Alexander Calder. Designed by Monroe Wheeler. Hardbound. #265 of 595 copies printed on Auvergne hand-made paper. Printed in France. Paris: Harrison of Paris. $200 from Bob Benson at Yellow House Books, Great Barrington, Massachusetts, by mail, May, '99. Extra copy for $225 from Dickens, Atlanta (#573 of 595), Dec., '94.

I first saw and admired this book at C. Dickens in April at a CAMWS meeting. I am glad I called Jeff Barnes back when I came for the APA meeting in December. There is some water damage and a bit of bowing to the Dickens copy. This is a major-league treasure in my collection! AI at the back. L'Estrange's 1692 edition is followed here in spelling but not in the arbitrary use of capital letters and italics. It thus turns out that the Dover reprint is apparently, contrary to what I had thought, a facsimile of this original. Now in 1999 I have a better copy, haggled over with Bob Benson and reserved for me from January until the new fiscal year in June. It has the added advantage that this good copy, less bowed than the extra Dickens copy, also has the original page-slitting knife created for the book. It says "Paper Knife for Fables of Aesop."

1931 Peacock's Feather. By George S. Hellman. #60 of 249 signed copies. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. $18 from Book Ark, NY, April, '97.

One of the strangest and loveliest finds ever. For some reason, I was wandering in a section that seemed to have little definition in a good, funky, basement uptown bookstore. For some reason, I started paging through this book and noticed that chapters seemed to be named after fables. Then I realized that it was a fictional life of Aesop! I had never heard of it. A week later, I found it listed among rare books at the Library of Congress! It is a delightful and creative reading experience. Hellman creates an astonishingly novel persona for Aesop, but fits it well with the traditional information about his life. The book is very fragile. Its gold endpapers and charming peacock-feather cover are both becoming separated. There is a strange nude frontispiece of Atossa as she appeared before Aesop. Wonders will never cease!

1931 Peacock's Feather. George S. Hellman. Hardbound. First edition. Printed in USA. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. $11 from Alibris, July, '99.

This first edition lacks the frontispiece-illustration, author's signature, gold leaf endpapers, and pretty covers of the signed, limited edition listed under the same title, date, and publisher. See my comments there.

1931 The Children's Book of Animal Pictures. Lorinda Munson Bryant. First Printing. NY: The Century Co. $6.50 at Time Traveller, June, '93.

I find it amazing to discover where Aesop shows up! This book contains fifty black-and-white illustrations of art pieces representing animals. Four of them make explicit reference to fables, three by retelling the fable even though that is not the event pictured. Goya's "Don Manuel" (34) prompts "The Fox and the Cat." Homer's "The Fox-Hunt" (38) brings up "The Eagle and the Fox." Sorolla's "Oxen on the Beach" (56) leads to a paragraph that seems to come from nowhere telling Aesop's OF. And the authoress asks anachronistically apropos of the sculpture of the Little Goose-Man of Nuremberg (92), whether this is the man whom Aesop had in mind when he told of the goose that laid golden eggs. I could not pass up buying this tribute to Aesop's gift for travelling to strange places!

1931 The Fables of Jean de La Fontaine. Volume I. Translated into English Verse by Edward Marsh. With Thirteen Engravings on copper by Stephen Gooden. London: William Heinemann/NY: Random House. #194 of 525 copies signed by Marsh and Gooden. $60 at Bookman's Alley, Evanston, Sept., '92.

Vastly superior to the 1933 edition I have had. A real treasure! The engravings alternate between larger and smaller. The best after the title page: "Death and the Woodman," "The Lion in Love," "The Carter Stuck," and "The Young Widow." The engravings in this presentation take off by contrast with those in the 1933 reprint. See my 1933 entry for a few comments on the text.

1931 The Fables of Jean de La Fontaine. Volume II. Translated into English Verse by Edward Marsh. With Thirteen Engravings on copper by Stephen Gooden. London: William Heinemann/NY: Random House. #194 of 525 copies signed by Marsh and Gooden. $60 at Bookman's Alley, Evanston, Sept., '92.

Vastly superior to the 1933 edition I have had. A real treasure! The engravings alternate between larger and smaller. The best after the title page: MM and "The Acorn and the Pumpkin." The engravings in this presentation take off by contrast with those in the 1933 reprint. See my 1933 entry for a few comments on the text.

1931/47 Childcraft in Fourteen Volumes. Volume Four: Tales and Legends. Chicago: The Quarrie Corporation. $2 from Delavan Booksellers, Aug., '87.

The eleven fables here are well selected with good colored and black-and-white illustrations from Milo Winter and Bert Elliott. The tales use Jacobs' versions. The enjoyable pictures from Winter are not the same as those in his The Aesop for Children. The book smells of old book stores and good stories! Compare with Childcraft's different story-selections and illustrations in 1949 and 1964.

1931/61/63 Friendly Tales. Book One, Beacon Literary Readers. Edited by J. Compton. Colored drawings by Paul Hogarth. Monochrome decorations by Owen Wood. London: Ginn and Company. $2.40 at Ten Editions, Toronto, Dec., '94.

A lovely little book in excellent condition. What a nice approach to stories! Its three fables are labelled, respectively, "an Aesop Fable retold," "a Hindu Fable," and "an Old Story." BC (14) is presented as a drama. "The Timid Hares" (38) is the story of the falling coconut that signals the end of the world. "The Jackal and the Alligator" (73) has the former outwitting the latter time after time. Each fable has one colored illustration.

1931/67 Fables of Aesop according to Sir Roger L'Estrange. With fifty drawings by Alexander Calder. Reprint of the 1931 limited edition of 665 copies, designed by Monroe Wheeler and published by him and Barbara Harrison under the imprint of Harrison of Paris. Calder created his drawings for that edition. L'Estrange's edition was published in 1692 and is touched up here for modern readers. Inscribed by Monroe Wheeler. NY: Dover. $15 at Bookman's Alley, Evanston, Sept., '93. Seven extra copies, the most recent for $2.40 from Cartesian Bookstore, Berkeley, Aug., '94, from Stillwater Book Center for $3, Jan., '97, and a gift of Mary Pat Ryan from Vail, Sept., '97.

Lovely stuff. The drawings really are excellent. I saw the first edition of this book for sale in Atlanta at too high a price. The eight copies I have of this Dover edition show six different stages of Dover's pricing, from $1.50 through $1.75, $2, $2.25, $2.75 and $3.50 to $4.95.

1931/80 Fables and Fairy Tales. Simplified by Michael West and revised by D.K. Swan. Illustrated by Clive Spong. Pamphlet. London: Longman Group Limited. $0.50 from The Antiquarium, Omaha, May, '98.

Stage 1 of New Method Supplementary Readers, with a vocabulary of 500 words. Five fables are followed by "Stories of Mr Rabbit and Mr Fox" and then by "Fairy Tales." The first fable, "The old cat," recasts the traditional story of an old dog and a hunter. Here an old woman is involved. TMCM is then followed by "The man and the apples," in which a man on his way to a rich man's house for dinner throws away a box of good apples he finds because he expects a good meal. Alas, he encounters a flooding river and cannot get to the expected big dinner. He returns to take his apples out of the dust and to eat them. In TB the second man is fat and so cannot get up the tree. BC finishes the set. What a nice surprise!

1931?/55 Fables and Fairy Tales. Simplified by Michael West. Illustrated by Winifred Townshend and Mrs. Michael West. Pamphlet. New Method Readers. Printed in Holland. London: Longmans, Green and Co. $1 from Lise Provencher, Quebec, Canada, through Ebay, Nov., '00.

Finding this pamphlet allows me to reconstruct a little publishing history. I had already found a remake of this booklet from 1980, which gives as the original date of publication 1931. See my comments there. The structure of this booklet is the same: five fables followed by "Stories of Mr. Rabbit and Mr. Fox" and by "Fairy Tales." The illustrator here (Winifred Townshend for the fables) will be replaced there. The first fable, "The Old Cat," recasts the traditional story of an old dog and a hunter. Here an old woman is involved. TMCM is then followed by "The Man and the Apples," in which a man on his way to a rich man's house for dinner throws away a box of good apples he finds because he expects a good meal. Alas, he encounters a flooding river and cannot get to the expected big dinner. He returns to take his apples out of the dust and to eat them. In TB the second man is fat and so cannot get up the tree. BC finishes the set. There are questions for each fable on 49-51. This booklet uses all capitals for titles; the later edition will make a point of using small letters for its titles. I am surprised to see this printing sent out to Holland in the 1950's.

1932 Aisopos' Fabler. Ny Översättning av Erik Hedén. Med illustrationer av Arthur Rackham. First edition? Stockholm: Åhlen & Söners Förlag. $125 from Oxford TOO Books, Atlanta, April, '94.

My, what you do not find when you ask! This Swedish version of Rackham was offered to me as the "Danish first edition" for $250. It seems to reproduce the 1912 Heinemann illustrations faithfully except for the way in which it handles the original thirteen colored inserts. One of them ("The Moon and Her Mother") seems to have been dropped. Six of them are done as inserts but in black-and-white. The other six appear in their original form. After I worked this all out, I discovered the list of illustrations, consisting of precisely these twelve, on 18, just before the AI of fables. There is an new engraving not in the 1912 version; just before the title page, it presents Aesop as a shepherd with sheep in a field. See 1932/65 for a reproduction of this book that I received just two weeks earlier!

1932 Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by Edwin Noble. No editor acknowledged. London: J. Coker and Co. See 1921/32.

1932 Bewick's Select Fables of Aesop. Together with the Life of Aesop by Oliver Goldsmith. No. 595 of 1200 copies. Printed by Richard Ellis. NY: Cheshire House. $10 at Biermann's (?) in Minneapolis, June, '87.

Far superior renditions of the engravings to those in the 1973 reprint of this book by Avenel. Taken from Bewick's Select Fables (1784). Holes at the sides of some of the rough pages. A real find!

1932 Children's Books in England: Five Centuries of Social Life. F.J. Harvey Darton. Hardbound. Printed in Great Britain. Cambridge, England: Cambridge at the University Press. $25 from Bluestem Books, Lincoln, Dec., '98.

I am delighted to have found a copy of this book at a reasonable price. One of its eight illustrations is from a fable book, Edward Baldwin's Fables Ancient and Modern, adapted for the use of children (facing 202). Chapter II is given largely to fable editions. Darton works his way carefully through the first 250 years of English fable-book-printing to arrive at the point of Newbery's A Little Pretty Pocket Book in 1744, which Darton takes as the first commercially conceived children's book, meant primarily to amuse this particular population. Darton's survey includes insightful comments on Caxton, Henryson, Bullokar, Brinsley, Ogilby, Barlow/Behn, L'Estrange, Locke, and Croxall. He goes on to speak of Newbery's Fables in Verse for the Improvement of Young and Old by Abraham Aesop, Esq., with short comments afterwards on Bewick and Dodsley. I find his prose dense and rewarding.

1932 Fables de La Fontaine. Cent Fables Choisies. Illustrations de Henry Morin. Introduction de L. Tarsot. Henri Laurens, Éditeur. Printed in France. Paris: Librairie Renouard. $27.50 from Mary Lyon, Hyde Park, NY, through Bibliofind, Sept., '98.

Here is a second hardbound copy of one of the most beautiful books in the collection, and in very good condition. Apparently unknown to standard bibliographers like Quinnam, Hobbs, and Bassy, it is in my favorite private collection. It is well described in Bodemann in an edition of 1904. My other, undated, hardbound edition has a gray background for its cloth cover, while this edition has a green background. I also have a paperbound edition of 1925. The twelve full-page colored illustrations are particularly good, e.g., of GA (1), two pigeons (117), the little fish and the fisherman (137), and the oyster and the litigants (189). The best among the black-and-white line illustrations are of Death and the woodcutter (15), the hunter fleeing from the lion (30), the dog and food (36), the bear and the gardener (81), DW (91), the frog and the rat (150), and TB (151). Have I seen elsewhere the donkey cartoon before and the pigeon cartoon after the ending T of C? The closest artist generally may be Boutet de Monvel. This copy has some poor printing of text, particularly on 19, 23, and 102-3.

1932 Les Douze Plus Belles Fables du Monde. Roger Dévigne. André Hellé. #156 of 200. Paper boards. Paris: Editions Berger-Levrault. $120 from Brian Sevedge, Good Old Books, Milwaukee, WI, Dec., '00.

Illustrated paper boards. 79 pages. Of the fables, the first, "L'Âne et le Printemps Éternel" (1), is new to me. At Zeus' coronation, humans ask for eternal springtime and receive it. Zeus sends it to them on an ass, but the ass stops at a fountain along the way. The serpent guard of the fountain demands his sack in payment for a drink from the fountain. A favorite illustration among the beautiful work here by André Hellé is that of St. Francis preaching to the birds (10-11). The white bunny who wants to pass from the island to the mainland tells the crocodiles that he wants to count them. They line up and he runs across the causeway that they form, but he announces his ploy proudly before reaching the mainland, and the last crocodile can bite off his tail (13). Perhaps the best told and illustrated story among the twelve is "Le Cheval et le Hérisson" (47). The six blind creatures exploring the elephant are monkeys here (71). There is a T of C at the back. See Bodemann #430.1.

1932 The Lion and the Ox. An Old Arabian Story. Illustrations by Vladimir Lebedev. NY: MacMillan. $30 at Chimney Sweep Books, Santa Cruz, Aug., '92.

It is curious that there is no teller at all acknowledged for this story. I am also amazed to find this account of Bidpai's Shanzaba story in an American kids' book from sixty years ago! There is some pencilling, e.g., on 10, 12, and 14; there are also some torn pages. Very few fables are included within the story; I notice only "The Serpent and the Crow" on 12 and "The Rich Man's Parrot" on 32. The black-and-white art is simple and strong. The best illustrations may be of Dimna whispering in Shanzaba's ear on 17 and of the first encounter of battle on 21. Shanzaba dies proclaiming his innocence. The lion carries the guilt, while Dimna fears that Kaleel will betray him and thus discusses the matter. The leopard listens in. Dimna stands down all accusers in court until the leopard reports on the overheard conversation.

1932 The Road in Storyland. Edited by Watty Piper. Illustrated by Lucille W. and H.C. Holling. Inscribed in 1935. Platt and Munk. $25 at Victoria, NY, Jan., '90.

A wonderful book, and a jewel in my collection. Vintage Platt and Munk illustrations, about half in color. Includes "The Rooster and the Fox," DS, "The Hare and the Hedgehog," TMCM, and TT. The latter ends with a great colored picture of the turtle plummeting.

1932/34 Folk Tales Children Love. Edited by Watty Piper. NY: Platt and Munk. $13.50 at Rock Creek Bookshop in DC, Sept., '91. Second copy for $10 from Roger Carlson, August, '96. Third copy for $5, Dec., '87. Extra defective copy for $10 from Heartwood, Charlottesville, March, '92.

Mint condition pictures. A great find! Unfortunately, there are only two fables here: TMCM and TT, done in ways I have seen before in Platt and Munk books. Both the colored pictures and the black-and-whites are wonderful! The defective copy has two pages torn out of "The Elephant and the Monkey" and "The Donkey's Story."

1932/34/55 Folk Tales Children Love. Edited by Watty Piper. NY: Platt and Munk. $17.50 at Estuary, Lincoln, NE, Dec., '92.

Differs from the 1932/34 edition in two ways I can see: the cover here is red printed with black ink, where there a maroon cover was overlaid with a blue-framed multicolored picture; and here all the illustrations are done in color. There are two fables here, TMCM and TT, done in the usual way for Platt and Munk books.

1932/39 Joyful Times. By Clarence R. Stone and Odille Ousley. Illustrated by Vera Stone Norman. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Joyful Readers: The New Webster Series. St. Louis: Webster Publishing Company. $10 from Antique Interiors, Bismarck, ND, June, '97.

"The Monkey and the Glasses" (162) is listed as from Russia. Krylov, its author, seems not to be mentioned. The story is well told, with two nice colored illustrations. Though this fable is in good condition, the rest of the book has suffered somewhat from young hands. Do not miss the streamlined train engine on 16! The book is copyrighted, apparently, in 1932 and 1939.

1932/52 The Road in Storyland. Edited by Watty Piper. Illustrated by Lucille W. and H.C. Holling. Platt and Munk. $7.20 at Cedar Creek Antiques, Cedarburg, July, '85. Extra copy in slightly less good condition for $5 at the Sebastopol flea market, Sept., '96.

Contains the same material as the 1932 first edition. The cover and beginning and ending pages have changed and added color. "Boot" in the T of C is corrected to "Boots" in the title of the story itself. The order of stories is changed. The runs on the illustrations seem less sharp. The good copy smells unfortunately like a low-grade antique store!

1932/54 The Beacon Supplementary Readers: Book Three: The Wise Little Goat. Illustrated by Marcia Lane Foster. Sixteenth impression. Pamphlet. Printed in Great Britain. The Beacon Supplementary Readers. London: Ginn and Cmpany Ltd. £1 from Beverly Old Bookstore, Beverly, England, August, '01.

There are twelve stories here in a pamphlet in good condition. Four are listed as from Aesop: "The Wise Little Goat" (7), "A Silly Trick" (26), "The Race" (47), and "The Lion and the Fox" (54). We might know the first three better, respectively, as "The Wolf and the Goat," BW, and TH. "A Friend in Need" (31) is Gay's "The Hare and Her Many Friends" retold. "Red Comb and the Fox" (71) is the Chanticleer story adapted from Chaucer. "The Dog and the Wolf" (21) is listed as a proverb illustrated; it is Perry 134. The little dog promises to be fatter in a week. But I do not know what proverb is illustrated here! Each story is illustrated with one or two simple two-color or three-color illustrations, with just a few monochrome illustrations added. The tellings are deliberately simple and careful about their incremental vocabulary.

1932/65 Aisopos' Fabler. Ny Översättning av Erik Hedén. Med illustrationer av Arthur Rackham. Norrköpping: Sörlins Förlag. $16 from Barbara and Bill Yoffee, March, '94.

It was a thrill for me to find this Swedish edition on the Yoffees' list of fable works. Then just weeks later, I found in Atlanta the original of which this seems to be a facsimile! The changes I notice from the original are these: all twelve inserted illustrations are removed, along with their list; the publisher has changed; and the cover now has Rackham's colored TH illustration (with some blackening that seems added, perhaps to emphasize outlines). I enjoy travelling with Aesop.

1932? Das Schönste Fabelbuch für Brave Kinder: Eine Auswahl aus Deutschlands Fabelschatz. Paperbound. Reutlingen: Druck und Verlag von Rob. Bardtenschlager. $5 from BookEnds Used and Rare Books, through eBay, June, '02.

As the closing T of C shows, there are ninety-one fables packed into this eighty-page paperbound booklet. Some of the texts are prose and some verse; all are in Gothic script. All that I have sampled are traditional Aesopic fable material. The cover shows a picture of a fox doffing his hat to a rabbit who seems wounded. The inside-front-cover and title-page seem to have the same inscription from 1933.

1933 Aesop's Fables. Edited and Illustrated with Wood Engravings by Boris Artzybasheff. NY: Viking Press. First printing with a portion of the front cover of the dust jacket for $40 from Kelmscott, Baltimore, March, '92; extra copy of the first printing for $27 from Ralph Casperson, Miles, MI, May, '95. Fourth printing with dust jacket for $7 from Bookworks, Chicago, Dec., '93. Fifth printing for $15 from Delavan Booksellers, Dec., '87. Eighth printing with Viking Library Binding, dust jacket, and an equivalent light-colored cover for $3.37 from Bookman's Alley, Jan., '98. And a ninth printing from 1966 for $4 from Powell's, Aug., '87.

T of C at the front and an AI at the rear. About twenty great wood engravings, starting from the reading donkey on the front cover of the first printing! The engravings are particularly distinct and lively in the first printing, finding which represents the culmination of a long search on my part. The ninth printing features a different cover (gray and no donkey), different paper, and a different strength of inking. The text is based on Croxall (1722) and James (1848). Now in 1997, I have just finished a careful review of the texts in comparison with those two versions. Artzybasheff's changes worked upon them generally involve predictable improvements like greater care in tenses, more contemporary language, and shorter and more pointed prose. His brief and engaging comments about using those two sources do not cover all of what he does. For he offers some fables presented by neither of these two: five of them from sources I do not yet recognize, one from Phaedrus and one from Caxton. I hope sometime to investigate whether a typo or creative imagination is at work in each of these word substitutions: shaking vs. shutting in GA, degree vs. decree of fate in PJ (#51), and currier vs. carrier in "The Horse and the Ass." Artzybasheff introduces a tiger into the story normally pitting a lion against several bulls, and he also makes a tiger rather than a bear the lion's opponent in a fight over a fawn, which the clever fox eventually takes away. A fascinating book!

1933 Aesop's Fables. Edited and Illustrated with Wood Engravings by Boris Artzybasheff. NY: The Junior Literary Guild. $4 at the Book House, St. Louis, March, '95.

I was surprised to find this book. I did not know that the Artzybasheff edition was done by anyone other than Viking. Is this book actually over sixty years old? The internal book seems identical to the Viking editions. The black cover (not red or cream) lacks the picture of the ass reading. The endpapers, though in gray, have the same design as the endpapers in the various Viking editions. There is the usual T of C at the front and AI at the rear.

1933 Ant Antics. Presented and Illustrated by Estella Cave. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Printed in Great Britain. London: John Murray. £16 from Beverley Old Bookshop, Yorkshire, August, ‘01.

Here is a strange publication. From what I can gather, Lady Cave developed a lifelong interest in ants. For this book, she did a series of illustrations of ant life, based ultimately on scholarly works on the life of ants but touched with her own imagination, fantasy, and humor. She then invited a number of figures of the day to write in comment upon the pictures. Throughout there is a good deal of play on the name of these creatures. Thus there are references to "anthology," "anti-climax," "antediluvian," and more. The book touches upon the fable world when a little chapter of the life of ants is given over to GA (66-70). There are two fine pieces of colored art along with good comments and reflections by Cave and Sir Owen Seaman. I had particular fun besides with the poem "The Marriage Flight" (27). There are some stains on 87.

1933 Des Fables. Charles-Albert Janot. 21 Bois Gravés d'André Margat. Paperbound. Paris: Albert Messein. 100 Francs from a Buchinist, August, '00.

Inscribed by Janot on June 11, '33. These are real fables, and the woodcuts are suitable illustrations of them. After many short-stories and essays that are billed "fables," it is a pleasure to see these. In the first, a fox pricks his paw on a hedgehog and spends some time trying to convince him to shed his needles. The hedgehog finishes the fable by saying that he will be glad to do so when the fox gets rid of his teeth. In the second, a miller has all sorts of trouble getting his donkey to cross a wooden bridge on the way to selling his grain. He finally lights on the plan of trying to pull the donkey backwards by the tail. His ploy has the desired effect. To spite his master's efforts, the donkey darts across the bridge! "Les Lapins et le Porc-épic" (15) tells the traditional tale--with the help of a strong illustration--of some overly compassionate rabbits who listen to a desperate porcupine who wants shelter. Once the latter is in their home, they begin to pay the price for their sympathy. In all, there are four books of fables here, with a total of fifty fables, as the closing T of C shows.

1933 Ein Kalender für das Jahr 1933. Mit Fabeln nach Aesop und Anderen (Cover: Klingspor Kalendar für das Jahr 1933). Gedruckt und herausgegeben von Gebr. Klingspor. Holzstiche von Willi Harwerth. Hardbound. Offenbach am Main. $49.50 from Lee Jay Stoltzfus, Lititz, PA, through eBay, May, '04. 

This is one of the happiest finds of my twenty-five years of collecting. I first knew of this book from Anne Stevenson Hobbs' book on books in the Victoria and Albert Museum. I had it in my hands when I visited the museum. I presumed that I would never have a chance at finding a copy for the collection. Germany after 1933 was not a good place for preserving ephemera like a calendar. I was amazed when the book came up on eBay and more amazed when no one bid against me! This hardbound book about 4" x 7" begins with a page for each month (2-13). Each page has a bird illustration at the top appropriate to the season. What follows is the liturgical calendar of saints and Sundays, with the Sundays printed in red, and phases of the moon noted. There follow then nineteen pages of fables, about one to a page, each with an illustration (14-32). Hobbs chooses well when she selects the woodcuts of "Der schöpfende Hirsch" (16) and "Der Fuchs und die Schwalbe" (23) for her book. They are exquisite. Her version of the former is colored, while none of the woodcuts here are colored. FC (18) and FK (26) are presented with figures situated at the top and bottom of the page, respectively, with text in between. BF (22) is another excellent woodcut. The woodcut for "Der Bauch und die Glieder" (29) is appropriately macabre. What a treasure! Formerly in the collection of Carl and Margaret Rollins.

1933 Fabeln. Retold and Edited by Peter Hagboldt. Pamphlet. Boston: The Heath-Chicago German Series #2: D.C. Heath and Company. $2.99 from Scott Walker, Lebanon, IL, through eBay, May, '01. Extra copy with extensive pencil marks for $7.61 from Best Buy on Books, Tucson, AZ, Dec., '02.

This second booklet of Heath's German series contains thirty fables on some 38 pages, with footnotes along the way and vocabulary exercises at the end based on sequential groups of fables. The pamphlet is done in Gothic script. The first and the last few fables seem to deviate from or move beyond traditional Aesopic material. Thus the first substitutes a lion for the ox in OF (1). The shepherd asks the nightingale to sing; she answers "Do you not hear the loud frogs?!" "Yes," he answers, "but ony because I do not hear you" (35). The life of Aesop's play on the tongue as the best and worst of things becomes a fable here to the same effect (35). Two dogs pledge true friendship and even give each other their "hand" on the matter, until a piece of meat is thrown in front of the two of them (36). One ass serves as servant of the lion and goes with him through the forest. A fellow ass greets him as brother, only to hear back "Get out of the way. I do not know you" (38). After the fables there is a set of riddles (38-40). The two copies, both of which I will keep in the collection, treat the blue canvas cover's color for print differently. The good copy does print in aqua, while the extra copy does print in black.

1933 Fables Choisies Mises en Vers par M. de La Fontaine, Tome III. Compositions décoratives de Pierre Laprade, illustrations de Edmond Malassis et Fred. Money, gravées sur bois en couleurs. First and only edition. Hardbound. Printed in Paris: Louis Conard. $36.33 from Roman Kotchetkov, Beaconsfield, Quebec, through Ebay, Sept., '02.

Bodemann #425. Here is a real treasure! I think I did not realize what I was getting when I bid on this set of books. Each fable has a lovely colored woodcut about a third of a page in size. An early note indicates the woodcut plates were destroyed in the presence of witnesses after the printing of the book. This volume covers Books 9-12. There are again, as in the other two volumes (1930 and 1931), three sets of art work here. Each fable gets a small illustration above its title, done by either Malassis or Money. Among the best of these are "Le Mari, la Femme et le Voleur" (49); "Le Trésor et les deux Hommes" (54); "Les Deux Aventuriers et le Talisman" (119); and "Le Singe" (243). As Bodemann notes, many of the illustrations move out slightly beyond their rectangular margins. There is also a clever little design between each illustration and its title. A third group of illustrations comprises the "decorative compositions" of Laprade placed at the beginning of each book. These are light and airy. There is a place-marking ribbon. By contrast with Volume I, this volume has no uncut pages. This volume has at the end an AI of the whole work besides the usual T of C for the individual volume.

1933 Fables de la Fontaine. Tome Second. Illustrations en couleurs de Touchagues. Collection des grands textes humoristiques. (A note before the frontispiece explains that Volume I is numbered for the pair.) Paris?: Éditions du Sagittaire. $45 from The Bookseller Inc., Akron, at Rosslyn Book Fair, March, '92. (For Volume One, see 1931.)

It is exactly one year later as I at last have braved cutting the pages and have taken the time to enjoy the delightful, colorful aquarelles here. I like them very much. Color and composition work together to make the illustrations delightful. Some that catch my eye are of the rat who retired from the world (my grand prize, 14), the milkmaid surrounded by fourteen scenes (29), the rat caught by the oyster (74), the bear about to overwhelm the fly on the gardener (77), the wife jumping into her husband's arms because of the thief (155), one rat pulling another as a sled under an egg (171), and the turtle flying between two geese (181).

1933 Famous Fables from Aesop. Cut Paper Silhouettes by Florence Sampson. Cleveland: Harter Publishing Company. $15 from Strand, March, '93. Four extra copies: for $4 from Laurie in St. Paul, July, '85; for $8 from Anne Leonard, June, '88; for $1 somewhere sometime; and as a gift from Robert Vouk after my presentation at Central Community College in Columbus, NE, Dec., '94.

A beautiful book. The silhouettes are lovely; I doubt that the fables, unattributed to an author, are worth much. I would like to find one silhouette to include in a lecture. The best seem to be of the fox and goat, the cat and birds, the cocks and eagle, and LM.

1933 Nouvelles Fables. Franc-Nohain (pseud. Maurice-Etienne Legrand). Paperbound. Paris: Éditions Spes. Fr 43 from Librairie Henry Veyrier, Clingnancourt, Paris, August, '99.

Franc-Nohain had previously done nine books of fables in various editions, including the edition I have of the first three books. Now this book contains Books 10 through 12. The book is very fragile; its connection with the cover has been lost. I tried several of the fables here, but my French does not quite reach far enough to comprehend them. Is the illustration on the back for the fable of the dog with a casserole tied to his tail (17)?

1933 Once Upon a Time. By W.J. Enright. With Pictures Suitable for Coloring and Crayoning. Front cover missing. Racine: Whitman Publishing Company. $2 at Pageturners, April, '91.

A small, squarish book with ten fairy tales and TH (283-92). The version and the illustrations are rather standard. The square line-illustrations contain a few lines each of block-lettered print. Pages 145-220 are missing.

1933 The Book of Good Love of the Archpriest of Hita, Juan Ruiz. Translated into English Verse by Elisha K. Kane. #110 of 1000 copies privately printed for Elisha K. Kane at the Printing House of William Edwin Rudge, NY. Boxed. $20 from an unknown source, Dec., '98.

At last I have had the leisure to tackle this large work from the fourteenth century. I was happy to find on the web a good list of the twenty-four fables involved--and of ten other similar stories. (I find another truncated fable of "The Wolf and the Goats" at 766). The structure of the work is loose. One main structural section seems to start with a lament to "Sir Love." He leads to the seven capital sins and he has not brought this priest success! Love replies that he has not gone about it correctly. His advice here includes careful suggestions not to overdrink, for example. Venus gives even better and more aggressive advice than her husband, Sir Love. Both depend on sources like Ovid and represent similar viewpoints to his. The author then pursues love with several women. The first is his neighbor, Lady Sloe. Trota is his go-between. With her help he is successful here and later with a nun. There is a set of works revolving around encounters with a rural shepherdess/guide on the road. A long section is devoted to the battle between Lady Lent and Sir Carnal. The finish of this section involves a near-blasphemous acclamation of Sir Carnal on Easter Sunday. The wooing of the nun is followed by a song and epitaph for his dead trot and several apparently unrelated songs and hymns to the Virgin and from a blind man. I find Kane's translation in rhyming quatrains vigorous. It is enhanced by the impish cartoon initials. In the preface, in the kind of formulae that prefaces are full of, Kane thanks himself first! What I note about the fables here is that, while most are standard fables from the Aesopic tradition, many have twists that are surprising. Thus the bun which the thief gives the guard dog has pins and glass inside (#174). After the horse kills the lion with a kick to his head, he flees with a full belly and dies (#298). Insulted by the ass, the old lion kills himself by tearing his own heart out (#311). The monkey judge seems to penalize neither the wolf nor the fox (#321). A female frog offers to take a male mouse (mole?) onto her back in a flood (#407). The hares still run, even after they hear an enlightened speech unmasking their fears (#1445). The fables are clustered in perhaps the first and last quarters of the work. The last nine come within #1348-1450.

1933 The Fables of Jean de La Fontaine. Translated into English Verse by Edward Marsh. With Twelve Reproductions from Engravings by Stephen Gooden. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Apparent first edition. London: William Heinemann. $9.99 from Phil Demke, Hardwick, VT, through eBay, Oct., '05. Extra copy for £4 at Any Amount of Books on Charing Cross Road, London, Aug., '88.

The extra copy was reduced to four pounds because the proprietor had told me he had no fable books to offer. I like some of the engravings very much: of Juno and the peacock, the lion in love, the carter in the mud, and MM. The tellings seem lively. The translator's preface is so British and so "30's." A delightful find! Now, eighteen years later, I have also found a copy with a dust jacket.

1933 The Treasure Book of Best Stories. Edited by Althea L. Clinton. Illustrated by Fern Bisel Peat. Dust jacket. Akron: Saalfield Publishing Co. Gift of Kathleen and Michael Lazare of Pansy Patch (bookshop and bed-and-breakfast), St. Andrews, N.B., at Rosslyn Book Fair, March, '92. Second copy in terrible shape (and missing one illustration) for $1 at Bonifant, Wheaton, MD, Oct., '91.

An oversized book with forty-two stories including nine pages of full colored pictures. There are five fables: FS (45); TT (54); "The Monkey Judging the Cats (60); TMCM (83) well told, with one black-and-white illustration; and "The Hare and the Hedgehog (91). No fable has a colored illustration. The best colored picture is of the shoemaker's elves (50).

1933 Thirty Fables in Slang. George Ade. Illustrated by Peggy Bacon. NY: Arrow Editions. $20 at Bookman's Alley, Evanston, Sept., '92.

A delightful collection of stories from Fables in Slang (1899) and More Fables (1900). The art here is typical 30's art. I had not known that Ade was ever illustrated by anyone other than Clyde Newman. I do not find these pictures as lively as Newman's.

1933 Vérités Ironiques: Fables plus fables que les autres; Fables en raccourci; Fables-express. Pierre Verdon. Paperbound. Lausanne: Editions Civis. SF 25 from Altstadt Antiquariat, Fribourg, Switzerland, Oct., '99.

Verdon starts his work by referring to La Fontaine and speaks of relating to current times. I cannot be a very good judge of these idiomatic French works. Though the sub-title proclaims the first section "fables more fables than the others" (19-118), the works seem to me, at least sometimes, to be more ironic commentaries on our times. Thus the second work in this section, "Jeunesse agit, n'est-ce pas mieux?.." (21), pillories the old fogey who claims that writers need to ripen. While the young man he pillories writes and wins prizes, the old fogey stops after writing ten pages of his book. In the fourth work, "Prêcher d'exemple eût été mieux" (27), a man who caused all sorts of scandals when he was young grows up to condemn anyone dallying. Would not he have done better to have preached by example? The second section (121-50) proclaims that it presents very brief fables. Again, I find the works which I have sampled insightful but perhaps not fables. "Tout est joli chez qui nous plait." (124) makes the fine point that our neighbor's wife has all sorts of attractive qualities, while our own wife is a pot of faults. True! But the text has not yet reduced what it is after to a single event; we deal rather in groups or types and their ironique juxtaposition. "Le récit le plus court." (126) claims well that the shortest statement is always the best. Proof? A woman caught in a fault gets worked up, blushes, reacts strongly. It would be better to settle down. The third section (153-65) presents even shorter works. I like this two liner: "Ce curé bon vivant d'être chaste se vante. Moralité: Qu'en pense sa servante?" (155). There is a T of C at the end.

1933 50 Fables de La Fontaine. Par François Ricard. Illustrations Nouvelles de M. Bonamy. Hardbound. Sixième Édition. Paris: J. De Gigord. Gift of Rosemarie Lytton, Dec., '01.

Here is a lively student textbook from Canada in the period between the two world wars. There are plenty of footnotes with help on difficult vocabulary along the way. After each fable, there is an extended commentary in sections specifically given to the words, the ideas, and the grammar. There are then some questions to answer. From 173 to 184 one finds "Notre Ménagerie," with pictures and descriptions of the birds and animals in the fables. At the end there are three indices to locate fables. The illustrations are livelier than one would expect in a textbook. Notice the dynamic illustration of the eagle, frog, and mouse on 101, for example. What a lovely little gift!

1933/39 The Treasure Book of Best Stories. Edited by Althea L. Clinton. Color Illustrations by Eleanora Madsen. Pen-and-Ink Illustrations by Fern Bisel Peat. Akron: Saalfield Publishing Co. $6 at The Book House, St. Louis, March, '95.

Apparently a work-over of Saalfield's 1933 similarly oversized volume of the same name. The cover illustration is changed, as are the frontispiece and all the colored illustrations, which are now done by Madsen instead of Peat. The story-pagination is exactly the same except in two places: "Three Billy Goats Gruff" and "Three Little Kittens, They Lost Their Mittens" are exchanged, and the three stories beginning at 80 are rearranged, including TMCM. TMCM is now one of the illustrations (86). The paper now is thinner. The spine is weak and some pages (e.g., the list-of-illustrations page and 18) are torn. Many illustrations are at the same place and have the same subject but are now by Madsen; others are at the same place but have different subjects. See the earlier edition for a list of the five fables involved.

1933/58 The Poems and Fables of Robert Henryson, Schoolmaster of Dunfermline. Edited from the Earliest Manuscripts and Printed Texts by H. Harvey Wood. Second edition, revised. Hardbound. Printed in Great Britain. Edinburgh & London: Oliver and Boyd. £18 from Minster Gate Bookshop, York, July, '98. Extra copy for $25 from Serendipity Books, Berkeley, August, '95.

I have not taken time to read through Henryson's work this time, as I did with the following more recent edition of his work: The Moral Fables of Aesop by Robert Henryson. An Edition of the Middle Scots Text, with a Facing Prose Translation, Introduction, and Notes by George D. Gopen (1987). It was very nice to find this book at York's Minster, since there is reference in it to finding a very valuable edition of Henryson in York Minster's library (217). Let me limit myself here to pointing out the portions of this work that someone interested in fables may find most helpful. In the introduction, xix-xxiv are devoted to fables. The prologue and thirteen fables themselves are on 1-102. Photocopies of Henryson's title-page, of the beginning of the prologue to the fables, and of the beginning of "The Taill of the Cok, and the Jasp" are, respectively, the frontispiece and face xiv and 4. A short appendix on 217 has to do with the printing of the book. The commentary dealing with the fables runs from 225 to 251. The book closes with an extensive glossary.

1933? Fabeln des Äsop Nach Steinhöwels "Erneuertem Esopus". Bearbeitet von Victor Zobel. Mit 49 Holzschnitten nach Vergil Solis. 11.-15. Tausend. Hardbound. Leipzig: Insel-Bücherei Nr. 272: Insel-Verlag. DM 12 from Kunstantiquariat Joachim Lührs, Hamburg, July, '98. 

What a lovely thin book! I think that there are fifty fables and fifty illustrations, along with a frontispiece-illustration. It is thus surprising that the front cover proclaims "Mit 49 Holzschnitten." The Solis imitations here are very good. Maybe among the best are the illustrations for "Vom dem Pferd und Hirsch" (31) and "Vom Fuchs und dem Bock" (49). This is an unusual fable book in that it has almost nothing besides the fables and their illustrations. There are just two sentences on 56 about the original author, the original engraver, and the present artist. In any case, the fables here are numbered. The book is inscribed in September, 1934.

1933? Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrations de Pierre Noury. Paris: Ernest Flammarion. $35 through Interloc from Dorothy Sawyer, Webster, NY, Sept, '97.

For some time now, I have kicked myself for having bought a supposedly second copy of a book I had already found at Chanut in Paris this past May. Now as I look at both books, I see that the legal information at the end of this copy refers to 1933, while that refers to 1947. This book is special, I believe, for its twelve excellent full-page colored illustrations, all dated 1926. Are they gouaches? I'll list them here and italicize the best: FC (9), WL (19), TMCM (29), OR (35), LM (43), MSA (53), TT (65), "The Little Fish" (71), "The Deer Gazing in the Water" (81), MM (91), OF (105), and "The Divided Oyster" (112). There are also good smaller black-and-white line drawings, of which the best might be those on 80 and 104. There is a T of C at the back. The milkmaid's can here is unbreakable. There are red colored pictorial paste-on covers, the front showing La Fontaine with animals featured in these fables, while people from these fables are in the background.

1933?/47? Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrations de Pierre Noury. Paris: Ernest Flammarion. 175 Francs from François Chanut, Paris, May, '97. Extra copy for 42.5 Francs from Henry Veyrier, August, '99.

See my comments on the earlier printing. This book differs in not having the red-and-blue pictorial end-papers that that earlier edition has. It rearranges the front pages slightly and includes more books illustrated by Noury (sixteen instead of nine). The color alignment is poorly done in the illustration of WL (19) in the first copy, but well done in the extra. The extra is in generally poorer condition, but the colored illustrations are well preserved.

1934 Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by Nell Stolp Smock. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Racine: Whitman. $8.86 through Ebay from Pam Dorwart, Strasburg, PA, Feb., '99. Extra copies for $1.40 at More Books, Omaha, Oct., '90 and at Magers & Quinn, Dec., '97.

The outside spine of this book is not strong, but internally it is in good condition. I like this book. It has forty-eight fables, each with a simple but accurate engraving that catches the nuance of this telling. "The Wolf and the Sheep" (36) makes more sense than usually. There are especially good illustrations for "The Stag at the Spring" (43) and "The Mouse and the Weasel" (58). The "More Books" extra copy is in poor condition. The "Magers & Quinn" extra has both title-page and 87 mutilated and 11 crayoned and no back cover, but internally it is often better than the other extra copy. The cover proclaims "The Story in 96 Pages."

1934 Children's Story Book. More than 60 famous stories. With new illustrations by Romney Gay. No editor acknowledged. Racine: Whitman Publishing Company. $11.20 at Gerrie's Collectibles, San Juan Bautista, March, '97.

The T of C at the front lists about ten fables in this large, cheap-paper book. The surprise comes when a reader finds out that 205-84 are missing! How did these "extra" pages fit into this