1900 to 1909

1900 - 1901

1900 A First Greek Reader. With notes and vocabulary by Charles M. Moss. New Edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. See 1885/1900.

1900 A Hundred Fables of LaFontaine. With pictures by Percy J. Billinghurst. Apparent first edition. Hardbound. London/NY: John Lane The Bodley Head. $24.95 from Harvest Book Company LLC, Fort Washington, PA, through Advanced Book Exchange, Feb., '89.

After spending $120 for a third printing and then $70 for a second, I have worked my way back to a first printing for much less money. When I earlier reviewed the "1920?" printing, I thought that the best of the illustrations were "Death and the Woodman" (56), "The Council Held by the Rats" (62), "The Rat and the Oyster" (114, the best of all), and "The Rats and the Weasels" (198). Now I would add "The Lion and the Ass Hunting" (9), SS (73), and DLS (167). The illustrations come alive here more than they do in the frequent Billinghurst reproductions. There is an AI at the front. The spine is suffering a split at 80. Like the third edition, this has a beautifully colored cover. There is on 203 an advertisement for the Aesop edition "uniform with this volume" with a date of 1899.

1900 A Hundred Fables of LaFontaine (American Edition). With pictures by Percy J. Billinghurst. Apparent first edition. Hardbound. London/NY: John Lane The Bodley Head. $40 from Michael Weinberg, Pelham, MA, through Ebay, Oct., '01.

Before placing a bid on this book, I checked but found no record of my having a first edition. Soon after I placed the bid, I found the record. I felt bad since then--until I just checked the book out against the book I had already catalogued. To my surprise, this book has several differences. Where that book had on the verso of the title-page only "Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. at the Ballantyne Press," this has "Copyright by John Lane 1899" and "Riggs Printing Co., Albany, N.Y." I presume, then, that this is the American first edition, done by John Lane in New York, whereas that was the first edition, printed in Great Britain. A second structural difference lies in the book's finish. That edition follows 202 with an advertisement for the companion volume of Aesop, on the verso of which are press notices for the advertised volume. This volume simply stops with 202, which is followed immediately by a blank end-paper. This volume is generally in poorer condition and lacks the slip-sheet between frontispiece and title-page. It has also been colored lightly, even nicely, with one color on a number of illustrations. A good example is 25. Did the artist plan to come back with other colors? See my comments on that volume and on the editions I list under "1900/10?" and "1900/20?"

1900 Choix de Fables Traduites en Arabe parlé. Mejdoub ben Kalafat. Deuxieme edition. Hardbound. Constantine, Algeria: Imprimerie Jérôme Marle et F. Biron. $53.09 from Librairie L'Alliance, Toulon, France, through abe, March, '04.

As the closing bilingual T of C makes clear, there are here twenty-eight Arabic fables taken from La Fontaine, Florian, and Fenelon, with notes in French on the Arabic expressions and grammar. While all the texts are in Arabic and only in Arabic, all of the title-page and introductory material and notes are in French. These twenty-eight fables cover 1-77 in a very nicely made book. Further parts of the book present contes and anecdotes. There is an extensive dictionary just before the T of C. Here is an out-of-the-way member of the collection! 

1900 Fabelbuch: Eine Auswahl deutscher Fabeldichtungen. Eingeleitet und in geschichtlicher Anordnung zusammengestellt von Julius Ziehen. Hardbound. Leipzig/Dresden/Berlin: Deutsche Schul-Ausgaben #33: L. Ehlermann. Gift of Martin Kölle, August, '07.

The first third of this 81-page book is taken up with an introduction. As the closing T of C shows, we turn first to Lessing's verse fables and then to his prose fables. The usual suspects follow in order: Hagedorn, Gleim, von Keist, Gellert, Pfeffel, Lichtwer, Claudius, Willamow, Goethe, and Fröhlich. Lessing has twenty prose fables and four in verse. Gellert has thirteen, Lichtwer nine, and Hagedorn eight. The book is printed in Gothic script. I could not read the introduction carefully, but Ziehen has clear issues with La Fontaine's approach to fable-writing. For a hundred-year-old book, this compact little volume is in very good shape!

1900 Fables d'Ésope: Fables Choisies: Texte Grec.  E[mile] Chambry.  Hardbound.  Paris: Librairie Victor Lecoffre.  $16.30 from Xavier Mendieta, Barcelona, Spain, through abe, March, '15.  

"Avec Notice, Commentaire et Lexique."  I noticed this book because I am aware of Chambry's later work for "Les Éditions Belles Lettres," commonly known as Budé editions.  Chambry's first bilingual Aesop for that collection was in 1927, and the most recent update was in 2012.  Here is a schoolbook for Greek students a whole generation earlier.  The book contains 62 Greek fables with bilingual Greek and French titles.  It has not one but two Jesuit seals on its title-page.  One is from the school at Veruela, though another inside the book says that it is from the "Biblioteca de la Casa," presumably the Jesuits' library.  The other is from the Collegium Maximum of the Province of Tarragon?  And is this latter identical with "S. Cugat del Vallés"?  Their stamp is on the last page.  Some of the most interesting books in this collection are discards from old Jesuit schools and seminaries!

1900 Lights to Literature: Book Two: A Second Reader. By Sarah E. Sprague. Chicago: Rand, McNally and Company. See 1898/1900.

1900 More Fables. George Ade. Illustrated by Clyde J. Newman. First edition. Chicago and NY: Herbert S. Stone. $15 in trade from Linda Schlafer from Margolis and Moss, Santa Fe, May, '93.

A companion in the same format to Fables in Slang. The fun continues! The title-page, cover, and spine have the title listed above, while the page before the title-page has More Fables in Slang. My favorites here are the first few ("The Fable of How Uncle Brewster was Too Shifty for the Tempter," "The Fable of the Grass Widow and the Mesmeree and the Six Dollars," and "The Fable of the Honest Money-Maker and the Partner of His Joys, Such as They Were") and the last ("The Fable of the Author Who was Sorry for What He Did to Willie"). The first edition was first sold by Purnell in Sacramento.

1900 Muthon Aisopeion Ekloge (Greek): Choix de Fables d'Ésope: Texte Grec suivi d'un lexique. Hardbound. Tours: Livres Classiques a l'usages des Collèges: Maison Alfred Mame et Fils. $5.99 from Provencher Gaetan through eBay, Sept., '04. 

The first surprise in this little book of 84 pages is the Jesuit seal on the title-page. Where does that come from? A two-page notice on Aesop precedes some forty-one Greek fables on 26 pages. A Greek-French dictionary takes up the next fifty-two pages, followed by a T of C. This is the quintessential French high-school text. Notice that the students are meant to understand the fables without the help of notes!

1900 New Education Readers: A Synthetic and Phonic Word Method: Book Two: Development of the Vowels. By A.J. Demarest and William M. Van Sickle. Hardbound. NY: American Book Company. $9.50 from Brass Armadillo, Gretna, NE, June, '12.

Twelve years ago I found Book Three of this series in Knoxville. I have it listed under 1901. Now I have found Book Two in an antiques collective outside Omaha. There is only one fable included here -- TMCM (119) -- and it is handled in an unusual fashion. Many city mice visit the country, and many country mice then visit the city. There human beings intrude twice, and that is enough to send the country mice home. The moral goes in a slightly different direction from the morals of most versions of this fable: "Those who have the plain things of life are sometimes more happy than the rich" (120). This reader is in very good condition. 

1900 Phaedri Fabulae Aesopiae. Édition nouvelle, avec notice, commentaire et lexique. Par E. Chambry. Paris: Librairie Victor LeCoffre. From the library of Rev. Richard Arnold, S.J. Gift of Rev. Earl Muller, S.J., March, '91.

A compact paperbound edition of Phaedrus with helpful notes and a very extensive vocabulary--perfect for students. The copy has its own history, since it belonged earlier to the "High School Library of St. Louis University" and then to the "Prof's Library" before it belonged to Fr. Arnold. Aesop keeps travelling!

1900 Queer Stories for Boys and Girls. Edward Eggleston. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons. See 1884/1900.

1900 Select Fables of Phaedrus, Edited for the Use of Schools. By A.S. Walpole. Hardbound. Elementary Classics. Printed in Glasgow. London: Macmillan and Co. See 1884/1900.

1900 The Animals of Aesop: Aesop's Fables Adapted and Pictured. By Joseph J. Mora. First edition. Hardbound. Printed in Boston. Boston: Dana Estes and Co. $100 from Page Books, Kingston, AR, by mail, Oct., '98.

I have been looking hard for this book since Ash and Higton featured it in their 1990 Aesop's Fables: A Classic Illustrated Edition." It now proves to be worth the hunting! Mora writes a moving introduction on his loss of the dream-like contact with Animaldom that he cherished in his youth. There follow one hundred fables in a very regular pattern of a prose text embellished with figures on the left page and a full-page black-and-white (and sometimes colored) illustration on the right. The very first illustration is typical: a lamb dressed as a maiden sees through and rejects the pleading for a drink by a trouser-and-shoe-wearing wolf lying exhausted on the ground. The ass and the lapdog are owned by a hippo, who experiences the former's unwelcome attentions in a hammock! In fact, Mora always substitutes animals for humans. He enjoys spicing up a tale. Thus it is a puma who receives a horse's kick (18); his jaw swells up so greatly that it is mistaken for mumps, and he has to miss a lawn party for which he has had a date with Miss Reynard! For the first time, I see made into a fable the episode from the life of Aesop on drinking up the ocean (34). CP has a good moral that is new to me: "Little and often does the trick" (46). Instead of a MM, we have a squirrel upsetting her basket of nuts from a log when she kicks up her heels (48). The dissatisfied buck is polishing his antlers in a hedge when they get caught (50). The story about a mule reflecting on its parentage changes when it is a woman working at a swell job and standing before her mirror (76)! The satyr and traveller become, respectively, a bear and a jackal (88). "The Differing Humours" (96) is new to me. This DLS illustration (104) is excellent! This stork serves up his meal in "long-necked jars that were fastened to the floor" (124). The dancing fish actually answer the piper's question about their dancing now but not earlier (128). The owl offers the loud grasshopper an invitation not to drink something, but rather to hear the Nightingale's compliment about the grasshopper's singing (144). I am happy to see an old friend of a story that does not get told as much as it deserves: "The Mastiff and the Curs" (208) with its great punch line: "If there were no Curs in this world, you would not be an Aristocrat." For great sets of illustrations, try "The Unwelcome Lodger" (126), "The Fatal Courtship" (132), and "The Lovesick Lion" (196). Colored illustrations are on 25, 33, 55, 69, 83, 96, 111, 125, 139, 153, 167, 181, 193, and 207. Mora likes to depict animals winking. 39-40 is mis-inserted between 32 and 33. There is a T of C at the front. Good condition. A great find!

1900 The Animals of Aesop: Aesop's Fables Adapted and Pictured.  By Joseph J. Mora.  Hardbound.  Boston: Dana Estes and Co.  $150 from Bryn Mawr Books, Boston, July, '16.

Here is a slightly different copy of a book with the same date, title, and publisher.  I will repeat the comments from that copy after mentioning the differences.  This book has not a colored cover with five trousered animalsl laughing but a simpler cover with the green and black frontispiece of animals listening to a satyr by moonlight.  That picture is the frontispiece in both copies.  This copy lacks the lovely colored illumination strip just inside the edge of both covers.  Like the other copy, this copy has red ink for the information on the title-page, but the date (1900) has been removed from the title page.  Both copies have a copyright date of 1900 on the verso of the title-page.  This copy finally does not make the pagination mistake noted in the other copy concerning pages 39-40.  The first colored illustration page is loose buit still present.  Otherwise the copies seem identical.  As I wrotel then, I have been looking hard for this book since Ash and Higton featured it in their 1990 "Aesop's Fables: A Classic Illustrated Edition."  It now proves to be worth the hunting!  Mora writes a moving introduction on his loss of the dream-like contact with Animaldom that he cherished in his youth.  There follow one hundred fables in a very regular pattern of a prose text embellished with figures on the left page and a full-page black-and-white (and sometimes colored) illustration on the right.  The very first illustration is typical:  a lamb dressed as a maiden sees through and rejects the pleading for a drink by a trouser-and-shoe-wearing wolf lying exhausted on the ground.  The ass and the lapdog are owned by a hippo, who experiences the former's unwelcome attentions in a hammock!  In fact, Mora always substitutes animals for humans.  He enjoys spicing up a tale.  Thus it is a puma who receives a horse's kick (18); his jaw swells up so greatly that it is mistaken for mumps, and he has to miss a lawn party for which he has had a date with Miss Reynard!  For the first time, I see made into a fable the episode from the life of Aesop on drinking up the ocean (34).  CP has a good moral that is new to me: "Little and often does the trick" (46).  Instead of a MM, we have a squirrel upsetting her basket of nuts from a log when she kicks up her heels (48).  The dissatisfied buck is polishing his antlers in a hedge when they get caught (50).  The story about a mule reflecting on its parentage changes when it is a woman working at a swell job and standing before her mirror (76)!  The satyr and traveller become, respectively, a bear and a jackal (88).  "The Differing Humours" (96) is new to me.  This DLS illustration (104) is excellent!  This stork serves up his meal in "long-necked jars that were fastened to the floor" (124).  The dancing fish actually answer the piper's question about their dancing now but not earlier (128).  The owl offers the loud grasshopper an invitation not to drink something, but rather to hear the Nightingale's compliment about the grasshopper's singing (144).  I am happy to see an old friend of a story that does not get told as much as it deserves: "The Mastiff and the Curs" (208) with its great punch line: "If there were no Curs in this world, you would not be an Aristocrat."  For great sets of illustrations, try "The Unwelcome Lodger" (126), "The Fatal Courtship" (132), and "The Lovesick Lion" (196).  Colored illustrations are on 25, 39, 55, 69, 83, 96, 111, 125, 139, 153, 167, 181, 193, and 207.  Mora likes to depict animals winking.  There is a T of C at the front. 

1900 The Fables of Aesop in Words of One Syllable. No author acknowledged, but at least some texts are from Godolphin. No illustrator acknowledged, but illustrations come from at least Billinghurst, Weir, and Heighway. Altemus' Illustrated One Syllable Series for Young Readers. Philadelphia: Henry Altemus Co. $17.50 at Serendipity Books, Berkeley, Oct., '96. .

This book is a triumph of pirating! The very first story, WL, comes straight from Godolphin. Note that Altemus has used the same text in The Fables of Aesop (1899), both in and outside the " Altemus' Young People's Library " series. As to the illustrations, we get a lovely colored version of Doré's " The Hares and the Frogs " on the cover. Inside there is plenty of Billinghurst and Weir, with some Heighway. I have just checked ten illustrations of which I was unsure; nine are from Weir, and the tenth seems to be in his style (SW, 103). Of course no one is acknowledged. Very good condition. Cloth cover is blue. Inscribed in 1906.

1900 The Fables of Aesop in Words of One Syllable. Various illustrators. Hardbound. Philadelphia: Altemus' Illustrated One Syllable Series for Young Readers: Henry Altemus Co. $6.50 from The Old Book Shop, Independence, MO, May, '93.

This book replicates the book from the same publisher with the same title, except that it stops abruptly after 128, not even including the illustration for LM on 128. See my comments there. Its cover is white cloth, and it is inscribed in 1914.

1900 The Myths and Fables of To-Day. Samuel Adams Drake. Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill. Boston: Lee and Shepard. $7.50 at Brattle Book, June, '91.

I include this book in the collection partly because of the sheer wackiness of some of its contents but mostly because it gives wonderful evidence of what the word "fable" meant in 1900. My search suggests that "fable" is used only once in the book (4), in a context of "ghosts, giants, and goblins." Gay is mentioned once (68), without any connection to a story; Aesop is not mentioned at all. In fact, no fables are recounted. The book is really a tracing of the extent of superstition, mostly in the U.S., from a very non-scientific viewpoint. As such, it is fun. No index. Many pages after 45 are uncut. I did not cut them because I thought it might bring bad luck....

1900 Tom McNeal's Fables. By T.A. McNeal. Illustrated by Albert T. Reid. First edition? Topeka: Crane & Company. $36 from Stage House II, Boulder, March, '94.

I have read the first thirty and scattered other of these 200 or so fables and I come away unimpressed. The author is presented as editor of The Mail and Breeze, and the fables may well have been columns. These are brief homey lessons, referring to some modern appliances and using some contemporary slang. "Narrative" seems, for example, to be the word of choice for "rear end." The stories seem quite predictable. For a typical story, try "A Kansas Cow" (30). The accompanying cartoons may have some historical value. The preface contains a funny popularized life of Aesop and ends with an engaging invitation to the reader: "If the point to any fable is not clear to him...call on the publisher. He has agreed to do his best in making the application of these fables clear to the earnest and thoughtful reader." The accompanying cartoon shows a man at his desk with a shotgun. Its caption is "The Publisher will explain."

1900 Walter Crane's Picture Book Comprising The Baby's Opera, The Baby's Bouquet, and The Baby's Own Aesop. With the original designs in colour printed by Edmund Evans. Aesop text adapted from W.J. Linton. #499 of 500 done in the United Kingdom; 250 were done in the United States. London: Frederick Warne and Co. $110 from Florence Shay at Titles, Highland Park, August, ’96.

A beautiful large-format book which Florence had forgotten that she had. It starts with a preface written by Crane for this edition, in which he has fun with the notion of his "triplets" and offers a new sketch of the proper sort of perambulator for them to ride in. I find the coloring of the Aesop section brilliant! See my comments on the original edition under 1887. There is some finger-smudging here in the ample margins presented by the size of the book. A treasure!

1900/02 More Fables. George Ade. Illustrated by Clyde J. Newman. Hardbound. Chicago/NY: Herbert S. Stone. $10 from Book Cellar, Bethesda, Sept., '91.

Here is a later printing of a book whose 1900 printing I also have. A companion in the same format to Fables in Slang. The fun continues! The title-page, cover, and spine have the title listed above, while the page before the title-page has More Fables in Slang. My favorites here are the first few ( " The Fable of How Uncle Brewster was Too Shifty for the Tempter, " " The Fable of the Grass Widow and the Mesmeree and the Six Dollars, " and " The Fable of the Honest Money-Maker and the Partner of His Joys, Such as They Were " ) and the last ( " The Fable of the Author Who was Sorry for What He Did to Willie " ).

1900/10? A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine. With pictures by Percy J. Billinghurst. No editor acknowledged. Second Edition. London: John Lane The Bodley Head. From Claire Leeper, who bought it for $70 from Cottonwood Books, Baton Rouge, Feb., '89.

This book has excellent illustrations. It is thinner than my 1900/1920? third edition. See my comments there. Like the third edition, this has a beautifully colored cover.

1900/20? A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine. With pictures by Percy J. Billinghurst. No editor acknowledged. Third Edition. Dust jacket. London: John Lane The Bodley Head. $120 at Midway, St. Paul, Nov., '92.

A beautiful book in very good condition, "scarce in dust jacket" as Midway's note proclaims. The cover under the fine dust jacket is beautifully colored. Apparent companion to the Lane/Dodd and Mead A Hundred Fables of Aesop (1898/1924). I can find no repeaters between the two books. My 1900 date for the first edition comes from my favorite private collector. I have two reproductions of this book: 1983 and 1988. The best of the illustrations are "Death and the Woodman" (56), "The Council Held by the Rats" (62), "The Rat and the Oyster" (114, the best of all), and "The Rats and the Weasels" (198). A magnificent find!

1900? A Mes Enfants: Fables de La Fontaine, Suivies de Maximes et de Pensées.  Th. Dubois.  450 illustrations de (F.) Ménétrier.  Hardbound.  Paris:  Librairie Gedalge.  €30 from Librairie de l'Avenue, St. Ouen, August, '17.

I am surprised that neither I nor Bodemann had heard of this edition.    Some searching on the web found a copy with binding similar to ours selling for €120.  Its description is helpful:  "dans une elegante reliure d'epoque 1/2 chagrin noir, dos lisse orne d'un decor romantique dore, titre et tete dores, couverture illustree en couleurs et dos conserves. illustre d'un portrait de la fontaine en frontispice et 450 figures dans le texte."  The special character of this edition lies in its six or so maxims and aphorisms added from various authors at the end of each fable and in its illustrations.  The latter include a frame around each page, an introductory illustration for each fable and an endpiece for every fable. The smaller endpieces are sometimes more revealing and evocative than the introductory illustrations.  Consider, for example, the collar at the end of DW (40) and the mace at the end of LS (42).  Some introductory illustrations are more creative, like the anthropomorphized fox and crow (33).  Ménétrier's fox in FG on 135 catches La Fontaine's sense of this fox perfectly.  The bear looks down on his gardener friend on 333 with the huge rock in his paws.  Still, most of the illustrations seem derivative to me.  This heavy book prompted me to ask the bookshop to ship to me the haul of books I found in their store this time.

1900? Aesop's Fables. With numerous illustrations by Ernest Griset and Harrison Weir. Hardbound. NY: McLoughlin Brothers. $15 from Powell's, Portland, July, '93. Extras for $20 at Titles, Highland Park, June, '93, and for $10 from Laurie, St. Paul, July, '85.

The colored frontispiece is, as the appraiser noted, what makes this book: it is lovely. This version of the book does not print "McLoughlin Bros., New York" on the cover, and the title on the spine reads from top to bottom--in contrast to another version of the book listed under the same title, publisher, and year. This version has blotter-like paper that makes good printing of the black-and-white illustrations difficult. The full-page illustrations (from Griset) are the best but, alas, often poorly printed. The varying quality of the illustrations leads me to keep both the Powell's and the Titles copies of this edition in the collection.

1900? Aesop's Fables. (Down-to-up spine).  With numerous illustrations by Ernest Griset and Harrison Weir.  Hardbound.  NY: McLoughlin Brothers.  $14.50 from a rural antiques store in Nebraska, May, '12.

This book is the same as that listed under the same title and year except that it prints "McLoughlin Bros., New York" on its cover, presents a leaf-pattern on its end papers, and has the title on the spine read from the bottom to the top.  Also, this edition uses paper that gives a sharper impression of the black-and-white prints than is common in the other edition.  In fact, the Griset illustrations come off unusually well here.  I am happy at last to have found a fair to good copy of this book after earlier finding two poor copies.

1900? Aesop's Fables. (Title Page Missing.) Illustrations apparently by Ernest Griset and Harrison Weir. NY: McLoughlin Brothers? $10 at Atlanta Vintage Books, April, '94.

This book is almost identical with the McLoughlin Brothers edition I have listed already under the same year with a question mark. In comparison, this book has a different, cream-colored cover. It has the same end papers as the Lien copy of that book. Its paper--and so its illustrations--are far superior to the paper and illustrations in any of those copies. The colored frontispiece illustration of TMCM is present. The book has received a good deal of pencilling from a young hand. Yet again I thought I was picking up an extra copy of a book I already had. Surprise!

1900? Aesop's Fables. (Aesops Fables on cover.) No author or illustrator acknowledged. 135--Favorite Fairy Tales Series. Chicago: M.A. Donohue and Co. $15 from Richard Kopp in Fort Dodge, Sept., '95.

This book seems to be a surprising congeries of elements from other editions. The front cover has the same central illustration of WC that was used by Donohue on its 1892? edition, which also contains the same apostrophe-less Aesops Fables on its cover. Here the colors of the cover's title are reversed. The back cover is also identical, with images of Mother Goose and various nursery-rhyme figures in red line drawings. I list the content of each beginning page of the book to make identification of parallel elements from other editions easier: Mother Goose end-papers, one blank page, a vignette on Aesop's life, a full-page illustration of a kid and a wolf with a reference to 38, a title page identical with that in Donohue's 1892? edition, an insignia of a lamp with a large "D," and the first story with "Aesop's Fables" italicized across the top of the page. I know I have seen this italicized page-title, but I cannot find it! Forty pages of fables, concluding with "The Sick Kite." The inside binding has been crudely repaired.

1900? Aesop's Fables. (Aesops Fables on cover). Canvas-bound. 135--Favorite Fairy Tale Series. Chicago: M.A. Donohue and Co. $9.99 from Kelly Fowler, Uniontown, OH, through Ebay, Feb., '99.

I include this book separately in the collection because of the publishing curiosities it presents. Basically, it is the same book as that listed under the same title, year, and publisher. It has the same cover illustration of WC inside a frame with two heads facing in opposite directions. It has the same congeries of elements inside. See my comments on the publishing oddities there. What does it have that is different? The printing of the cover substitutes gold where the other cover uses blue to outline the letters of the title, the frame, and the lamps above and beneath it. The spine is now red rather than gold canvas. The back cover pictures not Mother Goose scenes but a young girl reading a book; I noticed this same scene on the back cover of Donohue's Reynard the Fox Profusely Illustrated (1910?). The pictures of Mother Goose on the inside covers have changed directions; she now flies outwards rather than inwards. The first page, on which Mother Goose appeared (flying outward), is now blank. The book is in fair condition.

1900? Aesop's Fables.   No author or illustrator acknowledged.  Canvas spine. Chicago: 135--Favorite Fairy Tales Series: M.A. Donohue and Co. $1.75 from Sharon Barker, Bellevue, MI, Jan., '00.

This book is very similar to another title I have listed under the same year and the same series. This one matches all the way down to the page sequence. Its biggest difference is that it substitutes a LM cover for the WC cover there. A second difference is that it adds an apostrophe on the cover; it had been lacking there (but not on the title-page). This book is in poor condition, but it would be hard to complain at this price! Again, I presumed it was simply another copy of something I already had. Wrong again--and delighted! See my comments there.

1900? Aesop's Fables, Parts 1 and 2.  Versified & Arranged for the Piano Forte by L. Williams.  A. Saby.  Hardbound.  London: B. Williams.  £40 from Henry Pordes Books, London, July, '22.

The title-page of this unusual book consists of two facing pages, each offering an array of black-and-white scenes around a central scene, each signed by A. Saly or Saby.  Curiously, Part 2 appears on the left and Part 1 on the right.  The two parts appear then together in the T of C immediately following.  Part 1 offers music for six fables: FG; DM; DLS; TH; FC; and FS.  Part 2 offers OF, WC, BC, "The Cat and the Fox"; "The Ass and the Little Dog"; and LM.  Each score offers a single staff for voice and a double staff for piano.  Over the first piece stands this: "Dedicated to the Children of Great Britain."  59 pages.  8½" x 11".  The bluecloth cover has a strong circular image of LM with gold inlay.  Compare this volume with "A Selection of Aesop's Fables Versified and Set to Music with Symphonies and Accompaniments for the Piano Forte" from a decade or two earlier.  Inscribed in 1907.  From the early inscriptions and stamp, we are at least the fourth party to have owned this book.

1900? Aesop's Fables Told in Easy Words. (Aesop's Fables on cover.) With 25 Coloured Illustrations by Harrison Weir. London: George Routledge/NY: E.P. Dutton/Toronto: The Musson Book Company. £17 at Marchpane, May, '97.

I have often looked down on Weir's work because so much of it appears in poorly printed editions. There is, by contrast, a great deal to like here! There are forty-four fables, with an AI at the front. Some of the best illustrations include: FG (5), "The Stag at the Pool" (10), and "The Wolf and the Lion" (28). The binding is loose around stapled pages in this paperbound booklet. I am surprised that I did not know of this book earlier. I tested two of the texts to see if there is a match with anything I have catalogued yet, and there is not.

1900? Aesop's Fables Told in Easy Words. Harrison Weir. First edition? Hardbound. London: George Routledge/NY: E.P. Dutton/Toronto: The Musson Book Company. $36.72 from David Griffiths, Hornchurch, UK, through abe, Jan., '04. 

This book reproduces with hard boards and a blue cloth spine the soft-covered printing I have under the same date by the same publisher. Like it, the cover's title is "Aesop's Fables," while the title-page has "Aesop's Fables Told in Easy Words." Griffiths calls it a first edition and mentions that it has twenty-five illustrations. The binding is repaired with tape in several places. Let me repeat the comments I made there. I have often looked down on Weir's work because so much of it appears in poorly printed editions. There is, by contrast, a great deal to like here! There are forty-four fables, with an AI at the front. Some of the best illustrations include: FG (5), "The Stag at the Pool" (10 and also on the cover), and "The Wolf and the Lion" (28). I tested two of the texts to see if there is a match with anything I have catalogued yet, and there is not.

1900? Aesop's Fables in Words of One Syllable. Mary Godolphin. Printed in the Learner's Style of Pitman's Shorthand. Twentieth Century Edition. London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons. $15 from Bill and Barbara Yoffee, Oct., '91.

A curiosity to go along with Gregg (1919/30) and French stenography (1875?). Thirty-seven fables without illustration follow a T of C. The cover has come loose from the body of this quaint little book.

1900? Alesovy Kresby. All bibliographical data lacking. No title-page. Illustrations by Alesovy Kresby? Hardbound. $12.50 from Bookworks, Chicago, Dec., '97.

This book represents a recurrent experience and a frustration. The recurrent experience is that of turning over a rock and often finding something. I have looked so often in a book that seems to have nothing to do with Aesop and I have found fables. Here I found a book that had no identification and, daring myself, I looked and found four pages dealing with Aesop. What is the book? I do not know, and there is the frustration. I suspect that it is a book in Czech dealing with an artist named Alesovy Kresby and showing a number of his illustrations, among which are several that he seems to have done for some Aesopic fables in 1886. Until I find a native reader, I will have to offer these hesitant comments. On 105, an ass is carrying a holy image, I believe (Perry 182). On 111, we have Perry 54: a boy asks snails how they can sing when their houses are burning. There are four Aesopic images written into nitials on 116: a snake and a bird around a K, a satyr (Perry 35) in an S, a beetle in an O, and palm trees around a letter I cannot make out. On 125, a lute and a hatchet are crossed. Here is a chance for serious detective work!

1900? Autori Latini. Sciuto. [Title-page missing.] Gift of Rev. Giuliano Gasca, S.J., Turin, Sept., '97.

Here is an old collection of Latin authors that includes sixty of Phaedrus' fables (including three of the four I spoke on in Turin) on 61-154. There are lots of notes on these fables, which follow Phaedrus' order. Other authors represented are Cornelius Nepos, Eutropius, Ovid, Tibullus. It was so gracious of Fr. Gasca to let me find and take these books! This book is a treasure I would never otherwise have had access to.

1900? Fables: Aesop. NY: H.M. Caldwell Company. See 1894/1900?.

1900? Fables Choisies d'Esope et de La Fontaine.  Paperbound.  Paris: Bibliothèque des Bébés:  Bernardin-Béchet et Fils.  €20 from Paris, July, '17.

This unusual pamphlet of 12 pages has three chromolithographic cameo scenes on its cover, apparently not fable scenes.  There is no title-page.  The cover serves to give the title, series, and publisher.  Inside, this large-format (7½" x 11¼") booklet offers four chromolithographs per page on each of six pages, with the verso of each picture page giving the four prose texts corresponding to those images.  It is almost as though this booklet publishes the twenty-four cards of some set of trade cards.  I recognize one match between an image in this book and a card in our collection: a trade card advertising Johnston's Corn Flour in about 1905.

1900? Fables de Lafontaine. Paperbound. €5.50 from Joseph Raffin, Bazoges en Paillers, France, through eBay, Dec., '05. 

This is a pleasant sixteen-page pamphlet, about 6¾" x 9". It includes eight full-page colored illustrations, generally in the style of Epinal. Only some portions of these illustrations are colored in. There are, e.g., about four colors at work on the cover: green, blue, yellow, and red. The rest is left in black-and-white. The cover is one of the pamphlet's best illustrations. I have never before seen this fable's lamb using a little pitcher to scoop up water along the shoreline. The poem for the cover's WL is apparently never presented. Each text tends to be on the verso of its illustration. Among the better illustrations are "Le Cygne et le Cuisinier" on 7 and FC on the back cover. The purple clusters for FG on 10 are visually strong. Individual pages with their headers confirm the reading "Fables de Lafontaine" without a space after the first two letters of the third word.

1900? Fables de La Fontaine. Nouvelle Édition illustrée par Desandré et Hadamar. Émile Guérin, Éditeur. Paris: Librairie de Théodore Lefèvre. $20 at Time Traveller, June, '88.

This book gets the award for the most lavish cover in my collection. The excellent illustrations raise lots of questions. There seem to be two sets: smaller engravings (some marked A.G.) and full-page illustrations (marked Greenaway and H. Weir). Compare on 46-7. None of them match Grandville, Griset, Tenniel, or Weir. The best illustrations are of FS (14) and of the lion in love (56). The table on 245 is arranged alphabetically by the first noun in a fable's title.

1900? Fables de La Fontaine. Émile Guérin, Éditeur. Nouvelle Édition illustrée par Weir, Desandré et Hadamar. Hardbound. Paris: Librairie de Théodore Lefèvre. $30 from Old Erie Street Book Store, Cleveland, April, '99.

Here is another case where I thought I was getting a second copy of a book. In this case I went for it because it is beautiful and relatively inexpensive. The copy I had found earlier provoked a question about its illustrators. This copy starts to answer the question, since its only real change from the other is that it now lists Weir on the title page as one of its illustrators. The other version used his illustrations but nowhere acknowledged him. This book still gets an award for the most lavish cover in my collection. See my comments on the earlier find in the adjacent listing.

1900? Fables de La Fontaine. Beaux encadrements, vignettes spéciales et vingt-quatre gravures (by Weir, NA). Hardbound. Printed in Limoges. Paris?: Librairie Nationale d'Éducation et de Récréation. $10.50 from Max Surkont, Ashaway, RI, through eBay, Jan., '04.

This pretty but frail book includes one-hundred and thirty-seven numbered fables, with a T of C at the end on 239-40. Like other such editions, it seems to know nothing of La Fontaine's division of fables into twelve books. The "beaux encadrements" refers to a pleasant repeated red frame around every page, with animals, humans, and vine-like designs. I have yet to find the promised vignettes. The gravures are signed by Weir and usually engraved by Greenaway. They are thus quite standard. As often with reprintings of Weir's illustrations, especially as here on cheaper paper, they are dark and sometimes less than optimally distinct. A frontispiece sets four famous fables around a portrait of La Fontaine. Of them three are clear to me: WL, OF, and FC. Is the fourth, which features a hare, TH? The front cover and endpaper have pasted on them two large cameos, either with the title "An American Detective." La Fontaine might not have rejoiced to see his fables put to uses like that! This book comes from the son of a baseball pitcher for the Milwaukee Braves whom I revered in my youth. The impressive cover of red and gold is, like the spine, deteriorating.

1900? Fables de La Fontaine. Trente Dessins par Weir. Hardbound. Limoges: Librairie du XXe Siècle. $39.99 from Hugues et Michèle de la Roche, Quebec, through eBay, May, '05. 

"Avec une Notice Biographique, un Portrait de l'Auteur et Trente Dessins par Weir." I think this book may be related to another which I have also listed under "1900?" It was published by "Librairie Nationale d'Éducation et de Récréation" and also printed in Limoges. It has the same frontispiece described below. By contrast with that book, this has thirty full-page illustrations by Weir, and he is acknowledged as the artist here. Most of the illustrations are also signed by Greenaway. Strangely, the book concludes with the end of the eleventh book on 299. What happened to the twelfth book? There is a T of C at the back. The Notice Biographique is two pages long. There are no other additions to the fable texts and illustrations. The printing of the Weir illustrations is, as often, sometimes dark, though this edition may present them better than most. A frontispiece sets four famous fables around a portrait of La Fontaine. Here it is clear that they are WL, OF, FC, and TH. Monkey, snake, owl, and rats are positioned around him too. It is signed, not by Weir, but by a "Trichon." The impressive cover combines marbling and embossed red material. The worn outer spine has the simple word "Bibliothèque," not mentioned elsewhere in the book.

1900? Fables de La Fontaine. Em Dupuis. Paperbound. G. Gérardin Imp - Édit. £3.99 from Dougherty, Little Farm Studio, Coneyhurst, UK, through eBay, Sept., '06.

"L'Imagerie de Paris" is the only further clue in this charming little pamphlet, about 5½" x 7". The booklet's cover shows the fox sitting at a tall pitcher, as in FS. It is signed "Em (?) Dupuis." Inside there are twelve early chromolithographs featuring La Fontaine's text of a fable included in the design of a full-page colored picture. The printing here is on normal paper. I am surprised that the pamphlet has lasted this long. The twelve fables featured here include WL, TH, "The Heron," FG, GGE, MM, DW, GA, "The Worker and His Children," FS, FC, and BF. They are printed on only one side of the page, the left for the first six and the right for the last six. I have seen these illustrations before, though perhaps not the bicycle image for TH. I wonder if I have not seen them on cards rather than in books. The cover just came off of the book in this reading.

1900? Fables de La Fontaine.  A. Lemoy.  Hardbound.  Paris: Maison De La Bonne Presse.  €60 from grvo_64 through Ebay, Dec., '23.

Here is one of the stranger and more engaging books in the collection.  It is a series of 94 pages after two title-pages and before a TOC.   Those 94 pages present 47 fables with the chromolithograph illustration on a right-hand page and its large-print fable on the verso.  Might it be a simple compilation of a series of broadsides?  I find only one reference to the work online: Rakuten displays it but does not offer a copy.  An art dealer is offering a religious chromolithograph reproduction of "It Is Barabbas We Want" by A. Lemoy on the cover of the Magazine "Pellerin."  However, there is a clear connection of the motifs used here with those in Liebig's 1900 series of six fables.  This correlation is especially clear in "Fox and Goat"; "Child and Schoolmaster"; and "Wolf Become Shepherd."  Lemoy's approach regularly presents a main scene of human children, the fable's title in a banner or other clear marking, and the animal fable pinned as a page onto the main scene.  Cameos may show main characters in the animal story.  Many of the motifs are fascinating.  TMCM is thus about children ruining a family's rug.  "Ass and Lapdog" concerns a child who blows a horn into mother's ear.  Children caught on a nail work twice, once for "Child and Schoolmaster" and once for "Weasel Caught in a Granary."  Printed by P. Feron-Vrau, Paris, with work by Chromotypographie Petithenry, identified, e.g., below "Thieves and Ass."  The seal on the back cover declaring "Maison De La Bonne Presse" as the publisher seems overtly Roman Catholic.  The front cover, red cloth with black ink and gold embossing, seems not to have anything particular to do with fable.  7½" x 10½".

1900? Fables de La Fontaine (No. 2).  Paperbound.  Pont-à-Mousson: Vagné.  $35.51 from Moment de calme through Ebay, Oct., '20.

This booklet of 16 pages presented a challenge for me.  Its Ebay listing included "Imagerie Pellerin Épinal," but I could not find a match for the booklet or any of its illustrations online.  After some time it dawned on me that this is perhaps not the work of Pellerin of Épinal but of a competitor creating publications like theirs.  The illustrations, usually partially and vividly colored, include: WL; "Cook and Swan"; "Monkey and Leopard"; "Oyster and Litigants"; "Father and Children (and field)"; LM; FG; and FC.  The anthropomorphisation of the animals is at its strongest when the lion in LM has a black head and pink naked flesh.  Is the wolf in WL pictured as a butcher?  The pages are rather dirty.  Here is an ephemeral piece saved from the trash!

1900? Fables for the Young Folks. By Mrs. Prosser. No illustrator acknowledged. Reprinted from the London Tract Society. Boston: The American Tract Society. $5.95 at the Brattle Bookshop, Jan., '89. Extra copy with blue rather than red cover for $14.95 from Jean Doane, Cumberland Center, ME, through Ebay, July, '99.

Reprinted from the London Tract Society. There is nothing from Aesop here, and I would urge that it affects the quality of the book. The fables are long and preachy and not very imaginative. There are a half-dozen illustrations of varying quality. Since both copies are of only fair quality, I will keep both in the collection.

1900? Images d' Épinal.  Imagerie d'Épinal.  Paperbound.  Épinal: Imagerie d'Épinal.  €30 from Librairie Feuilles de Routes, Strasbourg, July, '19.

This oversized book (11½" x 15½") contains within its stapled wrapper 50 typical "Imagerie Pellerin" broadsides with varying numbers of cartoon panels.  The cover/wrapper is curious.  It shows a boy with a cap and tie and short pants eating something on a slide of bread while a picnic lies in disarray beneath his feet.  A dog licks a cup and a spilled wine bottle pours out its contents.  The boy is of course reading an "Images d'Epinal" book of this size, which shows young people at a picnic.  In the lower left corner is "No" without an accompanying number!  The front cover's printed sheet is pulling loose from the backing cardboard.  I include this collection because of the second broadside,"Le Lion Reconnaissant" (No. 487) in 16 panels arranged four by four.  In this version of AL, the slave, an African Black, is named Androcles.  Once the lion recovers from his thorn wound, the two are together for three years before each is captured.  Once freed, the two walk together the streets of Rome.  The other selections present a wide of subjects.  Fables show up in unexpected places!

1900? La Cigale et la Fourmi: Musique d'Étienne Rey (Cover: Six Fables de La Fontaine et Florian).  Mises en Musique par Étienne Rey.  Paperbound.  Paris: Paul Balla Editeur.  $28.22 from Partitions Anciennes: Librairie Musicale, Blois, France, August, '18.

Apparently one front-cover serves for musical renditions of six different fables, presented with titles and their own cover-pages on the front-cover of this oversize pamphlet of five pages.  Curiously, the inside title says "Por contralto ou baryton" while the front-cover has ""Soprano ou Tenor."  Heavy paper.  About 10" x 13".  The front-cover illustration is by P. Crauzat, as someone before me puzzled out in pencil underneath a difficult signature.

1900? La Fontaine. T. Rombaldi, Éditeur. Paperbound. Collection des Poètes: Les Roses de France. Paris: Éditions de l'Abeille d'Or. Anonymous gift, August, '97.

Here is a small (3¼" x 4¼") and very fragile paperbound booklet of 169 pages featuring a selection of La Fontaine's fables. There is a T of C at the back. Many of the pages are uncut. There seem to be no selections after Book Nine. At the same time, I received editions in the same series covering Lamartine, Saint-Simon, Sevigne, and Molière. The spine is all but gone.

1900? La Fontaine: Fables II. Miniature. Hardbound. Paris: C. Marpon et E. Flammarion. $9.98 from Second Story Books, Rockville, through Ebay, Dec., '03.

Here are Books VII-XII of La Fontaine's fables in a lovely little volume. Half-leather. Marbled covers and end-papers. No commentary or illustrations. About 2" x 3". The binding is unusually tight and well preserved for a book this small and this old. Marpon and Flammarion collaborated also on the 1896 Barboutau Florian volumes.

1900? La Fontaine: Fables Choisies. Illustrations (NA): H. Vogel, Gaston Gélibert, Mangonot, Godefroy, Etienne-Maurice-Firmin Bouisset, (Anatole Paul?) Ray, Job (=Jacques Marie Gaston Onfroy de Breville), and Gustave Fraipont. Canvas spine. Paris: L. Martinet: Librairies-Imprimeries Réunies. 400 Francs from Anthare de Schuyter, Clignancourt, Paris, August, '99.

Bodemann 368.3. There are twenty-eight strong full-page colored illustrations here. Each of them echoes a page in the two volumes of Imagerie Artistique: 20 Fables de La Fontaine and are signed by the same artists. These are not the same works in the two publications, but they are very close. Could those be some kind of copy or photograph of these? Sometimes the picture here is only a section of the larger poster-like page there, e.g., in FG (25). And of course there the text is inserted somewhere on the page. The medium here is sharper, the paper stronger and shinier, the format smaller. My favorite, "Les deux Chèvres," is here on 29. Manganot's signature is very hard to read on the lovely GA (31), if in fact that is the correct deciphering. This illustration is dated 1887; it is the only one that I can find dated. Particularly lively and dramatic here is "Le Charretier embourbé" (53). It is nice to see some things come together! Bodemann treats this edition as "verkleinerte Abzüge der Tafeln der 'Imagerie Artistique'" and estimates the publication date at about 1910. Mistakenly, I think, she says that there are thirty-three fables here. Perhaps she mistakes the five that run over onto the next page.

1900? La Fontaine: Fables Choisies. H. Vogel, Gaston Gélibert, Mangonot, Godefroy, Etienne-Maurice-Firmin Bouisset, (Anatole Paul?) Ray, Job (=Jacques Marie Gaston Onfroy de Breville), and Gustave Fraipont. Hardbound. Paris: L. Martinet: Librairies-Imprimeries Réunies. $9.99 from Dr. Douglas Yarbrough, Palm Harbor, FL, Nov., '11.

I already have a copy of this book found in 1999 for more than six times the cost of this copy. I include this book in the collection not simply because I am so fond of it but also because it has a different number on the bottom right of the last printed page. Where that copy had 8007, this copy has 14284. The cover may also be slightly different: notice the stripes now at the top and bottom. There is a small tear on the bottom of 37. Are these pages even shinier than those? Let me repeat comments from there. Bodemann 368.3. There are twenty-eight strong full-page colored illustrations here. Each of them echoes a page in the two volumes of Imagerie Artistique: 20 Fables de La Fontaine and are signed by the same artists. These are not the same works in the two publications, but they are very close. Could those be some kind of copy or photograph of these? Sometimes the picture here is only a section of the larger poster-like page there, e.g., in FG (25). And of course there the text is inserted somewhere on the page. The medium here is sharper, the paper stronger and shinier, the format smaller. My favorite, "Les deux Chèvres," is here on 29. Manganot's signature is very hard to read on the lovely GA (31), if in fact that is the correct deciphering. This illustration is dated 1887; it is the only one that I can find dated. Particularly lively and dramatic here is "Le Charretier embourbé" (53). It is nice to see some things come together! Bodemann treats this edition as "verkleinerte Abzüge der Tafeln der 'Imagerie Artistique'" and estimates the publication date at about 1910. Mistakenly, I think, she says that there are thirty-three fables here. Perhaps she mistakes the five that run over onto the next page.

1900? La Fontaine: Fables Choisies.  Illustrations by H. Vogel, Gaston Gélibert, Mangonot, Godefroy, Etienne-Maurice-Firmin Bouisset, (Anatole Paul?) Ray, Job (=Jacques Marie Gaston Onfroy de Breville), and Gustave Fraipont.  Canvas bound.  Paris: L. Martinet: Librairies-Imprimeries Réunies.  €30 from Galerie Bortier, Strasbourg, August, '19.

The variables in copies of this book are fascinating.  This is our fourth copy.  One copy (#3500) has a different title-page indicating that it belongs to the "Bibliotheque de la Jeunesse."  It also has a different design on its back cover: small zigzag pattern rather than the larger pattern on the other three.  One copy (# 7583) has a different number at the bottom of its last page:  14284, whereas the other three copies have 8007.  One copy (#3474) has no white stripes at the top or bottom of its front cover.  This copy, in good condition, has, in reverse order, the zigzag pattern on the back cover, stripes at the top and bottom of its front cover, 8007 on its last page, and no indication of " Bibliotheque de la Jeunesse on its title-page.  As things turn out, it is the only copy with this configuration of details.  I will repeat comments here made on other copies.  Bodemann 368.3.  There are twenty-eight strong full-page colored illustrations here.  Each of them echoes a page in the two volumes of "Imagerie Artistique: 20 Fables de La Fontaine" and are signed by the same artists.  These are not the same works in the two publications, but they are very close.  Could those be some kind of copy or photograph of these?  Sometimes the picture here is only a section of the larger poster-like page there, e.g., in FG (25).  And of course there the text is inserted somewhere on the page.  The medium here is sharper, the paper stronger and shinier, the format smaller.  My favorite, "Les deux Chèvres," is here on 29.  Manganot's signature is very hard to read on the lovely GA (31), if in fact that is the correct deciphering.  This illustration is dated 1887; it is the only one that I can find dated.  Particularly lively and dramatic here is "Le Charretier embourbé" (53).  It is nice to see some things come together!  Bodemann treats this edition as "verkleinerte Abzüge der Tafeln der 'Imagerie Artistique'" and estimates the publication date at about 1910.  Mistakenly, I think, she says that there are thirty-three fables here.  Perhaps she mistakes the five that run over onto the next page.

1900? La Fontaine’s Fables Choisies. Edited, with introduction and notes, by Leon Delbos. NY: Henry Holt and Company. $10 at Cheever, San Antonio, August, ’96.

A selection of seventy-eight fables for English-readers. Notes on vocabulary and sources (81) and advertisements for Holt’s many French texts follow. Perhaps the most distinguishing feature of this book for us today lies in the way Delbos starts the book. He begins by vigorously condemning La Fontaine’s character. He was not kind, modest, simple, careful, moral, or sensitive to children. Lazy, shrewd, and apathetic, "he found it was easier to live at other people’s expense…." Take heart, however. His style is matchless.

1900? Le Savetier et le Financier Mises en Musique par Ch. LeCocq (Cover: Fables de La Fontaine).  Paperbound.  Paris: G. Legouix Editeur.  $30.64 from Partitions Anciennes: Librairie Musicale, Blois, France, Sept., '18.

Apparently one front-cover serves for musical renditions of six different fables, presented in cameos on the front-cover of this oversize pamphlet of nine pages.  Heavy paper.  About 10" x 13".  The front-cover illustration is by P. Crauzat.

1900? Märchen und Fabeln.  Albrecht Julius Segerstedt.  Illustrated by Gustav Olms.  Hardbound.  Munich:Nordische Märchen: Verlag Etzold and Co..  €14.40 from Antiquariat Löcker, Vienna, May, '20.

Here is a, for me, disappointing book.  I find no fables in this book.  The monochrome and duochrome illustrations are engaging.  At the top of pages are repeating designs, for example, of children riding to the stars or fighting a dragon.  23 stories, as the beginning T of C shows.  Sold originally by Carl Kravani in Vienna.  Fooled once, I will try not to buy it again!

1900? Reineke Fuchs.  Wolfgang von Goethe.  Illustrations by Wilhelm von Kaulbach. Hardbound.  Stuttgart: J.G. Cotta'sche Buchhandlung.  €20 from Zeil, Frankfurt, June, '23.

Here is a very nice edition of Reineke produced by the publisher famous for the Kaulbach edition, starting with 1846.  Our collection has a version from 1857.  An online guess puts this edition at about 1900.  This edition has a version of the original embossed front bookcover and adds red ink to the first and second title-pages.  By comparison with that version, this copy has not 204 pages but 212.  The illustrations are very well rendered.  The illustration sometimes kept out of editions, I believe, is here on 36.  Gothic script.  I find fable illustrations here on 105; 117; 153; and 156.  7¼" x 10½".

1900? Russian literature: Krylov's fables (Russian). Hardbound. St. Petersburg: Cheap Library: Association A. S. Suvorin: New Time. $25 from A. Borissov, Tallinn, Estonia, through eBay, August, '11.

"Full Collection. With a biography and notes." LXII, 302 pages. This small book (4¼" x 6") features at its beginning two portraits of Krylov, a view of his monument, and a view of his tomb. LXI-LXII present an overview of the nine books of fables and the number of fables in each book. This number seems to range between twenty-seven and thirty-five. There are also fifteen illustrations within the text of the fables, starting from a good FC (2). Among the better illustrations are "The Monkey and the Spectacles" (23); "The Ass and the Nightingale" (66); "The Pug and the Elephant" (74); "Quartet" (104); "The Farmer and the Bear" (117); and WC (176). Some pictures have been colored in a bit, and is that an angry doodle on the bottom of 220? Apparently there is a life of Krylov and an AI at the back.

1900? The Book of Fables Containing Aesop's Fables. Complete, with text based upon Croxall, La Fontaine, and L'Estrange. With Copious Additions from other Modern Authors. Illustrated. NY: F.M. Lupton. $5.95 at Powell's, Portland, March, '96.

This edition seems a standard Lupton edition, with its "Later Fables" beginning on 157. Compare it with my Lupton copies under 1901? and 1902?. The big surprise in this copy comes when one pages through and finds no illustrations at all! Were they removed, or may there be a printer's oversight at work here? In still other respects, this is a non-frills version. It lacks the preface, T of C, and AI that other editions include. The book is inscribed in 1900.

1900? The Book of Fables: Containing Aesop's Fables. Complete, with text based upon Croxall, La Fontaine and L'Estrange. With copious additions from other modern authors. Profusely illustrated by Ernest Griset. NY: Hurst and Co. $10 at Book Gallery, El Paso, August,'96.

Like the adjacent listing from Lupton, this unusual book claims to have art but has none at all! It is paginated and has in fact the same plates as my Hurst Arlington editions listed under "1899?" but lacks all the illustrations in between. As with the Arlington and other copies somewhere in the "Rundell" text tradition, there is a set of "Later Fables" beginning on 141. This book is inscribed in 1907.

1900? The Fables of Aesop. Complete, with text based upon Croxall, La Fontaine, and L'Estrange. Selected from the Most Reliable Sources. Illustrated. NY: A.L. Burt. Gift of Thomas Beckman, March, '95.

A wonderfully curious gift. As Tom points out, the book starts with a nice cover design modelled on Heighway's "The Fisher and the Little Fish" (116) with the addition of a background including modern ships. Adding things will be the keynote to this book. For it takes most basically the frequently-used text of moral-less fables that I have first in The Book of Fables (1880) and adds to it a few of Jacobs' texts, many of Jacobs' morals, and many of Heighway's illustrations--none of these acknowledged. The colored frontispiece (unfortunately separated) of a bagpiping fisherman is developed from Heighway's illustration (e.g. on 101 in my 1894/1929 Heighway edition) but, like the cover, much embellished. Jacobs' version, used here, makes more sense of this baffling fable than most by having one fish give a moral "When you are in a man's power you must do as he bids you." Other borrowings from Jacobs include FC (13), "The Wolf and the Kid" (141), and a line of "The Cat and the Fox" (169) used to introduce the moral and simply added on to the text from The Book of Fables. Fifteen full-page Heighway illustrations, each with blank verso, are inserted outside the text's pagination. At 198 the book, like The Book of Fables, moves to "Later Fables"; unlike it, it does not acknowledge the addition on the title-page. This book selects 52 of the 132 fables offered there and inserts three (216, 232, 244) of Ernest Griset's thirty-nine illustrations used there. "The Mastiff and the Cubs" (232) includes the printer's scribbling of its dimensions within the illustration--"31/2 x 6"! Close comparison with the Book of Fables, where this illustration is the frontispiece, shows that the Burt book's image has been cropped to remove Griset's signature. There are slight cracks in the binding at 164 and 190. This book has really been fun to investigate!

1900? The Fables of Aesop. With Seventy-five Illustrations. Newark: Charles E. Graham & Co. $2.50 from Vintage Bookshop, North Platte, Jan., '94.

This book drives me crazy because it seems to be composed of things I have seen before. The frontispiece is a colored picture (the book's only one) of a wolf and a lamb, and I know I have seen it elsewhere. The top of the opening AI is from Heighway, and almost all of the illustrations are from Billinghurst, many of them crayoned in poorly by a young hand. Even the camel on 177 and the stork on 185 are done after Billinghurst. The versions are very frequently but not always from the standard "J.B.R." (Rundell) collection.

1900? The Fables of Aesop in Words of One Syllable. Hardbound. Philadelphia: Altemus' Illustrated One Syllable Series for Young Readers: Henry Altemus Co. $0.50 from an unknown source, March, '09.

This book replicates another, listed under 1900, except for the cover. Whereas that book has a colored version of Doré's "The Hares and the Frogs," this version has a multicolored cloth presentation of BF. I will repeat comments from that description. This book is a triumph of pirating! The very first story, WL, comes straight from Godolphin. Note that Altemus has used the same text in The Fables of Aesop (1899), both in and outside the "Altemus' Young People's Library" series. Inside there is plenty of Billinghurst and Weir, with some Heighway. I have just checked ten illustrations of which I was unsure; nine are from Weir, and the tenth seems to be in his style (SW, 103). Of course no one is acknowledged. Poor condition.

1900? The Fox and the Owl: Aunt Matilda's Series. NY: Aunt Matilda's Series: McLoughlin Bros. $12.50 from O'Gara's, Hyde Park, Dec., '97.

This is a 16-page pamphlet slightly smaller than those in McLoughlin's "Aunt Louisa" series. It features six full-page chromolithographs. The fox entices the baby owl first onto the branch and then the ground and devours him. In revenge, the parent owl summons the hunter and his dogs to chase down the fox. Mostly simple verse, with a few prose passages. The (resewn?) cover is coming loose.

1900? Three Hundred Aesop's Fables Literally Translated from the Greek. By the Rev. Geo. Fyler Townsend. With Fifty Illustrations by Harrison Weir. Paperbound. NY: Golden Gem Library #47: Optimus Printing Co. $4 from C. Wetzel, Vermontville, MI, through eBay, Nov., '07.

This is a forerunner of the modern paperback book. Is it equivalent to a "railroad book"? It contains the full "Three Hundred Aesop's Fables" edition by Townsend and Weir, complete with the opening picture of an older man near ships' masts talking to a younger man near some stairs. There follow in succession Preface (v-xxiv); Life of Aesop (xxv-xxviii); List of Illustrations (xxix-xxx); Fables (31-188); and AI (189-92). I have at least five other editions of this combination of three hundred fables and fifty illustrations. The closest to this little edition is a Routledge edition listed under "1885?" with the same page size, about 4.5" x 6.25". That Routledge edition, at least in its present condition, lacks the opening picture and follows different pagination; for examples, fables there begin on 9 and here on 31. The first and last pages here, which serve as front and back cover respectively, are loose. There are advertisements for Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup on the obverse of the title-page and on the back cover. This was a surprising find on eBay, and the price was right!

1900? Three Hundred Aesop's Fables. (And One Hundred Picture Fables with Rhymes bound behind it without acknowledgement at the book's beginning.) Literally Translated from the Greek by the Rev. Geo. Tyler (sic) Townsend. With 114 woodcuts designed by Harrison Weir and ten original colored plates. Caldwell's Juvenile Classics. NY: H.M. Caldwell Company. (Rear title page continues: by Otto Speckter. With Four Full-page Colored Plates and One Hundred Wood-cuts.) See 1885?/1900?.

1900? Three Hundred Aesop's Fables.  Rev. George Fyler Townsend, M.A..  With one hundred and fourteen illustrations designed by Harrison Weir and engraved by J. Greenaway.  Hardbound.  London: George Routledge and Sons.  See 1885?/1900?.

1900? Toy Books. No bibliographical information. Ten toy books sewn together, perhaps as a salesman's sample? $15 from Richard Barnes, Evanston, Oct., '94.

The ten books betray a heavy Protestant moralizing ethic. Each of the ten books has about six full-page illustrations in very good condition. Six verse fables make up the third book: LM, "The Birds in Council" (who want a king with power, not looks), DM, DLS, "The Wolf and the Kids," and "The Bear and the Bees." Uncle Fred tells these fables to several of the little ones and homilizes each time on the fable's morality. The illustrations seem very well preserved. There are lovely marbled endpapers and gilt edges all the way around. Loose covers, damaged spine. All pages are printed on just one side.

1901 Aesop's Fables. With one hundred and thirty-five illustrations by Ernest Griset. The text based chiefly upon Croxall, La Fontaine, and L'Estrange. NY: McLoughlin Brothers. $40 from Kelmscott, Aug., '94.

This edition stands out from others by Griset from McLoughlin in that it gives its own date (on a rock in the cover illustration). It has the lovely colored TMCM frontispiece one can find in both 1900? editions from McLoughlin. That same illustration was the cover illustration in the 1898? McLoughlin version. The present edition claims eight fewer illustrations than that 1898? McLoughlin. This edition prints Rundell's usual preface but omits the "J.B.R." attribution at the end. The book has some strong markings from a child's hand, especially in pencil on the title page. The cover is a masterpiece in itself, with the turtle holding his boots in his hand, so as not to awaken the sleeping hare.

1901 Aesop's Fables. No author or illustrator acknowledged. NY: McLoughlin Bros. $38.25 at Aamstar, Colorado Springs, gift of Mary Pat Ryan, March, '94.

A magnificent large-format booklet. The six colored single-page pieces are breathtaking! In particular, the booklet makes great use of human clothes on its animals. Perhaps the most intriguing story and illustration is "The Cat's Paw" on the last page: the monkey coaxes the cat to help him but also physically takes the cat's paw and forces the cat despite shrieks of pain. The ass in a lion's skin is perhaps visually the best I have encountered. He is discovered by two lions who notice his strange ears. Significant staining. What a lucky find!

1901 Aesop's Fables in Verse. By Elizabeth Eyears. Fully Illustrated (by H. Weir and by C. Butterworth, neither acknowledged). Hardbound. Printed in London. London: Elliot Stock. $47 from Alibris, May, '00.

This is a slim book containing fifty-one verse fables on 99 pages. I had never seen nor heard of the book before, and so was willing to spend some money on it. In her three-page preface, Eyears chooses verse because it attracts the young, is learned faster, and is fastened better in the memory. She returns to the popular image of putting familiar things into new garb. Her criterion of selection? "Some of the best known and most popular" (vii). She does well to start with "Aesop at Play" (1). Her second fable finishes well: "And the huntsman chases the timid hare/Still as in days gone by,/And the frogs still jump from the river bank,/But not like the hares to die" (3). I had never seen this clever distinction between the jumps before. Her moral: "No ill so great but others share it;/No lot so hard but we may bear it." In "The Ass and the Lion Hunting" (8), she plays on the name of the former. It was the lion's fancy "to employ/An ass to assist in the chase…" (italics mine). The lesson of GGE (26) is "Let well alone." In "The Lion in Love" (20), the woodman kills the lion and sells his skin for gain. I read the first half of the book. My sense is that the need to rhyme and to fill out the meter exacts a serious price in these fables. I find especially the full-page Weir illustrations (5, 17, and 43) well done. Weir did some of the smaller illustrations, and I find "C. Butterworth" on two others.

1901 Babrii Fabulae Aesopeae. Edidit F.G. Schneidewin. Paperbound. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner. DEM 16,5 from Eastern Germany, July, '96?

This paperbound little volume reproduces what I already have listed for Schneidewin's Babrius under "1880." Other than the change of date and the inclusion of advertising at the end of this paperbound volume, I can find no change. Note the same date at the end of the introduction (xx). See my comments there.

1901 Columbus Series: Fourth Reading Book. By W.T. Vlymen. Various illustrators, including Boutet de Monvel (unacknowledged) for Aesop. NY: Schwartz, Kirwin and Fauss. $.30 in Omaha, Nov., '89. Extra copy missing title page for $2 from Country Collectibles, Louisville, NE, Oct., '92.

So Catholic a book! Boutet de Monvel's illustrations in black-and-white set off the four traditionally told fables: TH (64); "The Fox and the Goat" (94); WS (117); and MSA (203). There are stories on St. Dominic and the rosary.

1901 Cric? Crac! Fables de La Fontaine racontées par un montagnard haïtien et transcrites en vers créoles.  Georges Sylvain.  Illustrations by Jeanne d'Atray.  Hardbound.  First edition.  Paris: Bibliothéque Haïtienne:  Atelier Haïtiens.  $25 from Caron, Montreal, Jan., '22.

This poor and wonderful book was in such wretched condition that I went onto the web to find another copy.  I found the most recent reprinting from 2011 but was disappointed in its renderings of the excellent black-and-white illustrations of Jeanne d'Atray.  Particularly good, I believe, are the illustrations of WL (28); WC (52); and LS (58).  As I comment about the reprinting, the La Fontaine texts have themselves undergone conversion.  I can mostly follow them; when it comes to the Creole, I am mostly lost!  There are extensive notes on each fable at the back of the book.  "Cric? Crac!" apparently translates in English into "Click!"  It looks as though some significant water damage harmed the binding and corrupted some of the cover.  I believe that the spine and back cover were recreated.  What a lovely chance find!  31 fables.  Not in Bodemann.

1901 Fable Nook and Story Book: A Collection of Catchy Rhymes and Amusing Stories for the Little Ones Together with an Illuminated Alphabet. Profusely Illustrated With Original Drawings in Colors and Black by Walter Crane and Others. Hardbound. Chicago: The John C. Winston Company. $33.69 from Stacy Lautzenheiser, Fort Wayne, IN through Ebay, April, '00.

The book pulls together very diverse materials. Most frequent among them are rhymes of all sorts. Crane is illustrator for relatively little in the book, which may be of interest historically because of all the different simple designs that are included. Representatives of fables include, in monochrome, the pre-title-page of "The Bundle of Sticks" and "The Blind Doe" and later LM and "The Miser & His Gold." The colored representatives are the frontispiece (FK and "Horse and Man") and a page including FG and TH. In all these cases one full-design (square) and one half-design of Crane's are put together to fill out the page.

1901 Fables. Paperbound. Chicago: Student's Series of Four Penny Classics, Vol. 2, No. 26, May 15, 1901: The Orville Brewer Publishing Company. $9.99 from Randy Cooper, Trotwood, OH, through eBay, Jan., '06.

This 6" x 9" booklet has stood the test of time well. Its cover still has a bright pink cameo of a classical scene nicely set in an ornate green background. Inside there are eleven fables presented in attractive, clear print. Three of the longer stories come from Andersen. "The Flax" follows the career of flax from flower through processing into linen and from there to paper. "The Little Match Girl" is the very sad story of the freezing death on New Year's Eve of a penniless match seller. Also from Andersen is "The Ugly Duckling." Standard Aesopic fables here are AD, BC, TMCM, "The Man and the Wood," GA, and "Jupiter and the Bee." "The Fox and the Cat" and "The Fox and the Wolf" (and the hunter) are attributed to Grimm's Fairy Tales. It is curious that the list of Four Penny Classics on the inside back cover lists this number as "Fables and Stories." The booklet was once the property of Morton School in Winchester, Indiana. Published in Illinois, it was read in Indiana, sold in Ohio, delivered in California, and will reside in Nebraska. Not bad for a second-and-third grade reader!

1901 Fables & Folk-Tales from an Eastern Forest.  Collected and translated by Walter Skeat.  Illustrated by F.H. Townsend.  Hardbound.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  $17.50 from Michael Tourville, Lexington Park, MD, through eBay, Oct., '13.

This book presents twenty-six good peasant tales collected during a Cambridge expedition through the remoter states of the Malay Peninsula in 1899.  A T of C and a list of the ten illustrations precede the introduction at the beginning of the book.  The first story, "Father 'Lime-Stick' and the Flower-Pecker," is true to the fable tradition.  A caught bird promises, if freed, to bring the birdcatcher a valuable stone as big as a coconut.  Freed, he mocks the birdcatcher for believing such a preposterous story.  The next table echoes another well-known Western fable with changed characters.  The crown prince of tigers recommends to the sick king of tigers to taste flesh of every creature in his kingdom.  The mouse-deer, who is the hero of many Malaysian folktales, stays away.  When he appears and the king is angry with him, he reports a dream of medicine that will cure the king.  "Seize and devour that which is nearest your majesty."  The crown prince tiger is of course closest to the king.  "The Pelican's Punishment" (18) is very close to the "Kalila and Dimna" story of the crane and the crab.  "The Tiger Gets His Deserts" (20) is the familiar story of a trapped animal first being released, then turning on its savior, and then being tricked back into his trap, in this case a cage.  The savior in this story is again a mouse-deer.  "The Tiger and the Shadow" (28) is the familiar story of bringing a large cat to water, where he sees a rival and jumps in to attack him.  "Regulated sacrifice" is part of this tale as it is told here.  The ten illustrations are helpful.  Even better rendered are the tailpiece silhouettes of Malaysian creatures.

1901 Fables de la Fontaine. Précédées de la vie d'Ésope, accompagnées de notes nouvelles. Illustrations par K. Girardet. (Many engravings are signed "Sargent.") Nouvelle édition, dans laquelle on aperçoit d'un coup d'oeil la moralité de la fable. Cardboard covers. Tours: Alfred Mame et Fils. See 1890/1901.

1901 Fables de La Fontaine (Cover: Fables de La Fontaine Illustrées).  Jean-Baptist Oudry.  Hardbound.  Paris: L. Sanard, Éditeur.  $22 from Eddy Ordonez, West Toluca Lake, CA, through eBay, Oct., '15.

The specialty of this broken little volume is the full-page reproduction of 76 of Jean-Baptist Oudry's illustrations.  The book has a surprising organization.  It is divided into thirds, with a list of illustrations and their page numbers at the beginning of each third (9-10; 71-71; 131-132).  There is a T of C of all 75 fables at the end of the volume.  A first illustration before the first third of the book offers Oudry's frontispiece of Aesop honoring La Fontaine.  After the title-page is a full-page portrait of La Fontaine.  Some of the Oudry illustrations are marked with a Roman numeral number, which seems not to be the number of the fable here and is certainly not the number in La Fontaine's twelve books of fables.  Both covers are separated, as is the first signature.  The choice of illustrations to present is good and the reproduction is, for the size of the pages, better than adequate.  The back cover is embossed "École Professionelle de l'Etoile."  This copy was apparently a school prize.

1901 Fables de la Fontaine: Nouvelle Edition.  Edited by L. Clément.  Fifth edition.  Hardbound.  Paris: Librairie Armand Colin.  $3 from JLG Livres Anciens et Modernes, Saint Maur des Fossés, France, through ABE, Nov., '16.

Here is a quite standard full edition of La Fontaine for students, with introduction, notes, grammar, and dictionary of terms from La Fontaine's era.  Armand Colin seems to have published a number of La Fontaine fable editions in which fables were classified according to the order of their difficulty above each fable, but this is not one of those.  The source, however, of each fable is listed just after its title. AI at the back, followed by a T of C that does not go deeper than the titles of the twelve books of fables.

1901 Fables for the Fair. Josephine Dodge Daskam. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons. $10 at Goodspeed's, April, '89.

Enjoyable sardonic contemporary fables à la George Ade. Each is titled "The Woman Who..." Good samples are "Used Her Theory" (15) and "Looked Ahead" (19). The morals are cute. "She laughs best who laughs least" and "Nothing succeeds like distress." A sociologist or cultural historian would have a field day with this book!

1901 Fables in Slang.  George Ade.  Clyde J. Newman.  Sixty-ninth thousand.  Hardbound.  Chicago/NY: Herbert S. Stone.  See 1899/1901.

1901 Forty Modern Fables. George Ade. First edition. NY: R.H. Russell. $30 from Marilyn Braiterman, Baltimore, Nov., '91.

My fifth Ade, and maybe the best, starting from the nattily clad ass reading on the cover. Ade here covers a wide range: European travel, marriage rituals, poker games, big city and little town. His staple is "girl hooks man," followed by "man tries to deal with wife." Typical: "Springfield's Fairest Flower and Lonesome Agnes" (#11). My favorite: "Wise Piker" (#12). Great language: "The Cousin from Down East" (#15). Also good: "Uncle Silas" (#9) and "The Husband Who Showed Up" (#7).

1901 Indian Fables.  Collected and Edited by P.V. Ramaswami Raju.  With 18 Plates by F. Carruthers Gould.  Second edition.  Hardbound.  London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co.  £19.99 from Penny Jackson, Clackmannan, Scotland, through eBay, Nov., '13.  

There are 106 fables here, few of which seem to come from the usual Indian sources: "Panchatantra" and "Kalila and Dimna."  These are genuine fables, though not always of rare quality.  Frequently the moral is delivered within the fable as an endomythium, pronounced by one of the characters.  I have read the first ten of the fables. In the very first, a glow-worm about to be eaten by a daw asks if the daw would rather not eat all of the glow-worms.  She proceeds to lead him to a fire to encourage him to eat the glow-worms emerging from the fire.  The daw does, only of course to burn his mouth.  The glow-worm proclaims as the fable ends "Wickedness yields to wisdom!"  A monkey shows a mirror to all the beasts, who dislike what they see, shatter the mirror, and proclaim that ignorance is bliss (6).  The first edition was done in 1897.  There is a T of C at the beginning of the book.

1901 Les Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrées de 81 gravures du XVIIIe siècle tirées du "La Fontaine en Estampes", de 31 fac-simile des dessins d'un manuscrit du XIVe siècle et du portrait de La Fontaine d'après Ch. Lebrun. Hardbound. Paris: Éditées specialement pour les Magasins du bon Marché. $24.99 from Kathy Flamez, Roseville, MI, through eBay, June, '04.

This book reduplicates editions I already have listed under 1897 and 1907. It was already then a derivative but lovely book. Its eighty-one gravures from the eighteenth century "La Fontaine en Estampes" seem to be mostly details from Oudry. That is certainly the case on 9 (DW) and 59 (SS). They suffer only from their relatively small size of 2.5" x 3.5". To them is added the series of smaller drawings from a fourteenth-century manuscript, either identical with or reproduced from those in Fables Inédites des XIIe, XIIIe et XIVe Siècles et Fables de la Fontaine of 1825 by A.C.M. Robert. The covers are part marble and part leather. The leather on the spine and at the top of the covers is rubbing off. AI at the back.

1901 New Education Readers: A Synthetic and Phonic Word Method: Book Three: Development of Obscure Vowels, Initials, and Terminals. By A.J. Demarest and William M. Van Sickle. Hardbound. NY: American Book Company. $3 in Knoxville, April, '00.

The preface mentions that, to help the child maintain interest, the larger part of stories in this book consists of myth, legend, fable, biography, and fairy tale. There certainly are many fables included. Let me first mention those that handle their stories differently or are otherwise noteworthy. "The Quarrel of the Lion and the Bear" (10, illustrated) features a good use of "If it had not been for" by all three characters. In OR (20, illustrated), we find not a reed but a willow. The first phase involves only the oak and the wind. The last phase has the oak made into planks. For a change, it is a greedy little girl that needs to take a fistful of nuts from the pitcher (26). The owner of the goose in GGE is a woman in France (27). In DM (30, illustrated), the goat, sheep, cow, and horse all come by, one by one. "The Fox and the Cock" (30) opens with the fox asking the cock how many tricks he can do; the cock wants to learn more tricks, and the fox is willing to show him the trick where he closes an eye and shouts…. In BW (32, illustrated), the boy makes his call three or four times before the men stop coming. In "The Dog and the Wolf" (35, illustrated), the dog caught out in the open on a chair does not mention a wedding feast and does not specify a date when the wolf could come back and eat him. There is no first phase at the mouse's place in FM (79, illustrated), and the frog is "only thinking of the fun he will have." The girl in MM (82, illustrated) practices tossing her head at other milkmaids! "The Fox, the Bear, and the Farmer" (103, twice illustrated) is new to me, and I enjoy it. It works like "The Tiger and the Brahmin" and then adds a second phase. "The Story of Tommy and the Crows: A Fable" (116, twice illustrated) is a pointed story about going to school. Other fables included here are FG (10), CP (12, illustrated), BC (13), SW (19, poor version), TH (34, illustrated), "The Swallow" (120, twice illustrated), and "The Farmer and the Larks" (157, illustrated). It pays to find books on the road; I have time in hotel rooms to review them thoroughly!

1901 The International Library of Masterpieces, Literature, Art, and Rare Manuscripts. The Bibliophile Edition de Luxe. Editor-in-Chief Harry Thurston Peck. Volume 1 of 30. Number 27 of 1000 copies. NY: The International Bibliophile Society. $15 at Schroeder’s, Milwaukee, August, ’96.

Fourteen fables show up (90-96) under "Aesop" in this volume that handles "A" up to Antar. In LS (92), the lion was in league with "several," but only three others, unnamed, happened to be present at this time of the deer’s capture. TMCM (93) is Horatian. Long texts with no morals and no attribution.

1901 Turkish Literature Comprising Fables, Belles-Lettres, and Sacred Traditions. Translated into English for the first time with a special introduction by Epiphanius Wilson. Revised edition. Hardbound. NY and London: The Cooperative Publication Society. $5 from Webster's Bookstore Café, State College, PA, through ABE, April, '00.

Fables comprise 3-24 in this collection. They are translated by Wilson himself. Many of the forty-six fables are straight Aesopic, like "The Fly" (4). One of these has a nice twist: in "The Two Young Men and the Cook (5)," the thief himself puts what he stole into his friend's pocket, and the latter when questioned says "I have not seen it." One Aesopic fable has degenerated, I believe. In "The Tortoise and the King of Animals" (8), King Lion is angry because the tortoise has come late to his entertainment. In a rage the lion cries "At some future time you will have a house of stone which you can never leave." There is no indication that the lion can make this prophecy come true. The fable has lost by substituting the lion for Jupiter as the giver of the feast, and it needs in any case to make clear that the turtle's shell is just the punishment predicted here. I enjoy this edition's presentation of a fable whose variations I have often tried to trace. In "The Converted Cat" (20-21), the cat first becomes a monk and announces that she will never again shed blood. She then covers herself with a dust rag and smears herself with flour. Then she plays dead, and the mice say that they would not believe that she has changed even if a purse were made of her. I have seen and enjoyed before the story of the ass painted green. The ass is talked about at first but then taken for granted ("The Widow and Her Friend," 4). That is what the widow can expect if she marries again. I especially like "The Bear and His Mate" (9). The former, in a fight with his mate, tore her eyes out with a swipe of his paw. In sorrow, he bit off his claws and announced that fact to her. Her answer was "What good is that to me, now that I am blind, and derpived by you of my precious eyes?" The point is that "Repentance cannot repair an injury once inflicted." Also good is the story of the candle that wanted to become as hard as a brick and jumped into the fire to make it happen (12). There is a T of C at the front.

1901/2 Forty Modern Fables. George Ade. NY: R.H. Russell/Grosset and Dunlap. $4.65 from The Yesteryear Shoppe, Nampa, Idaho, March, '96. Extra copy for $3.50 from A. Amitin, St. Louis, March, '95.

See my comments under the first edition in 1901. This book lists one publisher on the spine (Grosset and Dunlap) and another (R.H. Russell) on the title page! It has a simpler gray cover than does the 1901 edition--and lacks its wonderful reading donkey. Though someone has written "First edition" on the first page of the Amitin copy, it seems that this book cannot be called a first edition. This book uses the same plates as did the 1901 edition, but has slightly smaller side and much smaller bottom margins. Note the great inscription in the Amitin copy: "Read this when you are feeling blue." Good advice!

1901/10? Ein Fabelbuch. (Theodor) Etzel und (Hanns Heinz) Ewers. H. Frenz, (Paul) Horst-Schultze, J(ohn) J(ack) Vriesländer. Vierte Auflage. Hardbound. Munich: Albert Langen. DM 28 from Stern-Verlag, Janssen & Co, Düsseldorf, July, '95.

Etzel (20) and Ewers (24) contribute together 44 verse fables on some 115 pages. An original -- and attractive! -- feature of this book is that diverse monograms indicate who authored and who illustrated each fable. The key to the monograms is on 8. The first fable (11) sets a good tone: a May beetle sits on tree and eats leaf after leaf and then crawls onto the body of his wife. "You gourmand," a spider says with wrinkled brow, "how soon you will perish! People who misspend their present with such a lifestyle will be their own hangmen! Look at me for example. I sit here chaste and eat only what comes to me of its own will. That is why I live healthy and.." She wants to say "long," but a finch flies by and eats her and then poops what is left of her, digested, onto the lawn. The Maybug laughs out loud: "Here lies a moralist!" A strong fable and illustration are "Im Karpfenteich" (23). A corpse appears in a carp pond. A young carp comes by and opines "Surely the victim of rejected love!" A second seems to comment "He drank too much and fell in here." An hundred-year-old carp says nothing but goes to work eating and thinking "Nicht immer giebt's im Teiche/solch' eine schöne, schleimig-weiche/und bläulich-bleiche Wasserleiche!" What a tour de force! A nicely formed echo of the fable tradition comes in "Das Schneiderlein und der Tod" (32). Philipp Fips, the tailor, complains steadily and finally wishes death would appear. Death does appear as a skeleton and asks "What do you want?" Philipp outdoes himself giving death clothes, and then his Sunday clothes, and then his own clothes and wedding ring -- all to ask that Death spare him. The book is in fragile condition. The spine and inside front cover have already both been taped. At least one whole signature has separated from the binding. There is some lovely Jugendstil work on the parrot-cover and the bird back-cover. Bodemann #383.1. 

1901/60 Fables de La Fontaine. Précedées de la vie d'Ésope, accompagnées de notes nouvelles. Illustrations de Karl Girardet. Tours(?): Mame. Gift of Tom Caldwell, Dec., '89.

A beautiful little gift. The small, delightful engravings reproduce but do not repeat Girardet: the format is different, and a keen eye can spot plenty of differences. The book exemplifies the combined continuity and development that mark the tradition of Aesop. The moral-bearing part of the text is still italicized, as in earlier Mame editions. The typesetting is new. A Christmas joy!

1901/2007? Skeealyn Aesop: A Selection of Aesop's Fables. Edward Farquhar. Introduction by Charles Roeder. Hardbound. Douglas, Isle of Man/Whitefish, Montana: Legacy Reprints: S.K. Broadbent/Kessinger Publishing. $14.77 from Amazon.com, June, '08.

This book reprints a book of bilingual fables along with poems by Edward Farquhar of Cregneish. There is nothing in this book that was not in the original, I believe, except for three things: the covers with their simple texts on the front and advertisement for Kessinger on the back; the "Publishing Statement" on the verso of the title-page, which deals with possible defects arising from reproducing an old book in its original condition; and several items, like "Printed in the United States" and the ISBN and its barcode, on a page between the last page and the end-paper. Charles Roeder does both the introduction and a sketch of Old Creignish. Pages 30-79 offer twenty-five fables, Manx-Gaelic on the left and English on the right. Do I understand correctly that Manx is the Gaelic spoken on the Isle of Man? The pages themselves are of two types. Most are dark photographic reprints of original pages. The remaining pages have a much lighter background and may have been freshly typeset for this edition. Cregneish, I learn from Wikipedia, is a "populated place." Is that a term for what might be less organized than a village or town? The introduction focuses on the Isle of Man and its life in 1901 and on Farquhar, who led a spirited life of fishing and hard drinking. His poems "brought him more wormwood than golden opinions" (10). Farquhar's poems follow on 13-28. After the fables there is a sketch of life in Old Cregneish, and a listing of old Cregneish family names. Now here is an unusual fable book!

1901? Aesop's Fables. Edited by J.B. Rundell. Illustrated by Ernest Griset. Hardbound. Boston: Lothrop Publishing Company. $35 from Titles, Highland Park, March, '93.

I am very happy to get a copy of Rundell's version, quoted by Hobbs on 102. The Griset illustrations are well done here. Still, this book's special offering lies in the four full-color illustrations. These often render a scene that Griset has already done in black-and-white, and often lie far from their respective stories. They are of the lion, ass, and fox (frontispiece); WL (facing 90); TB (154, the best of the group, I think); and WC (210). Note that more than one bear is involved in the encounter with the travellers. No T of C or index. By contrast with two other copies that are bibliographically equivalent, this copy has a green cloth cover with a variety of animals. The spine shows King Stork.

1901? Aesop's Fables.  Edited by J.B. Rundell. Illustrated by Ernest Griset. Boston: Lothrop Publishing Company. $30 from Donald Dupley, Omaha, Jan., '93.

I am very happy to get a copy of Rundell's version, quoted by Hobbs on 102. The Griset illustrations are well done here. Still, this book's special offering lies in the four full-color illustrations. These often render a scene that Griset has already done in black-and-white, and often lie far from their respective stories. They are of the lion, ass, and fox (frontispiece); WL (facing 34 in in Dupley and 90 in Titles); TB (154, the best of the group, I think); and WC (210). Note that more than one bear is involved in the encounter with the travellers. No T of C or index. Don Dupley had notified me to come to the sale for another Aesop; he did not know that he had this book. This copy has FC on the front-cover and Alice on the back-cover. It is inscribed in 1902. I found the two copies of this book with different covers within six weeks of each other.

1901? Aesop's Fables. Edited by J.B. Rundell. Illustrated by Ernest Griset. Hardbound. Boston: Lothrop Publishing Company. $6.50 from the House of Fiction, Pasadena, August, '93.

This book is almost identical with another I have from the same publisher, but which I bought from Don Dupley in Omaha in January of 1993. Like it, this book has FC in strong colors on its front-cover. However it has on its back-cover not Alice but a lion looking into water and seeing its own reflection. Both of these copies are different from the copy purchased from Titles, which has a green cloth cover picturing many animals, with King Stork on its spine. I will include my remarks on the Dupley copy. I am very happy to get a copy of Rundell's version, quoted by Hobbs on 102. The full-color illustrations are placed differently here, and one of the four seems to be missing. They are of the lion, ass, and fox (frontispiece); TB (86, the best of the group, I think); and WL (facing 157). WC seems to be missing; TB has already separated and may not have been bound in at 86. Note that more than one bear is involved in the encounter with the travellers (36). The spine is cracked between 30 and 31. No T of C or index. I found the three copies of this book with different covers within eight months of each other.

1901? Fables de La Fontaine: Édition annotée a l'usage de la jeunesse. Émile Guérin, Éditeur. Illustrations de Hadamar et Desandré. Hardbound. Paris: Librairie de Théodore Lefèvre & Cie. $50 from Academy Book Store, NY, Jan., '99.

Bodemann #339.2. The special feature of this fragile little volume is the series of nine (hand-colored?) full-page illustrations inserted with slipsheets into the book. They include: "L'Enfant et le maitre d'ecole" (19), "L'Astrologue qui se laisse tombe dans un puits" (39), MSA (41), "Le Berger et la mer" (59), TB (a favorite of mine, 101), MM (133), "L'Ours et l'amateur des jardins" (159), "Le Gland et la citrouille" (190), and "Le Vieillard et les trois jeunes hommes" (241). The illustrations, printed on only one side of the page, are carefully inserted so that they refer to the text facing them. There is an AI at the back. See now under "1881?" my comments on the earlier edition of this book. Inscribed in French in 1909. Ex Libris Gertrud Goldschmid with a German ex libris label.

1901? Fables de La Fontaine: Édition annotée a l'usage de la jeunesse. Émile Guérin, Éditeur. Illustrations de Hadamar et Desandré. Hardbound. Paris: Librairie de Théodore Lefèvre & Cie. $9.99 from Klaas Kee, Zwolle, Netherlands, through eBay, May, '09.

This book is exactly identical with another copy in the collection except for the very last line on the last page. Where that book has "1835-0-- Corbeil. Imprimerie Crété" this volume has "10593-00. -- Corbeil. Imprimerie Crété." Perhaps someday having this copy at hand will help someone comparing various printings of the same book. For me the difference in hand-painting of the nine illustrations is fascinating! I will excerpt some of my comments there but note that this volume is even more fragile. Bodemann #339.2. The special feature of this fragile little volume is the series of nine (hand-colored?) full-page illustrations inserted into the book. The lack of slipsheets with them constitutes, I suppose, a second difference. The illustrations include: "L'Enfant et le maitre d'ecole" (19), "L'Astrologue qui se laisse tomber dans un puits" (39), MSA (41), "Le Berger et la mer" (59), TB (a favorite of mine, 101), MM (133), "L'Ours et l'amateur des jardins" (159), "Le Gland et la citrouille" (190), and "Le Vieillard et les trois jeunes hommes" (241). The illustrations, printed on only one side of the page, are carefully inserted so that they refer to the text facing them. There is an AI at the back. See now under "1881?" my comments on an earlier edition of this book.

1901? Fables de La Fontaine: Édition annotée a l'usage de la jeunesse.  Illustrations de Hadamar et Desandré.  Hardbound.  Paris: Librairie de Théodore Lefèvre & Émile Guérin.  $14.50 from Chars Books and Collectibles through eBay, Sept., '15.  

I think I have just made a discovery.  I thought I was ordering yet another copy of a book I have four times over.  I bought it to see how the hand-colored illustrations would turn out in yet another copy.  That experiment worked, for "L'Enfant et le Maitre d'Ecole" (19), for example, is indeed different in detail from the other four copies.  But there is an additional surprise here.  All four of those copies were published by "Théodore Lefèvre, Éditeur."  This copy is published by "Librairie Théodore Lefèvre et Émile Guérin."  Elsewhere I have guessed that Guérin joined the operation between 1881 and 1901.  Otherwise this copy seems identical with those four.  Let me note the exceptions to this general declaration.  The title-page has a "TL" insignia, as in two of the four.  Its last page has "8372-87 Corbeil.  Typ, et Ster. Crété."  None of the other four have this combination of elements.  I wrote earlier "Perhaps someday having this copy at hand will help someone comparing various printings of the same book.  For me the difference in hand-painting of the nine illustrations is fascinating!"  The illustrations include: Enfant et le maitre d'ecole" (19), "L'Astrologue qui se laisse tomber dans un puits" (39), MSA (41), "Le Berger et la mer" (59), TB (a favorite of mine, 101), MM (133), "L'Ours et l'amateur des jardins" (159), "Le Gland et la citrouille" (190), and "Le Vieillard et les trois jeunes hommes" (241).  The illustrations, printed on only one side of the page, are carefully inserted so that they refer to the text facing them.  There is an AI at the back.

1901? The Book of Fables: Containing Aesop's Fables. Complete, with text based upon Croxall, La Fontaine, and L'Estrange. With Copious Additions from other Modern Authors. No illustrations. NY: F.M. Lupton. Gift of Mary Pat Ryan from Pleasant Street Books in Woodstock, Vermont, Dec., '89.

Identical plates with the edition by the same publisher that I have listed under "1902?." This edition has a different cover and different paper; it also lists an address for the Lupton Publishing Company. This book has not held up well with the years. The paper and inking remind one of the Arlington Edition (1899?) by Hurst.

To top

1902 - 1903

1902 Babrius: Fables: Texte Grec. Publié à l'usage des classes avec une introduction, des notes et un lexique. Par A.M. Desrousseaux. Quatrième édition revue et corrigée. Paris: Hachette. $6 at Straat in Amsterdam, Dec., '88.

A standard small text in a series I had not known. AI of the fables at the back.

1902 Child Life in Tale and Fable: A Second Reader. By Etta Austin Blaisdell and Mary Frances Blaisdell. Illustrations by Sears Gallagher. Hardbound. NY: MacMillan. See 1899/1902.

1902 Fables. Robert Louis Stevenson. With Six Etchings by Ethel King Martyn. Hardbound. Printed in Edinburgh. London, NY, and Bombay: Longmans, Green and Co. $50 from Tomasz Wysocki, Annandale, VA, through Ebay, Sept., '00.

See my comments under two Scribner editions (1914 and 1923) of the same twenty short pieces. A preface by the illustrator's brother ("G.K.M.") offers the rationale for this book: "The book is the outcome of the wish of a few to possess in a separate form the Fables of Robert Louis Stevenson, hitherto included with other work, and also to have bound with them the Etchings of my sister." The etchings, he notes, had already been seen at the Exhibition of the Painter-Etchers in 1902. As Richard Drury has explained to me, the fables were first published in two numbers of Longmans Magazine in 1895 and then as part of the volume of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with Other Fables. He sees no reason to doubt Longmans' claim here that this is the first time that they are brought together and published separately. In fact a two-page introductory comment titled "Fables" (xi-xii) relates the same history in more detail. Stevenson had enough traditional fables by 1887-88 together with a few longer ones to promise a book of them to Longmans in spring of 1888. One or two were added to the group in the next six years, though his mind seemed to be elsewhere. The collection was certainly not what its author had meant it to be. After his death, his representatives thought the fables of sufficient interest to be handed to Longmans for publication first in their magazine and then in a new edition of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This comment. signed "S.C.," is in my Scribner's edition of 1923 but not in their fancy large edition illustrated by Herman in 1914. The etchings are listed on ix. The last of them, "The Song of the Morrow" (91), may be the most engaging.

1902 More Fables.  George Ade.  Illustrated by Clyde J. Newman.  Hardbound.  Chicago/NY: Herbert S. Stone.  See 1900/02.

1902? Fables for Little Folks. Untearable linen. Paperbound. New York/London/Paris: Father Tuck's "Little Pets" Series: Raphael Tuck & Sons, Co. £2 from T. Jacombs, South Devon, England, through eBay, Dec., '03. 

This little pamphlet-like booklet with cardboard covers and "untearable linen" pages almost replicates a booklet from Raphael Tuck & Sons for which I have guessed a date of 1905. But a good deal is different in the book. The cover is not itself linen and it rearranges several elements, including the placement of "Untearable Linen" and the coloring, along the branch of a tree, of "Father Tuck's 'Little Pets' Series." This cover adds "Printed in Germany." In fact, the "linen" here has the feel of cardboard! The colored illustrations actually come out much better on this surface than on the linen. The plates are the same, but the ink for text has changed from brown to green. The final contrast is that I paid over $50 less for this book! The booklet contains several inscriptions dating it to 1902, 1904, and 1948. Let me adapt the comments I made there. Fourteen fables, generally about two to a page. Each has one illustration, either green-and-white (the same green as the print) or colored. DM happens to have both. FC's colored picture is the front cover. Besides the cover, there are four pages of colored illustrations. The only new story element I find here is that the hare finds the tortoise dozing at the finish line! I love the old colored pictures here, especially the FC on the cover and BC.

1902 (Palmer Cox's) Juvenile Budget. Containing Queer People with Paws, Claws, Wings, Stings, And Others Without Either; Goblins, Giants, Merrymen and Monarchs, Stories of Their Mischievous Pranks and Humorous Doings. By Palmer Cox. Chicago: M.A. Donohue and Company. $5 at Jackson Street, March, '93.

I am glad to have an excuse for including among fable editions this oversize book in terrible condition with board covers and almost no spine left. My excuse is that it contains LaFontaine's story about the two rats and the egg (Fables 9.19). Here the two rats have become three mice. Cox excells in lively grotesqueries, and this volume is no exception. The cheap paper and time have worked together to make the impressions of many of the engravings blotted. Unpaginated.

1902 Stepping Stones to Literature: A First Reader. Sarah Louise Arnold and Charles B. Gilbert. NY: Silver, Burdett. See 1897/1902.

1902 Stepping Stones to Literature: A Second Reader. Sarah Louise Arnold and Charles B. Gilbert. Special State Edition. NY: Silver, Burdett. See 1897/1902.

1902 Stepping Stones to Literature: A Third Reader. Sarah Louise Arnold and Charles B. Gilbert. NY: Silver, Burdett. See 1897/1902.

1902 The Animal Story Book. Edited by Ernest Thompson-Seton. Volume VI of "Young Folks' Library" in 20 volumes, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Editor-in-chief. Boston: Hall and Locke. $3 at Delavan Booksellers, Aug., '87.

Includes some eleven fables from Aesop and four from LaFontaine (and Piers Plowman's BC). Abundant black-and-white illustrations, done by a variety of people: Doré, Fellman?, Prunair?. There are colored illustrations elsewhere in the book.

1902 The Fables of Phaedrus. For the Use of Schools with introduction, notes and vocabulary by the Rev. G[eorge] H[erbert] Nall. Elementary Classics. London: Macmillan and Co. See 1895/1902.

1902 The Fables of Phaedrus Books I and II. Edited with Introduction, Notes and Vocabulary by J.H. Flather. Apparent first edition. Hardbound. The Cambridge series for schools and training colleges. Printed in England. Cambridge: At the University Press. $10 from Gibson's Books, Owens Cross Roads, AL, June, '98.

Lamb #829. Carnes #733a. With its Latin texts and English notes, this text is meant for students "not sufficiently advanced to commence the study of Caesar." There is an introduction at the front of the book and a vocabulary at the back. This is one book in Carnes and Lamb that seems not to have been reprinted or reproduced.

1902 The Heart of Oak Books: First Book. Rhymes, Jingles, and Fables. Edited by Charles Eliot Norton. Illustrators not acknowledged. Boston: D.C. Heath and Co. See 1895/1902.

1902 The Heart of Oak Books: Second Book. Fables and Nursery Tales. Revised Edition. Edited by Charles Eliot Norton. Illustrator apparently Frank T. Merrill. Boston: D.C. Heath and Co. See 1895/1902/07.

1902? Aesop's Fables: New Series: Books for the Bairns.-XXVI. Edited by W.T. Stead. With 152 Sketches by Brinsley le Fanu. Hardbound. London: "Review of Reviews" Office. See 1899?/1902?.

1902? Fables de La Fontaine racontées par l'Oncle Tuck. Paperbound. Paris: Librairie Artistique de la Jeunesse, No. 610: Raphael Tuck & Fils. €25 from Johanson Rare Books, Baltimore, at the Paris International Book Fair, July, '09.

This French pamphlet seems to replicate two editions of Fables for Little Folks, for which I have guessed dates of 1902 and 1905. This has neither cardboard nor linen covers nor linen pages. The series is not "Father Tuck's 'Little Pets' Series" but rather "Librairie Artistique de la Jeunesse, No. 610." Texts are in blue and green ink. There are fourteen fables, generally about two to a page. Each has one illustration, either the same color as the print or many-colored. DM happens to have both. FC's colored picture is the front cover. Besides the cover, there are four pages of colored illustrations. I love the old colored pictures here, especially the FC on the cover and BC. The edges are crumbling, and the spine has been repaired.

1902? Fables for Little Folks. Untearable linen. Paperbound. New York/London/Paris: Father Tuck's "Little Pets" Series: Raphael Tuck & Sons, Co. £2 from T. Jacombs, South Devon, England, through eBay, Dec., '03.

This little pamphlet-like booklet with cardboard covers and "untearable linen" pages almost replicates a booklet from Raphael Tuck & Sons for which I have guessed a date of 1905. But a good deal is different in the book. The cover is not itself linen and it rearranges several elements, including the placement of "Untearable Linen" and the coloring, along the branch of a tree, of "Father Tuck's 'Little Pets' Series." This cover adds "Printed in Germany." In fact, the "linen" here has the feel of cardboard! The colored illustrations actually come out much better on this surface than on the linen. The plates are the same, but the ink for text has changed from brown to green. The final contrast is that I paid over $50 less for this book! The booklet contains several inscriptions dating it to 1902, 1904, and 1948. Let me adapt the comments I made there. Fourteen fables, generally about two to a page. Each has one illustration, either green-and-white (the same green as the print) or colored. DM happens to have both. FC's colored picture is the front cover. Besides the cover, there are four pages of colored illustrations. The only new story element I find here is that the hare finds the tortoise dozing at the finish line! I love the old colored pictures here, especially the FC on the cover and BC.

1902? The Book of Fables: Containing Aesop's Fables. Complete, with text based upon Croxall, La Fontaine, and L'Estrange. With copious additions from other modern authors. No illustrations. NY: F.M. Lupton. $4 at Renaissance, June, '88.

Quite similar to the Arlington Edition (1899?), except for rearrangement and different spellings in titles. A "note" added to the editor's preface indicates the addition of 130 fables not in the first and second editions. Exhaustive T of C. After 156 pages of Aesop, there are "Later Fables." In fact, the text is so eager to get to the later fables that there is no 157 or 158! The text seems exactly identical with that in the Homewood edition. This book contains the customary 266 fables from Rundell found generally in "JBR" versions, and the 132 later fables.

1903 Aesop's Fables in rhyme for children. By Richardson D. White and Margaret D. Longley. Decorated by Charles Livingston Bull. Hardbound. Akron, OH: The Saalfield Publishing Company. $75 from Smith & Co. Booksellers, Reno, NV, through ABE, March, '00.

The charm of this very charming oversized (9¾" x 12") book begins with the front and back covers, which show, respectively, the two scenes of FS. In the first, the fox winks at the viewer over an empty soup-bowl. In the latter, he is in profile with his visible eye closed as he sits before a tall vase. The book contains fifty fables, each presented in a two-page spread with text on the left and a full-page half-tone illustration right. The illustrations are, as the bookseller's description mentions, "powerful and sometimes slightly disturbing." A good example is BW (17). Among the best illustrations are TB (7), DS (8), CW (14), "The Bald Man and the Fly" (16), "The Miser" (21), "The Ass's Brains" (32), "The Hares and the Frogs" (33), and DM (46). The texts are all done in verse. The text for DS (8) speaks of meat but the illustration shows a bone. In FK (9), Jupiter relents and takes away the stork king! I have never seen that before! The cat maiden's chase takes place at the banquet, where the mouse has entered by chance (14). There is no reprisal here for her behavior. Jupiter had changed her to prove that a being's nature could change. SW (28) is told in the poorer form. LS includes the jackal, fox, and wolf as the lion's three "partners." "The Sick Lion" (45) is not about the shame of being attacked by an ass, but about the shame of being attacked by any creatures while dying. There is an AI at the front, which gives the number of the story in order. There are no page numbers in the book.

1903 Fifty Fables by La Fontaine. With introduction, notes, and vocabulary by Kenneth McKenzie. NY: American Book Company. $3 at The Book House on Grand, St. Paul, July, '94. Extra copy for $.89 at Constant Reader, Jan., '94.

This book provides just what its title and subtitle promise. The notes are helpful tips at the bottom of the page. The book is valuable among other things for showing which fables were considered well known or especially worthy of consideration around the turn of the century.

1903 Language Lessons: A First Book in English. Wilbur Fisk Gordy and William Edward Mead. Hardbound. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons. $7.50 from Daedalus & Daedalus East, Charlottesville, VA, April, '98.

This beginning textbook uses a number of fables early in varying ways to teach its lessons. MM (10), DS (16), GGE (38), "The Flies and the Honey" (41), "The Boys and the Frogs" (42), and "Fable" by Emerson (44) start the parade. In "The Stag at the Lake" (49, with illustration), the stag complains not about his legs but about his feet as "thin and ugly." "The Owl and the Grasshopper" (56) has two illustrations. "The Cat, the Monkey, and the Chestnuts" (60) is well told. For "The Wise Man and the Stars" (62) only brief hints are given about how to tell this fable. In "The Farmer's Sons" (74), the farmer mentions that the treasure is hid within a foot of the surface: "You will find it if you dig carefully." For "Two Goats" (79, illustrated) the story is just begun. In "The Miser and His Gold" (87) he buries his bright gold dollars not in a hole but in a chest, and a neighbor gives him a bag of smooth pebbles and recommends that he hide them. Last in the parade is "The Blind Man and the Lame Man" (92). The book is in excellent condition.

1903 Modern Fables and Parables or Moral Truth in a Nutshell. Rev. W. S. Harris. Illustrated by Paul Krafft, J.R. Connor, Harry E. Knouse, and others. Elgin, IL: Brethren Publishing House. $17.50 through the web from Joann White, White Papers, Independence, CT, Sept., '97.

This book seemed so promising! I have to admit that I am disappointed, even though it is a genuine curiosity, and I am delighted to have it. The cover features an embossed Heighway illustration of FS. The book includes 111 stories. Eighty-two of them are illustrated. The beginning has a T of C, as well as a list of illustrations. Two sections of Harris' preface strike me: "The great majority of these fables and parables are entirely new and were wrought out with careful analysis and patient toil." "No patience or time was spared to make these many illustrations the best that can be found in any book of its kind in the world." Wow! One example of an adapted fable is "The Vain Dog," FC all over again (328). The stories disappoint me because they are exaggerated or contrary to nature. Thus a hireling works so hard that he drops dead as he finishes meeting a challenge with a lucrative prize (47). A homeowner dynamites a rat hole and thus destroys the floor of his house (51)! A hen pecks her favorite eggs and so spoils them (108). A fish tires out a bird in a fight (109). A camel buys a dynamite-laden candle to see his way through the night (159). For all this criticism, there is something naturally fetching in this book for me. Not the least of its attractions is the good sense one finds in a moral like this: "When you measure yourself with your own hand, count twelive inches for a foot and then deduct one-half" (53). "The Bug and the Capitalist" (26) presents social criticism of capitalism that I would not have expected here.

1903 Palmer Cox's Funny Animals.  Palmer Cox.  Canvas bound.  Chicago: Palmer Cox Series #160:  M.A. Donohue and Company.  $25 from Book Alley, Pasadena, CA, July, '13.

I am glad to have an excuse for including among our fable editions a second Palmer Cox book.  It is in poor condition, and the printing is particularly poor in places.  Within its board covers are twelve verse stories for children of extremely varied subject matter.  Three might well be considered fables.  "The Elephant and Donkey" has the two on a narrow bridge.  The elephant expresses his presumed right to go first, and the donkey disagrees – and then finds himself thrown up into a tree, where one can still see his bones hanging!  "The Turkey in Danger" is a replay of the Chanticleer story.  An older fox with a trapped turkey in a basket is schooling a younger fox along the way.  As she goes over a fence, the basket is upset, and a wild chase ensues.  That Turkey will never let itself be surprised again!  "The Ostrich and the Man" has the ostrich finding a creative way of overcoming the man: plopping down on him in the desert!  As in his other book in our collection, Cox excels in lively grotesqueries.  The cheap paper and time have worked together to make the impressions of many of the engravings blotted.  Unpaginated.

1903 Phaedri Augusti Liberti Fabulae Aesopiae.  Recognovit et praefatus est Lucianus Müller.  Editio Stereotypa.  Hardbound.  Leipzig: Teubner.  $10 from Second Story Books Warehouse, Rockville, MD, August, '18.

Largely identical with other copies in the collection, this book has several unique features.  Overall it is in a family with books published by Müller in 1876, 1877, 1881, and 1898.  Of these, the 1877 copy is a larger book with a critical apparatus and some 120 pages, whereas the other copies have xiv and 66 pages.  With the 1898 edition, this book shares the description "Editio Stereotypa."  Different from the other three books of its size, this copy has now the typical Teubner hard cover mentioning the series: "Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana."  The small copies all belong under Number 620 in Carnes' Phaedrus bibliography.  Here is Carnes' description: "One of the most successful editions of Phaedrus, a school edition, by Müller (1836-1898), with a short introduction ‘De Phaedri vita et scriptis’ in three parts: an introduction to Phaedrus, recognition of his debt to the Dressler edition, together with an overview of Phaedrus’ metrics. The third part deals with textual questions and emendations, especially where they differ from Dressler. Grammatical notes and glosses, a much reduced text as compared to Müller’s critical edition (Müller 1877).

1903 Slang Fables from Afar. Al Kleberg. Baltimore: Phoenix Publishing Co. Good copy with green cover for $14 from Roger Carlson at Bookman's Alley, Evanston, August, '96. Extra copy with red cover for $9 from Roger.

A surprising find full of questions, first of all because it seems George Ade is not the sole proprieter of the "slang fable" genre. Secondly, we have here two books with nothing to differentiate them but the different-colored background of their covers. Asked why they should be different, Roger theorized that the publisher ran out of one sort of stock and began to use the other. Thirdly, why are these fables "from afar"? Fourthly, why put quotations marks after the title (on the cover) but not before it? The most frequent theme seems to be that in romance, the bigger they come, the harder they fall. Often big talkers meet their match or their Waterloo—or both in one! There is a great moral on 63: "Everyone has a calling but most of us answer someone else’s." Though the work’s charm is not as great as that of Ade’s, the locus is principally the same, in the fun of well-used idiom, now almost a century old. Like Ade, Kleberg likes to turn to capital letters for emphasis.

1903 The Fables of Aesop and Others with Designs on Wood. By Thomas Bewick. A New Edition. Reproduced in facsimile from the Editions printed at Newcastle by E. Walker for T. Bewick and Son in 1818 and 1823. NY: D. Appleton & Company. See 1818/1903.

1903 The Fables of Aesop Based on the Texts of L'Estrange and Croxall. Smaller format (5¼"x 6¾"). Edited by J. Walker McSpadden. Illustrations by Percy Billinghurst (unacknowledged). Hardbound. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell Company. $15 from Bailey's Internet Book Store, Farmington, Iowa, through Bibliofind, Oct., '98.

This book is to a large extent identical with the one from the same publisher that I have listed under "1910?" The selection and placement of illustrations seem to be slightly different (though in both cases from Billinghurst). There the title-page is missing, and so it is not clear whether J. Walker McSpadden is there identified as editor as he is here. In some similar editions, there is no further indication of editing than the initials "J.W.M." at the end of the "Introduction." Further, the only indication of date is here on the back of the title-page, and so that information is lacking there too. See my comments there and also my comments on the "Books, Inc." editions listed under "1925?" and "1930?" Here the eight Billinghurst black-and-white illustrations are FC (frontispiece), LM (10), "The Fox and the Goat" (28), FWT (48), FS (86), FG (116), FK (170), and TH (218). There is an AI on xi. There are 230 pages and 330 fables. A quick check suggests that some narratives are taken verbatim from the Rundell versions that are based on "Croxall, La Fontaine and L'Estrange" but without using their morals, while some other texts are adapted from there. Tracking that development among knock-off texts around the turn of the century would be interesting someday. The text plates of this book are identical with those in the two copies I have of a 1903 book from Crowell in larger format with a similar cover and an identical title-page. This copy was inscribed in 1916.

1903 The Fables of Aesop Based on the Texts of L'Estrange and Croxall. Larger format: 5½"x 7½". Edited by J. Walker McSpadden. Illustrations by Percy Billinghurst (unacknowledged). Hardbound. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell Company. Green-covered copy from an unknown source sometime before May, '00. Extra copy with a cream cover for $15 from The Gallagher Collection, Denver, June, '98.

These two books use the identical plates used to make the smaller format book published by Crowell in the same year. Thus they have 230 pages and 330 fables. See my comments there. These books have a slightly larger format and use wider margins. They also take a slightly different approach to the illustrations, removing the FC frontispiece and putting it on 202. Instead there is a frontispiece of DS that may be done after a Billinghurst illustration, but it lacks the typical frame given his illustrations here. In the good green-covered copy the frontispiece includes pink tint. Several other illustrations are moved slightly. The roster of Billinghurst illustrations here is thus LM (10), "The Fox and the Goat" (26), FWT (42), FS (90), FG (122), FK (171), and TH (218). The cream-colored copy lacks the FS illustration. There is no illustration in either copy for FK, though there is a suspicious gap in the green-covered copy between 170 and 171. The cream-colored copy is inscribed in 1921. It is especially clear on the green cover that the eyes of the peacock's feathers are imprinted into the book's cover.

1903 The First Reader: The New Century Catholic Series. No author or illustrator acknowledged. NY: Benziger Brothers. $6.50 at Adams Avenue, San Diego, Aug., '93.

Five fables, several of them interrupted by a few pages and then abruptly started again. There is a good deal of Spanish vocabulary written into the book near the appropriate English words. Fables here include: FC (58), BC (65, 70), "The Fox and the Goat" (72, 77, illustrated), FG (96, illustrated), and TH (100). Some foxing.

1903 The Girl Proposition. A Bunch of He and She Fables. By George Ade. With illustrations, in imitation of the old-style wood-cuts, by John T. McCutcheon, Frank Holme, Carl Werntz, and Clyde J. Newman. NY: (c)1902 by Robert Howard Russell. $3.50 at Powell's, Portland, July, '93.

More vintage Ade, concentrated this time on questions of marriage. I have read three stories here and enjoyed them. This may be a first edition; it is difficult to know what to do with a book from the original publisher with a title-page date just one year after its copyright date. The simple illustrations are delightful.

1903 The Golden Windows. A Book of Fables for Young and Old. By Laura E. Richards. Capitals by J.W.R. Illustrations by Arthur E. Becker. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. $20 by mail from Burstein, Waltham, Dec., '93.

Perhaps the most attractive feature of this book is the lovely hand-coloring of the title page and of the fable-beginning capitals. The book is in excellent condition. The texts are too much for me: heavy on angels, do-gooder philosophy, and sentiment. The purpose seems to be to impart spiritual lessons. I stopped reading when a "play angel" appeared in the nursery in "The Great Feast."

1903 The Third Reader: The New Century Catholic Series. No author or illustrator acknowledged. NY: Benziger Brothers. $2 at Country Collectibles, Louisville, NE, Oct., '92.

This reader has all sorts of uplifting little stories, but includes among them MSA (194). There is one striking black-and-white illustration. This version differs from the usual in that the donkey breaks his cords and gallops away at the end of the story.

1903 Wheeler's Graded Readers: A Second Reader. Gail Calmerton and William H. Wheeler. Chicago: W.H. Wheeler and Company. $2 at Pageant, NY, May, '91.

Six Aesopic fables without illustration. DS (35) has an engaging pre-history. TH (113) has rabbit visit his friends after a rest; he asks at the finish how long he will have to wait. WS (134) has a bet over who can "make him take off his coat." The other stories are "The Merchant and the Donkey" (76), FG (108), and "The Hare and the Hound" (116). Page 85 has the same picture as 44 of Rational Reading (1899).

1903/04 The Girl Proposition. A Bunch of He and She Fables. By George Ade. With illustrations, in imitation of the old-style wood-cuts, by John T. McCutcheon, Frank Holme, Carl Werntz, and Clyde J. Newman. (c)1902 by Robert Howard Russell. NY: Harper & Brothers. $12 at Booknook Parnassus, Evanston, Dec., '92.

See my comments on the Russell edition of 1903. The margins are bigger here, but the plates seem exactly the same. I am still betting that the copyright date (1902) is not the date of original publication (1903?) and that my Russell copy of 1903 is thus a first edition.

1903/1905 Told by Uncle Remus: New Stories of the Old Plantation.  Joel Chandler Harris.  Illustrations by A.B. Frost, J.M. Conde, and Frank Verbeck.  Hardbound.  NY: Grosset & Dunlap.  $20 from More Moe's, Berkeley, Dec., '21.

Here is a classic children's version of Brer Rabbit stories, with classic black-and-white illustrations from well known artists.  What strikes me on this reading is the contrast between the straight talk of the narrator and the fascinating -- and not always easy -- dialect of Uncle Remus himself.  There is a list of full-page illustrations just after the opening T of C, and there are also partial-page illustrations scattered along the way.  The cover illustration, affixed to the brown cloth, replicates the frontispiece: Brer Rabbit sits against a tree regaling the animals in a circle looking up to a bird in the tree.  295 pages plus 10 pages of advertisements.  5¼" x 7 ½".

1903/06 The Silver-Burdett Readers: Second Book. By Ella M. Powers and Thomas M. Balliet. No illustrator acknowledged. NY: Silver, Burdett, and Co. $.10, Summer, '89.

This schoolbook is in very poor shape: a few pages are missing, and the worms have eaten some good holes into the book. There are eleven fables, most with good simple illustrations. The maid carries not milk but eggs, and the moral gets easier; the illustration follows that version and would be worth using.

1903? Golden Days. Story Book. No authors or illustrators mentioned. NY: McLoughlin Bros. $3, Spring, '86.

A big old kids' book in terrible shape, but it has one fable in it: FG in poetry. The illustration has three foxes jumping for the grapes.

1903? The Book of Fables: Containing Aesop's Fables. Complete, with text based upon Croxall, La Fontaine, and L'Estrange. No illustrations. NY: F.M. Lupton. $27 at Green Apple, March, '97.

Very close to my "1902?" Lupton edition, right down to the good paper, the good printing, and the numerous empty pages at the end. As is usual for these Lupton editions (see 1900?, 1901?, and 1902?), a "note" added to the editor's preface indicates the addition of 130 fables not in the first and second editions, there is an exhaustive T of C, and after 156 pages of Aesop, there are "Later Fables." In fact, the text is so eager to get to the later fables that in each of these Lupton copies there is no 157 or 158! Unlike other Lupton editions, this book does not say "With Copious Additions from Other Modern Authors" on the title-page or anywhere. This book adds a design on the title-page, and is larger, with larger margins. It has a gold-printed floral pattern on its red cover and spine. Its pages show an unusual riff on their side-edges.

To top

1904 - 1905

1904 A Child's Version of Aesop's Fables. J.H. Stickney. Illustrations by Gustave Doré, Harrison Weir, and F. Myrick, none of them acknowledged. Hardbound. Boston: Home and School Library: Ginn and Co. $4 from Cathy & Tom Mamoone, Canandaigua, NY, through EBay, Sept., '03.

This seems to be an exact reprinting of the 1891 version, of which I have a copy. As I mention there, various people worked on the text, and the illustrations seem to be from Doré, Weir, and a certain F. Myrick. Let me expand a bit on my short remarks there. The body of the work contains 125 fables. A supplement brings fourteen verse fables from La Fontaine and eleven prose "Russian Fables of Krilof." Several fables in the supplement repeat in their own way the stories that were presented in the body of the work. Thus FG occurs on 15 and again on 147. Almost every page lists several words at the top with helps for pronouncing them. This copy is in good condition. From the library of Jean Quirk.

1904 A Little Book of Profitable Tales. Eugene Field. Hardbound. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons. Gift, Sept., '06.

I was tempted to bypass this book in my cataloguing. But I chanced to read "The Oak-Tree and the Ivy" (105-112). Though longer than a traditional fable, its basic structure is that, I believe, of a fable. The oak grandly accepts the love of the ivy at his feet. Condescendingly, even, he will protect her and be good to her. In the meantime, she keeps growing upwards. She follows his invitations to cling close in storms. After some time, they are married, but he still sees himself as the protector and still sees her as the young thing at his feet. One fierce storm comes that knocks down many trees. When the oak prevails against the storm, the storm king in anger hurls a thunderbolt that cracks the oak into two. But the tender ministrations of his loving ivy bind up his wounds so that no one can see them. She now tells him stories: not his stories of the heroes, winds, and oceans but rather sweeter "tales of contentment, of humility, of love" (111). Nice! 

1904 Aesop's Fables. Based on L'Estrange. Illustrated by Maud U. Clarke. Hardbound. Printed in London. London: Cassell and Company. From Bruce Monroe, Solon, Maine, through Ebay, June, '00.

There are several surprises in this book. The first is that I had never heard of this book before it appeared on Ebay. The second is the simple but striking colored cloth pictorial cover showing a frog and a mouse battling, with an eagle about to swoop down on them. The third surprise is the quantity of fables here. This is a heavy book! I find no less than 527 fables here. That is even more than the 500 that L'Estrange had offered. There is a list of Clarke's 101 illustrations on xi-xiv. What strikes me most about these black-and-white illustrations is their varied form. Contrast the two simple designs on x and xi, for example. One is an asymmetrical landscape, while the other is an almost complete circle with a defining band around it. Still others come in complex and unusual shapes, like the cat hanging from the peg on xiv. I have seldom seen as vivid a presentation of "The Cock and the Dog on a Journey" as in the illustration on 89. Some pages are torn and some loose, but all seem to be present. There is a T of C at the beginning and an AI at the end. This book has spent some of its ninety-seven years in someone's damp basement.

1904 Aesop's Fables (Cover and Spine: Aesop's Fables for Children). Arranged for children by Nellie Perkins Dobbs. Illustrated by Lydia Grant. Topeka: Crane & Company. $7.47 from Lindall James, Whitman, NE, through eBay. Extra copy for $22 from Drusilla, July, '95.

I have found a surprising amount in this unprepossessing little book of ninety-four fables based on the versions of Croxall and l'Estrange. The introduction finds that there are 231 fables attributed to Aesop, apparently in addition to those attributed to Babrius. "Fables which, like `The One-Eyed Doe,' present an offense insufficient to justify the punishment, excite pity in the reader to such an extent that the teaching of the fable is lost sight of" (7-8). The introduction further argues that "In the illustrations of the commonly known editions, the triumph of the strong over the weak and helpless, and the death agonies of our dearly loved pet animals, play, we believe, a too important part." The pictures of this book thus aim "to portray the quainter, friendlier, and more lovable aspect of the characters" (8). Finally, there are no morals here because children are quick to grasp the flaw that leads to the tragedy. Several fables here are new to me: "The Cock and the Fox" (83), "A Cock and Horses" (99), and "The Mouse and the Boasting Rat" (103). Several are differently told. The old woman had three maids; she somehow had learned that they killed her cock and awakened them at midnight as revenge for that murder (19). "The Hares and the Frogs in a Storm" (25) adds new background in the storm, in the hares' desire simply to change their habitat, and in their path being blocked by a lake. "The Ass Eating Thistles" (36) shortens Croxall's version so much as to lose pointedness. Is it usual for the ass to run away while its owner and the man who hired it are arguing (73)? There are two different versions of DLS here (72 and 88), with the owner and the fox, respectively, finding the ass out. In "Jupiter and the Two Wallets" (97), "it took some pains to see the one behind him," whereas he usually cannot see the rear wallet at all. In TH (100), there is a distance--five miles--and a sum indicated: five pounds in a book published in the United States! There is no rock mentioned in the suggestion to the miser who had buried his gold (105). "The Bear and the Gardener" (119) has the bear paid with food and lodging for the work of keeping off the flies. On the other hand, "The Monkey and the Cat" (57) is unusually well told. The illustrations are initials and therefore unfortunately small. Perhaps the best of them presents the orator frog on 15. T of C at the beginning. The good copy is in excellent condition. Several pages of the extra copy are slightly torn: 48, 69, 110, 112.

1904 Anna Karenin, Volume III; Fables and Stories for Children; Miscellaneous Articles. By Count Lev N. Tolstoy, Translated from the Original Russian and edited by Professor Leo Wiener. First edition. Hardbound. Illustrated Sterling Edition. Printed in Boston. Boston: Dana Estes & Company, Publishers. $20 from Books Galore, DeSoto, MO, through Interloc, Feb., '98.

Two volumes seem to be bound together here, at least according to the publisher's pagination. After Anna Karenin finishes on 411, there is a new T of C including "Aesop's Fables" on 3, "Adaptations and Imitations of Hindoo Fables" on 19, and "Stories for Children" on 39. Among the forty-five texts in "Aesop's Fables" there is only one surprise. A polecat substitutes for a snake in licking his own blood from a file (3). Among the thirty-two fables of the Hindoo section, the snake's head and tail separate, and the tail immediately falls into a hole and is lost (19). Many of these are new to me--and good! Enjoy these stories for starters: the thread so fine that it cannot be seen (19); the servant who when shopping has to take a bite out of each pear to know if they are all good (22); the hen who does not know how to raise her chicks and so asks them to go back into their shells (34); and the goat who sees the cow being rewarded for standing still during milking and so stands still the next day when he is supposed to move (36). Among the "Stories for Children" one finds "The Peasant and the Cucumbers" (40) but no others that might qualify as fables. The five illustrations listed on vii are concerned with other literature than the fables.

1904 At the Big House. Where Aunt Nancy and Aunt 'Phrony Held Forth on the Animal Folks. By Anne Virginia Culbertson. Illustrated by E. Warde Blaisdell. Inscribed in 1908. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. Gift of Diana Gunderson at Demontreville Retreat House, July, '94.

A wonderful and surprising gift! Diana is the secretary and brought the book for me to look at when I mentioned Aesop's fables. I never would have found it on my own. The book contains some fifty stories put into the mouths of, respectively, a Black (Nancy) and a mixture of Black and Native American ('Phrony). Nancy's stories borrow from Aesop, as the introduction points out; I would add "somewhat distantly." The dialect is delightful and heavy. A normal reader might have to work at it for a while. I read the first few stories and enjoyed them thoroughly. Aunt Nancy points out at the beginning of her first story that Mis' Molly Hyar generally beats Mistah Slickry Sly Fox because it is the special gift of ladies that they get their own way, not with their fists but with their brains. "Menfolks is kind er clumsy an' lumbersome 'bout sech ez dat...." (6). The setting is delightful: a mother who grew up in the South returns there with her children one year after the end of the Civil War. The stories were collected from elderly story-tellers and edited. There is about one illustration per story. T of C at the front. Some of the early pages are loose.

1904 Classic Fables Selected and Edited for Primary Grades. Edna Henry Lee Turpin. Illustrations from Percy Billinghurst. NY: Maynard, Merrill, and Co. $1.50 from Constant Reader.

I think this little book's only distinguishing feature is its huge print! Complete T of C on 3 is helpful.

1904 Drittes Lesebuch für die deutschen katholischen Schulen in den Vereinigten Staaten von Nord-Amerika. Bearbeitet von mehreren Priestern und Lehrern. NY: Benziger Brothers. See 1873/1904.

1904 Elementary Latin Exercises Adapted to the Eton Latin Grammar.  A.C. Ainger and H.G. Wintle.  New Impression.  Hardbound.  London: John Murray.  £15 from Hawkmoor Books, Winchester, UK, April, '21.

This little book includes 25 fables on 101-125.  The book represents a curious effort.  Given an English text, pupils are asked to translate it into Latin.  There is thus for each text a cluster of suggestions of how to adjust the English to the required Latin.  Thus several of the seven "tips" for students on "The Wolves and the Sheep" (101) are "An embassy = ambassadors"; "To make = who should make"; "There is no reason why.  Latin: 'there is not why.'"  A much more helpful segment of each page is a list of statements about the story, moving from narrative clarifications to possible morals.  Thus in "The Wolves and the Sheep," the first of these items is "There was no reason why they should fight."  The second is "The sheep will become the prey of the wolves."  Further such statements work their way down to "Who would be so foolish as to deprive himself of his only guardian?" and "Do not believe your enemies."

1904 Fables Choisies de J. de La Fontaine/Fabulae Selectae J. Fontani Traduites en Prose Latine Par Fénélon.  F. de Salignac Fénélon ; L'abbé J. Bézy.  Paperbound.  Paris: Alphonse Picard et Fils.  €40 from Picard & Epona, Paris, August, '14.  

Here is one of the strangest finds during a very productive weekend in Paris.  In fact, Picard was my first stop, and this book was published by Picard 110 years ago!  I had not known that Fénélon had translated La Fontaine into Latin.  That was the first surprise.  Then I had no idea that someone had written a dissertation -- for that is what I presume that this work is -- on this abstruse topic.  Notice the affidavits of the Rector and Dean of the University of Paris on 159.  The work seems to cover only the first seven books of La Fontaine's twelve.  It is engaging to see old French friends here show up in Latin!  "  "Vulpes et Uvae."  "Musca et Formica."  "Questor et Sutor."  The book has an introduction and all the scholarly appendages, including four interpaginated photographs of manuscripts (e.g., 136-37) and four pages of errata (!) at the end.  Most of the pages remain uncut.

1904 Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories, Popular Education, Decembrists, Moral Tales. By Count Lev N. Tolstoy, Translated from the Original Russian and edited by Leo Wiener. Hardbound. Illustrated Cabinet Edition. Printed in Boston. Boston: Dana Estes & Company, Publishers. £12.50 from The Children's Bookshop, Hay-on-Wye, July, '98.

This book is exactly equivalent in texts and pagination to the second half of the "Illustrated Sterling Edition" of the same year by the same publisher. That is, it does not include the last portion of Anna Karenin that is present there. Thus, as there, we find here "Aesop's Fables" on 3, "Adaptations and Imitations of Hindoo Fables" on 19, and "Stories for Children" on 39. Among the forty-five texts in "Aesop's Fables" there is only one surprise. A polecat substitutes for a snake in licking his own blood from a file (3). Among the thirty-two fables of the Hindoo section, the snake's head and tail separate, and the tail immediately falls into a hole and is lost (19). Many of these are new to me--and good! Enjoy these stories for starters: the thread so fine that it cannot be seen (19); the servant who when shopping has to take a bite out of each pear to know if they are all good (22); the hen who does not know how to raise her chicks and so asks them to go back into their shells (34); and the goat who sees the cow being rewarded for standing still during milking and so stands still the next day when he is supposed to move (36). Among the "Stories for Children" one finds "The Peasant and the Cucumbers" (40) but no others that might qualify as fables. The three illustrations listed just after the T of C are concerned with other literature than the fables.

1904 Nasreddin: Fjorutiu og fimm tyrkneskar kymi-sogur.  Translated by Thorsteinn Gislason.  Hardbound.  Reykjavik: Prenstmithja Fraekorna.  $15.99 from Robert Harper Books, Maryland, through Biblio, March, ‘21.  

Translation from Turkish to Icelandic of 55 fables by Nasreddin; 100 pages.  Gislason is a well known Icelandic poet.  Online sources describe the figure of Nasreddin as a Seljuk satirist in the thirteenth century.  He is a wisdom figure as the subject of many stories, sometimes as a wise fool: "sometimes witty, sometimes wise, but often, too, a fool or the butt of a joke."  Wikipedia does mention Aesopic fables as a comparison to some of the many stories, though I believe that Till Eulenspiegel might be an even more apt comparison.  There is a T of C at the end.

1904 Strenuous Animals: Veracious Tales. Edwin J. Webster. Illustrated by E.W. Kemble and Bob Addams. Originally sold at Miller & Paine in Lincoln. NY: Frederick A. Stokes Company. $30 in Lincoln (?), Dec., '93.

Eight folksy tales with a bit of slang reminiscent of George Ade. The tales generally go to show that animals--or at least the local ones--know what they are doing. Usually some local has a scheme using an animal in some unlikely way to make more money. So the imported grizzly trained to bring back any but cooked meat ends by blowing himself up running into a rock while he is full of nitroglycerine; the nitroglycerine was left for him by one of the local black bears whom he had earlier terrorized. Buster the bee gets drunk but returns repentant to take over his work as hive foreman. Bitters makes a great hunting dog (as well as a fighting dog) when his owner equips him with two inflatable balloons that make him much more fleet of foot--until a wily old wolf leads him over a fire. It would be hard to call these fables; they are delightful tall tales. The animals do go at things like hunting and fleeing strenuously; a phrase using the word "strenuous" occurs in each story. Lively illustrations!

1904 The Girl Proposition. A Bunch of He and She Fables. By George Ade. With illustrations, in imitation of the old-style wood-cuts, by John T. McCutcheon, Frank Holme, Carl Werntz, and Clyde J. Newman. (c)1902 by Robert Howard Russell. NY: Harper & Brothers. See 1903/04.

1904 Three Hundred Aesop's Fables. Literally translated from the Greek by the Rev. Geo. Fyler Townsend, M.A. With four plates printed in colours, and 114 illustrations by Harrison Weir. London: George Routledge and Sons. See 1885?/1904.

1904/05 At the Big House: Where Aunt Nancy and Aunt 'Phrony Held Forth on the Animal Folks. By Anne Virginia Culbertson. Illustrated by E. Warde Blaisdell. New Edition. Hardbound. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. $15 from Starry Night Antiques, Ellicott City, MD, Dec., '99.

This bigger new edition one year after the original publication (see my notes on the 1904 edition) is distinctive. It is 7" x 9" rather than 5" x 7½". It has only 233 pages, where the earlier edition had 348. But it uses the plates from the earlier edition. The book has reduced from some fifty stories to thirty-three. It makes up for this loss by supplying delightful marginal cartoons lacking in the original. I wager that there is a story here. Might the artist have been late for the first edition, or might the first edition have gone so well that the artist was recommissioned to produce cartoons in the same style? In any case, the full-page non-paginated illustrations listed on xi now are monotone rather than two or three colored, and though they follow the same patterns, they have been enlarged and some seem to have been redrawn for this edition. Contrast that facing 52 here with that facing 96 in the earlier edition, and compare that facing 58 here with that facing 102 there. There are fourteen such full-page monochrome illustrations in this book.

1904/08 Stories of Little Animals. By Lenore Elizabeth Mulets. Illustrated by Sophie Schneider. Princess Series. Phyllis' Field Friends. Boston: L.C. Page and Company. $2.50 at Time Traveler, June, '93.

Six Aesopic fables and one that reminds me of something from the Panchatantra: the fox gets the chickens off the limb by getting them dizzy (108). One story, LM (207), is told in unusual fashion. The mouse thinks about building a nest in the cave that happens to be the lion's nose. When he feels the blast of warm air coming out, he rethinks, but still nibbles around the nostrils. When the lion wakes up, the mouse runs in fright right into his mouth. The lion decides on his own that, since a mouse is not much of a meal, he may as well let him live. Farmers then catch the lion for eating their sheep. Neither victim has a chance to say thank you. Other fables: FS (130), "The Cat on the Peg" (212), TMCM (214), FM (217), and BC (220). No fable illustrations.

1904/2016 Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories, Popular Education, Decembrists, Moral Tales (Annotated).  Leo Tolstoy; Translated and Edited by Leo Wiener.  Paperbound.  Boston/Las Vegas: Dana Estes/CreateSpace.  $5.28 from Amazon, Oct., '21.

Here is a typical print-upon-demand book, with print jammed from the top of the page to the bottom.  The original was by Dana Estes in Boston in 1904.  Aesop is covered on 9-18 of this edition, 3-18 of the original.  There follow ten pages of "Hindoo Fables."  Then come "stories for Children," including "The Peasant and the Cucumbers" (40 in the original).  Then the stories grow longer.  The book is valuable as a source for examining what Tolstoy took from Aesop and what he did with it.  See above for the original edition.

1904? A Child's Version of Aesop's Fables. J.H. Stickney. Illustrations after Gustave Doré, Harrison Weir, and F. Myrick (?), NA. Hardbound. Boston: Home and School Library: Ginn and Co. $5 from Clare Leeper, July, '96.

This copy of Stickney's book is a duplicate of the 1904 Ginn edition, with three exceptions that I can find. First, Ginn is located now in Boston, New York, Chicago, and London. Secondly, this copy is not dated. Thirdly, the printing acknowledgement mentions The Atheneum Press and not J.S. Cushing. I will repeat some of my comments on that 1904 edition. It in its turn seems to be an exact reprinting of the 1891 version, of which I have a copy. As I mention there, various people worked on the text, and the illustrations seem to be from Doré, Weir, and a certain F. Myrick (?). The body of the work contains 125 fables. A supplement brings fourteen verse fables from La Fontaine and eleven prose "Russian Fables of Krilof." Several fables in the supplement repeat in their own way the stories that were presented in the body of the work. Thus FG occurs on 15 and again on 147. Almost every page lists several words at the top with helps for pronouncing them. This copy is in poor condition. It once belonged to Ben Parnell in Baton Rouge, LA.

1904? Aesop's Fables in Words of One Syllable. By Mary Godolphin. Illustrator not acknowledged; the illustrations are after Weir and Griset. NY: Saalfield Publishing Company. $27.50 from Abracadabra, Denver, March, '99. Extra copy for $10 from Richard Kopp in Fort Dodge, Sept., '95.

This book is very similar to the edition of the same title from the same publisher that I have entered under 1905?, but it has a different cover (maroon on the good copy, with a black-and-white picture of LM, green on the extra copy, with the picture missing) and it inserts pages 92-5. Thus the (unnumbered) final page 92 in the "1905?" edition becomes the (numbered) page 96 in this edition. There is some pencilling in both copies. The plates seem more intact in this edition than in that. The illustrations in this book are a panorama of imitation. The most striking for me are the imitations of Griset's FS (59), "The Blind Man and the Lame Man" (81), FK (85), and UP (88). There is again no T of C. I will keep both copies in the collection.

1904? Aesop's Fables in Words of One Syllable. By Mary Godolphin. After Harrison Weir and Ernest Griset (NA). Hardbound. NY: Little Folks Classics: Saalfield. $9.99 from LeRoy Darwin, Grass Lake, MI, through eBay, May, '13.

Here is a book internally identical with another in the collection, but with a different cover. That copy has a maroon cloth cover with a black-and-white picture of LM pasted on. This has a colored board with a picture of two children reading books on a sofa. These two copies are almost identical with two others in the collection but are four pages longer, adding 92-95 here after 91 and before 96 here, which is identical therefore with 92 there. Is it sheer coincidence that those two volumes by Saalfield have the same motif on their cloth covers as this copy has on its boards but differently rendered? Again there one finds two children with books on a sofa. This copy features "Little Folks Classics" and "One Syllable" on its front and back covers. The back cover also repeats the colored picture of children reading on a sofa. This book is in poor condition. The spine is virtually gone and the covers and first and last pages loose. As I mentioned of its partner volume, the illustrations in this book are a panorama of imitation. The most striking for me are the imitations of Griset's FS (59), "The Blind Man and the Lame Man" (81), FK (85), and UP (88). There is no T of C. 

1904? Fables de La Fontaine. Cent Fables Choisies. Illustrations de Henry Morin. Introduction de L. Tarsot. Henri Laurens, Éditeur. Printed in France. Paris: Librairie Renouard. $60 at Bookhouse, Arlington, VA, at Silver Spring, Sept., '91. 

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. Might this undated copy belong to that edition? My other two copies are dated 1925 (paper) and 1932 (hardbound with a drak green cloth cover). The cover here has a gray background. 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. 

1904? Fables de La Fontaine: Cent Fables Choisies. Henri Laurens, Éditeur. Illustrations de Henry Morin. Introduction de L. Tarsot. Hardbound. Paris: Librairie Renouard. $19.99 from Jennifer Flanagan, Berkeley, CA, through eBay, Jan., '13.

This copy is almost identical with one other in the collection, for which I have used the same date, publisher, editor, and author. It has several subtle differences. It borrows from the paperback edition of 1925, which I have, a colorful internal front cover identical in design with the external cover. Facing the title-page it has not advertisements but books in the same series. I suspect that this is a later printing, undated like the first printing but unlike the paperback of 1925 and the hardbound edition of 1932, which give dates on their title pages. My suspicion that this is a later printing is confirmed, I believe, by a further difference. The other copy has on its last page "Évreux, Imprimerie Ch. Hérissy. -- 452." This copy has instead "Évreux, Imprimerie Ch. Hérissy et Fils." His son has now joined the printer business. That page is followed by a stiffer page corresponding to the internal cover, with the same design we find on the back cover of the 1925 paperback. As I said of the other copy, this is one of the most beautiful books in the collection. 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. Might this undated copy belong to that edition? My other two copies are dated 1925 (paper) and 1932 (hardbound with a dark green cloth cover). The cover here has a gray background. 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.

1905 Aesop's Fables. An Adaptation of the Translation from the Greek by the Rev. George F. Townsend. With an Introduction by Elisabeth Luther Cary. Illustrated by J.M. Condé. First edition. NY: Moffat, Yard, and Co. $27.50 by mail from Cynthia K. Fowler in Louisville, June, '88. Extra copy for $40 from the Old Algonquin Bookstore, Denver, March, '94.

Sixteen wonderful colored illustrations in perfect condition, as well as about twenty less good etchings. The Fowler edition is inscribed in 1908; it is hard to believe that a 1905 book is in such good shape. LM (40), FWT (70), "The Squealing Pig" (105), DLS (156), "The Wolf Asking the Lamb for a Drink" (168), "The Fox and the Monkey in the Cemetery" (201), and FG (244) have the best pictures. AI at back. The Denver copy is missing a corner on 89, but the illustrations are still in excellent condition. See 1905/1913 for a reprint with changes.

1905 Fables de La Fontaine classées par Ordre de Difficulté avec Notice en Tète de chaque Fable et notes.  Par A. Gazier.  24th edition.  Hardbound.  Paris: Librairie Armand Colin.  $25 from Christian Tottino, Buenos Aires, through eBay, March, '15.

I have this book in its later editions of 1916 and 1920.  Here, in the best condition of all, is the earliest of the three from 1905.  As I mentioned there, it classifies and organizes La Fontaine's fables in three levels:  suitable for little children, moderately difficult, and difficult.  The book then drops those few fables--and those parts of fables--not suitable for children and presents these three levels with simple notes and pictures less of fables than of the objects one finds in each fable.  Thus a second part starts on 81 and a third part on 159.  The teacher can guide students from the less difficult through the more difficult.  From the back, there is first of all a T of C, then an AI of fables presented here, then the classic division into twelve books with the corresponding page numbers here, and finally the fables.  This copy is nicely bound in leather with marbled page edges.

1905 Fables et Poésies. Choisies et illustrées par M[arthe] E. Warnery. Tirage testreint, #476. Hardbound. Lausanne: A. Denéréaz-Spengler. £100 from Robin Greer, London, Oct., '07.

Oblong octavo. The illustrations here are designs, several to a page, done in the same color as the text. That color changes in the course of the book from green (1-30) to red (31-62) and blue (63-89). As the title indicates, much of what is offered here is poetry rather than fable. The first offering, for example, is a conversation between a woman and a merchant. He is trying to sell her mousetraps and rat-traps. She is uninterested, because her household has good cats. She asks him in turn if he might have a cage that would make a "two-legged mouse" more wise. "No, but I'll have one for you the next time." The story seems to come from F. de Gramont. The next offering, a fable between eglantine and a bumble-bee by E. Rambert, has the flower -- here depicted with a face growing from its center -- tell the bee "People give to those who ask and refuse those who command" (4). Starting on 12, the book presents more traditional La Fontaine fables: FS, WL, TH, TMCM, 2P. La Fontaine fables continue to mix in in the rest of the book. Florian gets in with "The Mole and the Hares" (46) and "The Monkeys and the Nut" (52). T of C at the back. Leather reinforcement for the binding and the corners.

1905 La Fontaine's Fables: A Selection. Pictured for Children by Carton Moore Park and René Bull. Translated from the Original into English Verse by Edward Shirley. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons. £40.5 at Ripping Yarns, London, May, '97.

This wide book presents a classic La Fontaine from the early part of the century.  Park's colored illustrations are large and lovely; the best are of FC and GA.  The best of Bull's black-and-white illustrations are feet running from the disguised ass (56) and the frog's tombstone (62).  The translator's best line is the frog's statement "I'd give my life to be as huge and corpulent as that."  I will keep three copies (Ripping Yarns, Tom Luce, and Barns) in the collection.  None is in excellent condition.  Robin Greer now in December, '96, is selling a first edition ("6 color plates, 16 color text illustrations and 60 other illustrations") for £175.  This copy has a lime background for its covers, while the others have gray cloth (Luce) and a pictorial cover (Barns).

1905 La Fontaine's Fables: A Selection.  Translated from the Original into English Verse by Edward Shirley.  Pictured for Children by Carton Moore Park and René Bull.  Hardbound.  London: Thomas Nelson and Sons.  $16 from Tom Luce through Ebay, Jan., '03.

Here is the second of three copies of this book that I am keeping in the collection.  This copy has a gray cloth background for its covers, while the others have lime cloth (Ripping Yarns) and a pictorial cover (Barns).  This wide book presents a classic La Fontaine from the early part of the century.  Park's colored illustrations are large and lovely; the best are of FC and GA.  The best of Bull's black-and-white illustrations are feet running from the disguised ass (56) and the frog's tombstone (62).  The translator's best line is the frog's statement "I'd give my life to be as huge and corpulent as that."  Robin Greer now in December, '96, is selling a first edition ("6 color plates, 16 color text illustrations and 60 other illustrations") for £175.

1905 La Fontaine's Fables: A Selection.  Translated from the Original into English Verse by Edward Shirley.  Pictured for Children by Carton Moore Park and René Bull.  Hardbound.  London: Thomas Nelson and Sons.  £5 from Joffabout, Staffordshire, UK, July, '13.

Here is the third of three copies of this book that I am keeping in the collection.  This copy has a pictorial cover, while the others have lime cloth (Ripping Yarns) and a gray cloth (Luce).  Though all three show a date of 1905, I believe this might be the oldest.  The spine is crudely taped, and the book is thoroughly worn.  But it is a treasure!  This wide book presents a classic La Fontaine from the early part of the century.  Park's colored illustrations are large and lovely; the best are of FC and GA.  The best of Bull's black-and-white illustrations are feet running from the disguised ass (56) and the frog's tombstone (62).  The translator's best line is the frog's statement "I'd give my life to be as huge and corpulent as that."  Robin Greer now in December, '96, is selling a first edition ("6 color plates, 16 color text illustrations and 60 other illustrations") for £175.

1905 More Fables from Aesop. Arranged by Harriet G. Reiter. Instructor Literature Series 28. Dansville, NY: F.A. Owen Publishing Company. $2 for a yellow covered copy, with orange and black printing, from Ed and Dorothy Chesko, Old Delavan Book Co., Nov., '95.

This paper-covered pamphlet contains eight fables for first graders. The Instructor Literature Series contains 306 volumes at this time. The original price was $.07 or less. The fables are again told very simply. See 1906 for the first book in this series, Eleven Fables from Aesop. How does the "more" booklet get published before the first in the series? Several illustrations, like those for TH (5) and WC (18), seem to be Weir engravings set into a sketchy background. This book has trouble with quotation marks, forgetting them on 13 and adding a set on 26. There is an unusual use of "when" on 29. See the listing with identical date, publisher, and title for the later printing with limp cloth covers marked "Instructor Literature Series 28C." See 1921 for the other first-grade reader in this series. They both have a nice yellow cover with orange and black printing.

1905 More Fables from Aesop. Arranged by Harriet G. Reiter. Instructor Literature Series--No. 28C. Dansville, NY: F.A. Owen. $2.50 from Marsha Halstead, Middleport, NY, through Ebay, April, '99. Extra copies, one with blue cover for $6.25 from Wonderland Books, El Cerrito, CA, August, '97, the other with an orange-tan cover from an unknown source before August, '00.

This is a limp cloth edition and apparently a reissue of the paper-covered edition listed as No. 28 of the Instructor Literature Series by the same publisher in the same year. See my notes there. This booklet does not correct the problems I noted there. This booklet complements a first volume, Eleven Fables from Aesop (27C), listed under 1906. How does this "more" booklet get published before the first in the series? In this edition the Instructor Literature Series contains 350 volumes. The extra copies of this booklet, which I will keep in the collection, have different colored covers. The good copy has a beige cover that matches the color of the first volume. The other covers are blue and an orange-tan.

1905 The Folk-Lore Readers: Book One. Eulalie Osgood Grover. Illustrated by Margaret Ely Webb. Hardbound. Chicago: The Folk-Lore Readers: Atkinson, Mentzer & Grover. $15.00 from Greg Williams, Feb., '98.

Twelve fables, each with at least some illustration. All illustrations include some red but no other color. "The Mouse, the Cat and the Rooster" is attributed to Dodsley (12). "The Rats, the Fox and the Egg" (83) is from La Fontaine. FWT (54) has the only full-page illustration among the fables. Many of the fables are first identified as from Aesop and then, after a line across the page, the editor gives a moral in proverbial form. Thus for GGE we read "Let well enough alone" (67). Fair condition.

1905/10 The Blodgett Readers by Grades: Book Two. By Frances E. Blodgett and Andrew B. Blodgett. No illustrator acknowledged. Boston: Ginn and Co. $1, Summer, '89.

A standard second-grade reader in good shape. Two fables: "The Lark and the Farmer" (19) and LM (62). Advertisements at the back. Inscribed by Miss Florence Lindsey from the town of Creighton, Nebraska.

1905/13 Aesop's Fables. With an Introduction by Elisabeth Luther Cary. Illustrated by J.M. Condé. (The translation is adapted from Townsend's without acknowledgement.) NY: The Platt and Peck Co. $25.00 from Turtle Island, Berkeley, Jan., '91.

A curious reprinting of the Moffat original of 1905. See that entry for comment and this for contrasts. Rackham's TH is on the cover here, without acknowledgement. Townsend is no longer mentioned. The list of illustrations is identical but changed in format. The fables are identical, including pagination. The AI at the back is dropped. The paper and illustrations are sometimes foxed and spotted. Inscribed by two previous owners. The colored illustrations are still wonderful!

1905/13/30? Aesop's Fables. With an Introduction by Elisabeth Luther Cary. Illustrated by J.M. Condé. (The translation is adapted from Townsend's without acknowledgement.) NY: The Platt and Munk Co. $33 from Steven Temple, Aug., '95.

The curious history of this book goes on. See my comments on the Moffat original of 1905 and on the Platt and Peck edition of 1905/13. Now this version seems to copy that except for the change, on spine and title page, from Peck to Munk. The text pages and illustrations are far less foxed here, perhaps in part because this book is more recent. Seeing two revised editions makes me respect even more the quality of the illustrations in the Moffat original.

1905? Aesop's Fables. An Adaptation of the Translation from the Greek by the Rev. George F. Townsend with an Introduction by Elisabeth Luther Cary. With Sixteen Illustrations in Colour and Many in Black and White by J.M. Condé. Hardbound. Printed in USA. First English edition?  London: Grant Richards. £25 from Rose's Books, Hay-on-Wye, June, '98.

©1905 in the USA by Moffat, Yard, and Co. This is a curious book that seems to replicate the Moffat and Yard first edition for England, but notice that it is printed in the USA and carries a US copyright. Here are the only differences I can find: This edition mentions the number of illustrations on its title-page. And its cover and spine are red, not green. The cover adds some animal images above "Aesop." The spine repositions some print. The colored illustrations are wonderfully printed, but there are some smudges on the picture pages (e.g., FWT on 70). See my comments on the Moffat first edition. AI at back.

1905? Aesop's Fables in Words of One Syllable. By Mary Godolphin. Illustrator not acknowledged; the illustrations are after Weir and Griset. NY: Saalfield Publishing Company. Good copy for $11.50 from Carl Sandler Berkowitz, Jan., '92. Second copy in poorer condition, gift of Julie Stringer from Bookenders in Weston, MO, July, '90.

This book represents the third publisher to use Godolphin's texts; see 1885 and 1895. This book uses many good illustrations done after Weir and four (59, 81, 85, and 88) after Griset. There is no frontispiece or title-page art. The design on the cardboard cover--of a water baby?--is curious, to say the least. There is some crayoning and a weak binding in the second copy. No T of C.

1905? Fables and Fancies. Richard Gillham Thomsett. Illustrated by K.M. Davidson and A.E. Holloway. Hardbound. London: Henry J. Drane. £10 from Collecting House, Lutterworth, Leicestershire, UK, through choosebooks.com, Sept., '06.

This little (5" x 7.5") volume of 83 pages and 32 pages of advertisements contains twelve fables and ten fancies. The first three fables are sheer word-plays, climaxing in "'scent' from Heaven," "Dye it yourself..Diet yourself," and--from a cobbler--"Soled again!" The humor spreads out in the next fable when two boys exclaim "here comes a beard with a man!" "The Horse and the Ass" tries harder to be a fable, I believe, but it may fall short when the ass gets sick from eating hay that is too rich for his stomach. More engaging is "The Parrot and the Urn" (19). Punsters will love the close of the next fable, an argument about power between a king and a stilton cheese. The last phrase here is "all mitey." Each story has a black-and-white illustration. My favorite among these is of the joyous frogs at Doctor Fox's office throwing hats in the air since theirs was a "case of Patients rewarded" (28). After a while here, the puns kill me.

1905? Fables de La Fontaine. Hardbound. Émile Guérin, Éditeur. $49.95 from The Portsmouth Bookshop, Dover, NH, through eBay, Jan., '09.

This is a beautiful oversized (9½" x 12¼") book containing seven full-page colored Oudry illustrations. The illustrations here are OF, "The Crow Wanting to Imitate the Eagle," MSA, "The Monkey and the Cat," "The Fox and the Bust," "The Acorn and the Pumpkin," and TMCM. The cover's WL illustration makes for a total of eight. It is fascinating to compare the coloring of Oudry's work here with that in Diane de Selliers' quite different 1992 colored edition of Oudry's La Fontaine. The texts are here well coordinated so that each stands across the page from its illustration. Staple and paper spine. Sixteen pages. I am guessing that Guérin took over sole ownership of what had been before about 1901 a partnership with Théodore Lefèvre. There is nothing here except texts and titled illustrations. The only bibliographical information is on the front cover.

1905? Fables for Little Folks. Father Tuck's "Little Pets" Series. Untearable Linen. Designed at the studios in England. New York/London/Paris: Raphael Tuck & Sons, Co., Ltd. $55 at The Antiques Colony, San Jose, May, '97.

A surprising find in an antiques store I stopped at by chance after an airport run; I was looking for other things like cards and buttons. Near the end of my tour this booklet was sitting in a glass case. Fourteen fables, generally about two to a page. Each has one illustration, either brown-and-white (the same brown as the print) or colored. DM happens to have both. FC's colored picture is the front cover. Besides the cover, there are four pages of colored illustrations. The only new story element I find here is that the hare finds the tortoise dozing at the finish line! I love the old colored pictures here, especially the FC on the cover and BC.

1905? Fables of Aesop. Joseph Jacobs (NA). Illustrations by Richard Heighway (NA). Hardbound. Philadelphia: The Rodgers Co.. From Clare Leeper, who paid $9 for it in 1990, July, '96.

This small book is closest to one I have listed under "1894/1910?" As I mention a propos of that book, it is similar to four mentioned together under "1894/1901?," but these two have a number of distinctive features. The other four begin fables on 26 and end on 202 with "And this is the end of Aesop's Fables. Hurrah!" They then add notes through 228. These editions begin fables on 29 and end on 198 without either "Hurrah!" or notes. These editions also add lovely initials and place the "Face in the Mirror" design on the last page of the T of C. 

1905? Fünfzig Fabeln für Kinder, Nebst einem ernsthaften Anhange. Von W. Hey. Mit Holzschnitten gezeichnet von Otto Speckter. Hardbound. Konstanz: Buch- und Kunstverlag Carl Hirsch. DM 25 from Lehmweg Flea Market, Hamburg, July, '98. 

This Swiss edition of Hey's 1833 original would fit somewhere in Bodemann 277. The illustrations present something of a question. They are unlike any edition I yet know. The introduction contains this comment: "The Verlagsbuchhandlung spared no cost to have the pictures newly cut and to give the child's book a lovely appearance." Does this statement suggest that the "conception" of the illustrations belongs to Speckter, while their execution fell to an anonymous engraver? In any case, the crow of the first story looks left, but the scene around him is roughly that of the "right-facing" editions like Perthes' Schulausgabe, which I have listed under "1845?". The snowman (5) is presented in entirely new fashion, with eleven children and a dog busy around and on him. Pages are numbered and printed on both sides. The script is Gothic. The appendix runs from 53 through 77. A T of C follows, which presents only the fables. This book has a canvas spine, and a black-and-white picture on the cover of two seated children reading a book.

1905? Im Spiegel der Tierwelt: Studien von Käthe Olshausen-Schönberger. Hardbound. Munich: Braun & Schneider. DEM 45 from Antiquariat Pabel, Hamburg, June, '98.

Ten years ago, I found one volume (Volume IV) of this work by Olshausen-Schönberger and I admired it. As I said in reporting on it then, "it is one step from being a fable book, but it is too delightful to leave out of the collection. Animals here are an effective means for putting social types in their place. The wit and skill make one think of Grandville." Among the most notable and fable-like illustrations here are "Der Unerbittliche" (apparently a customs officer, 5), "Der neue Hut" (7), "Scheiden tut weh!" (10), "Der Mäcenas im Atelier" (12), "Der Galan" (15), "Besser so einer -- als gar keiner!" (17), "Das Opfer der Wohltätigkeit" (25), "Der Besuch der Erbtante" (32), and "Schimpf' so viel Du magst -- ich bin von Natur Dickhäuter!" (35). Obviously, I like this work!

1905? Im Spiegel der Tierwelt: Studien von Käthe Olshausen-Schönberger, II. Teil. (Cover: Neue Folge). Zweite Auflage. Hardbound. Printed in Munich. Munich: Braun & Schneider. DEM 31 from Fundgrube für Bücherfreunde, Hamburg, June, '98.

See my comments on the first, third, and fourth volumes of this lovely little collection, all under the same date of "1905?" This volume starts off with a lively contrast between the official and non-official dining-out parties. The latter folks are having a much better time! "Der wissenschaftlich-populäre Vortrag" (17) comes too close to home; I feel as though I may have sometimes been that boring speaker! My top prize in this volume goes to "Anschluss!" (25). Actually it has a much fuller title, too long to copy here. It is about a telephone operator's ability to connect. Other outstanding illustrations include "Mein Seliger!" (7); "Entsetzlich! Das einzig Stillose in uns'rer Wohnung ist mein Mann" (9); "Der Freier sitzt drin!" (24); "Das Rigorosum" (26); and "Die Schlange und das Kaninchen" (31).

1905? Im Spiegel der Tierwelt: Studien von Käthe Olshausen-Schönberger, Dritter Band. Hardbound. Printed in Munich. Munich: Braun & Schneider. DEM 45 from Altstadt Antiquariat, Freiburg, July, '01.

See my comments on the first, second, and fourth volumes of this lovely little collection, all under the same date of "1905?" Among the best treats here are the cover-picture, a colored detail from "Der Erbprinz" (3); "Der Weise und das Weltkind" (4); "Die ratlosen Räte" (8); "Das nennst Du Kegelklub?!" (16); "Warum wurde aus Lenchen keine Helena? -- Ach -- dies waren die Grazien, die an ihrer Wiege standen" (17); "Wie die Mirzl aus der Stadt ihre Familie besucht" (21); "Die Venus von Kilo" (22); and "Mein Mann würde so ein Kostüm nie erlauben!" (28). Again one of the best presentations here is of a contrasting pair on 9 and 10. Aunts sew all sorts of stuff for their "poor" nephew Baron Mucki, sent to St. Petersburg; we see then the elegant Mucki's reaction to it all.

1905? Im Spiegel der Tierwelt: Studien von Käthe Olshausen-Schönberger, Viertes Band. Erste Auflage. Originally sold by Caspar, Krueger, Dory in Milwaukee. München: Manuldruck und Verlag Braun & Schneider. $20 at Rosslyn Book Fair, Spring, '92.

This sideways book of social caricatures is one step from being a fable book, but it is too delightful to leave out of the collection. Animals here are an effective means for putting social types in their place. The wit and skill make one think of Grandville. The illustrations closest to fable are: "Physiognomisches" (8-9), WL (16), a seance of animals (17), a seasick country rat (18), a wolf and goose (a story about hypnotism, 26), "First the kiss and then the claws" (34), and the mother and daughters (36). If one does not laugh over this book, something is wrong.

1905? Indian Fairy Tales. Selected and edited by Joseph Jacobs. Illustrated by John D. Batten. NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons. $10 at Bookhouse, Arlington, April, '92.

Most of the twenty-nine selections here are indeed fairy tales, heavy on magic, demons, fairies, and angels. One poor Brahman after another runs into long, episodic adventures full of prophecies and beautiful princesses. The best examples might be "Lambikin" (23) and his protective drum, "Punchkin" (27), and "The Soothsayer's Son" (86). In the midst of these fairy tales, there are Jatakas and "Kalila and Dimna" materials like "The Cruel Crane Outwitted" (57) and TT (123). There are also Aesopic materials, like "The Crane and the Lion" (not wolf, 1), "The Gold-giving Serpent" (136), and DLS (182). "The Broken Pot" (49) works the same as the Aesopic MM.

1905? Indian Fairy Tales. Selected and edited by Joseph Jacobs. Illustrated by John D. Batten. Hardbound. NY: A.L. Burt. From Clare Leeper, Sept., '96, who paid $14.50 for it.

This is Burt's reprint of what seems to have been a Putnam original. I have the Putnam edition listed also under "1905?" The text and illustrations seem exactly the same throughout, but the typesetting of the text results in the book's finishing on 278 rather than 272. As I write there, most of the twenty-nine selections are indeed fairy tales, heavy on magic, demons, fairies, and angels. One poor Brahman after another runs into long, episodic adventures full of prophecies and beautiful princesses. The best examples might be "Lambikin" (22) and his protective drum, "Punchkin" (27), and "The Soothsayer's Son" (88). In the midst of these fairy tales, there are Jatakas and "Kalila and Dimna" materials like "The Cruel Crane Outwitted" (59) and TT (125). There are also Aesopic materials, like "The Crane and the Lion" (not wolf, 1), "The Gold-giving Serpent" (140), and DLS (184). "The Broken Pot" (49) works the same as the Aesopic MM.

1905? Les Fables de La Fontaine.  Illustrées de 81 gravures du XVIIIe siècle tirées du "La Fontaine en Estampes", de 31 fac-simile des dessins d'un manuscrit du XIVe siècle et du portrait de La Fontaine d'après Ch. Lebrun.  Hardbound.  Paris: Collection des Grands Classiques Français et Étrangers.  $17.5 from Scraps of American History, Meadows of Dan, VA, through Ebay, May, '20.

This book reduplicates four editions I already have listed under 1897, 1901, 1907, and perhaps 1912.  Those were generally published under the Auspices of les Magasins du Bon Marché.  This publisher is new, even though the book is exactly the same.  Its eighty-one gravures from the eighteenth century "La Fontaine en Estampes" seem to be mostly details from Oudry.  That is certainly the case on 9 (DW) and 59 (SS).  They suffer only from their relatively small size of 2.5" x 3.5".  To them is added the series of smaller drawings from a fourteenth-century manuscript, either identical with or reproduced from those in Fables Inédites des XIIe, XIIIe et XIVe Siècles et Fables de la Fontaine of 1825 by A.C.M. Robert.  The covers are part marble and part leather.  AI at the back.

1905? Les Fables d'Ésope. Traduction par P. Commelin. Paperbound. Paris: Classiques Garnier: Librairie Garnier Frères. 140 Francs from chapitre.com, Paris, Sept., '00. 

Here is a translation of 426 fables, some with clearly marked variants. This text is based on Halm's 1901 edition of the fables. There are 333 pages and an AI.

1905? Queer Animals and Birds. Containing Amusing Stories in Rhymes and Jingles. With 300 illustrations by Palmer Cox. No editor or publisher acknowledged. $30 from Second Story Books, Aug., '91.

Wonderful illustrations à la Griset decorate an eclectic collection. Two fables: DM with an excellent, lively illustration (and confusing moral) and "The Lark and Her Young," a strong full-page illustration without text! No pagination or T of C. I like the illustrator's style and wit. Notice the crazy closing plate: "This is my Santa Claus."

1905? Selected Fables from La Fontaine. No translator acknowledged. Illustrations by Carton Moore Park, unacknowledged, and a title-page engraving by René Bull, unacknowledged. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons. $65 from Kelmscott, June, '95.

The eight colored illustrations tipped-in on heavier colored paper--not necessarily adjacent to their texts--are the chief attraction of this book. See La Fontaine's Fables: A Selection from Nelson in 1905 for larger versions of these illustrations. It was a big detective-like coup for me to identify this source! As in that book, the fox weeps over the stork's return-joke (16). Several of the illustrations here are decidedly narrower than the book's page. Forty-eight fables done into prose. The book is slightly bowed.

1905? The Book of Fables Containing Aesop's Fables. Based upon Croxall, La Fontaine, and L'Estrange. Hardbound. NY: Stratford Edition: F.M. Lupton. Gift of Pat and Ray Hanson, July, '09.

I have at least four other Lupton editions. All use the same text for the fables. All begin the text of a group of "later fables" on 159. All four lack a page 157-8. Among those four copies, this book is most similar to that which I have listed under "1900?" They share the same promise of "Illustrated" on the title-page with no illustrations given. (The other three neither promise illustrations nor deliver them.) Though this Stratford edition is printed on cheap paper, it goes one step further than that "1900?" edition by including a T of C and an "Editor's Preface," but perhaps those elements are simply missing in that copy, which begins fables right after the title-page on a page numbered 33. Besides the name "Stratford Edition," one thing is unique about this blue-covered edition. It includes a page 157-8. On 157 there is simply "Later Fables," and on 158 there is nothing. That "Later Fables" has a partially broken second "L." This fact could help some later comparisons.

1905? The Fables of Aesop. Selected, told anew and their history traced by Joseph Jacobs. Done into Pictures by Richard Heighway. DC: Pathfinder Publishing Co. See 1894/1905?.

1905?/06? Im Spiegel der Tierwelt: Studien von Käthe Olshausen-Schönberger, II. Teil. (Cover: Neue Folge). Dritte Auflage. Hardbound. Printed in Munich. Munich: Braun & Schneider. DEM 35 from Antiquariat Pabel, Hamburg, June, '98.

See my comments on the second printing of this second volume in the series. This copy differs from that one otherwise only in the cover. There the cover was textured like cloth and darker. Here it is a lighter color and without texture. This copy may be in slightly better condition.

1905?/15? Im Spiegel der Tierwelt: Studien von Käthe Olshausen-Schönberger. Siebente Auflage. Hardbound. Munich: Braun & Schneider. DEM 25 from Fundgrube für Bücherfreunde, Hamburg, June, '98.

See my comments on the apparent first printing listed under "1905?" I see three differences in this book. The cover's boards are lighter both in texture and in color. The inside pages are thinner. Above all, each page is printed now on both sides. The result is that this is a much thinner book. Its spine is disintegrating. The art is still very enjoyable.

To top

1906 - 1907

1906 Aesop's Fables, Part II (28). Arranged by Harriet G. Reiter. Pamphlet. Instructor Classic Series/Instructor Literature Series--No. 28. Dansville, NY: F.A. Owen. $3 from Trish Hammonds, Christopher, IL, through Ebay, Feb., '01.

This booklet in poor condition seems a predecessor of the booklet I have listed under "1905" and titled More Fables from Aesop. There are some mysteries here for some book historian to investigate. How can an older book have a later copyright? I will note first the similarities and then the differences I find when I compare the two booklets. From 5 through 32, I find no difference, except of course that this booklet is in poor condition. As for differences, this booklet has a resewn spine. Its red title is simply Aesop's Fables, not More Fables from Aesop. The cover does not mention Reiter, but it does mention the publisher. It has a black circular illustration of a woman and two children reading a book by the fireside; the other book has en elaborate symmetrical square design in black and orange on heavy yellow paper. Inside, this volume has at the top of its title-page "Instructor Classic Series" and "Aesop's Fables, Part II." The other volume has "Instructor Literature Series" and "More Fables from Aesop." The back of the title page has the conflicting copyright dates (1906 here, 1905 there) and the publisher's name. That copy adds "Aesop's Fables, Part II" even though that is the title of this copy! On the reverse of a full-page image of a bird and two grasshoppers, this volume lists nine stories, while that one lists eight. The ninth story announced here, "The Wolf and the Goat," does not appear in this volume. It is at least conceivable that it has been torn off. This inside-front-cover speaks of "Five-Cent Classics and Supplementary Reading" while there one reads "7c--Supplementary Readers and Classics for All Graces--7c." I am presuming that prices went up, not down. This volume lists fewer items, e.g., five under "Fables and Myths" for the first year, while that volume lists two more. Two volumes of Aesop are included in this group in each case, correctly titled for their respective editions. Thus this volume's advertisement speaks of Aesop's Fables--Part II and that speaks of More Fables from Aesop. There the list of available material spills over onto the back of the back cover. See my comments there on the fables themselves.

1906 Alte Fabeln zur Lust und Lehr. Für Kinder Ausgewählt von H(einrich) Wolgast. Mit lustigen Bildern von Jos(eph) Mauder. Hardbound. Munich: Buchverlag der Jugendblätter. €120 from Antiquariat Wölfle, Munich, August, '07.

This is a lovely little pearl. Unfortunately, its seller knew how valuable this pearl is! Wolfle writes of it "Erste Ausgabe dieser liebenswerten und öfter aufgelegten kleinen Fabelsammlung." It is indeed "liebenswert"! I have seldom seen such lovely color work. Bodemann #386.1. As Bodemann mentions, there are here 79 verse and prose fables from a wide variety of authors, from Aesop through Luther to Goethe and Willamov. The 65 initials and 317 smaller illustrations, many of them "Bildreihen zu den Versfabeln." There is a clear arrangement at work every pair of pages. A half-page colored illustration is at the upper left. Beneath it is a fable with a colored initial. It may spill over onto the right hand page, where it will often have a colored tailpiece. Further fables, with initials and tailpieces follow down the right-hand page and finish within that page. Favorites of mine include the large illustrations for "Der Einsiedler und der Bär" (26), WC (28), and "Der Wolf auf dem Todbette" (44). Among the smaller images excellent examples are DS (47) and "Der Greis und der Tod" (59). The use of small images to mark rows of verse is strongest in the case of "Die Geschichte von dem Hute" (40-42). Among the stories themselves, new to me -- and well illustrated in all three images -- is "Der Affe und die Uhr" (50-51). A good last image is that marking "Ende" on 67: a cat has a mouse by the tail. There is a T of C on 1 with some of the smallest print I have seen. On the cover is a fox playing a violin while two mice dance. This book is a personal favorite! 

1906 Alte Fabeln zur Lust und Lehr.  Für Kinder Ausgewählt von H(einrich) Wolgast.  Mit lustigen Bildern von Jos(eph) Mauder.  Hardbound.  Munich: Buchverlag der Jugendblätter.  €12.80 from Dresdener Antiquariat, Dresden, August, '17.

This red copy of a favorite little book is identical with our green copy with two differences.  First, it lacks a title page.  That title page would confirm the publication date of 1906.  Secondly, the acknowledgement of the printer on the last page is different.  Where that book had "Druck von Carl Aug. Seyfried & Comp., München II," this copy has "Druck von Carl Aug. Seyfried & Comp. (Carl Schnell u. Söhne), München 2, SW 2."  This copy cost about a tenth of that!  This copy is also more worn and fragile.  But might it be earlier than the green-covered copy?  I will include remarks from that copy.  The seller of the green copy, Wolfle, writes of it "Erste Ausgabe dieser liebenswerten und öfter aufgelegten kleinen Fabelsammlung."  It is indeed "liebenswert"!  I have seldom seen such lovely color work.  Bodemann #386.1.  As Bodemann mentions, there are here 79 verse and prose fables from a wide variety of authors, from Aesop through Luther to Goethe and Willamov.  The 65 initials and 317 smaller illustrations, many of them "Bildreihen zu den Versfabeln."  There is a clear arrangement at work every pair of pages.  A half-page colored illustration is at the upper left.  Beneath it is a fable with a colored initial.  It may spill over onto the right hand page, where it will often have a colored tailpiece.  Further fables, with initials and tailpieces follow down the right-hand page and finish within that page.  Favorites of mine include the large illustrations for "Der Einsiedler und der Bär" (26), WC (28), and "Der Wolf auf dem Todbette" (44).  Among the smaller images excellent examples are DS (47) and "Der Greis und der Tod" (59).  The use of small images to mark rows of verse is strongest in the case of "Die Geschichte von dem Hute" (40-42).  Among the stories themselves, new to me -- and well illustrated in all three images -- is "Der Affe und die Uhr" (50-51).  A good last image is that marking "Ende" on 67: a cat has a mouse by the tail.  There is a T of C on 1 with some of the smallest print I have seen.  On the cover is a fox playing a violin while two mice dance.  This book is a personal favorite!

1906 Animal Fables from the Dark Continent. A.O Stafford. Illustrated by Sarah Noble-Ives. Hardbound. NY: American Book Company. $9.99 from Endless Treasures, Boca Raton, FL, through eBay, Sept., '10.

Exactly eleven years ago I found -- from Pamela Geister, Lincoln City, OR, through Ebay -- a copy of this little reader published a hundred years ago. I noted with sadness that it was missing 113-14. Now I have found a copy with separated covers but with all the pages. 113-14 are there in all their glory! Patience has paid off! Let me include some of my comments on that copy. Of the thirty-four Black fables offered here, Stafford writes in his preface that twenty come directly from African sources and fourteen from American. Readers will notice a number that relate to Br'er Rabbit stories. The turtle, for example, pleads to be killed by being thrown into the river in "The Turtle, the Wolf, and the Hyena" (99). Many stories are eteological, especially in demonstrating why particular animals are enemies of each other. New to me is "The Dog and the Clever Rabbit" (17) with one of the best illustrations. The dog has the rabbit holed up in a hollow tree and asks the goose to watch while he goes to get moss and fire to smoke him out. The rabbit blinds the goose with sawdust and gets away. Another fine illustration shows the rabbit comfortably reading The Jungle News newspaper (36). Many stories are explicitly linked with the foregoing story with a line or two at their beginning. There is a T of C at the front. About eight of the illustrations are unsigned. The others are signed either "NI" or "Noble-Ives." I am indebted to Jay Dillon for pointing out that this illustrator is Sarah Noble-Ives (1864-1944).

1906 Animal Fables from the Dark Continent. A.O Stafford. Illustrated by Sarah Noble-Ives. Hardbound. NY: American Book Company. $6.50 from Pamela Geister, Lincoln City, OR, through Ebay, Sept., '99.

Of the thirty-four Black fables offered here, Stafford writes in his preface that twenty come directly from African sources and fourteen from American. Readers will notice a number that relate to Br'er Rabbit stories. The turtle, for example, pleads to be killed by being thrown into the river in "The Turtle, the Wolf, and the Hyena" (99). Many stories are eteological, especially in demonstrating why particular animals are enemies of each other. New to me is "The Dog and the Clever Rabbit" (17) with one of the best illustrations. The dog has the rabbit holed up in a hollow tree and asks the goose to watch while he goes to get moss and fire to smoke him out. The rabbit blinds the goose with sawdust and gets away. Another fine illustration shows the rabbit comfortably reading The Jungle News newspaper (36). Many stories are explicitly linked with the foregoing story with a line or two at their beginning. There is a T of C at the front. About eight of the illustrations are unsigned. The others are signed either "NI" or "Noble-Ives." I am indebted to Jay Dillon for pointing out that this illustrator is Sarah Noble-Ives (1864-1944). This reader is in fair to poor condition. Pages 113-114 are missing.

1906 Brooks's Readers: Third Year. Stratton D. Brooks. Hardbound. NY: American Book Company. $12.99 from themerrybuyer through eBay, Sept., '10.

I have many books by the American Book Company but nothing from this series of readers. This third reader offers three fables from Aesop on 68-70: DS, BC, and DM. The three well-told fables wisely refrain from presenting a moral. BC has a simple black-and-white illustration featuring a bell and apparently signed "FSC."

1906 Brooks's Readers: Third Year.  Stratton D. Brooks.  Hardbound.  NY: Brooks's Readers:  American Book Company.  $5 from Omaha flea market, July, '12.

This book is identical with another in the collection except for two things.  The one that has led me to include it separately is this: the spine's name for the book is printed upside down in this edition!  The second difference is on the verso of the title-page.  Where that book reads "E- P 26," this copy has "E - P 18" with the lower half of the dash and "P" not inked.  As I wrote there, I have many books by the American Book Company but nothing from this series of readers.  This third reader offers three fables from Aesop on 68-70: DS, BC, and DM.  The three well-told fables wisely refrain from presenting a moral.  BC has a simple black-and-white illustration featuring a bell and apparently signed "FSC."

1906 Brooks's Readers: Fifth Year. Stratton D. Brooks. Hardbound. NY: Brooks's Readers: American Book Company. $3 from Junkstock, Omaha, June, '12.

This is my second book in this series; I have "Brooks's Readers: Third Year," published in the same year. Here one finds on 78-80 "The Fox in the Well," a verse version of "The Fox and the Wolf" by J.T. Trowbridge. Joseph Jacobs' version of "The Bat, the Birds, and the Beast" is on 199 with a simple illustration. I think it somewhat unusual to find fables in school readers after the third grade. This book seems fragile after its first 106 years! 

1906 Classics Old and New: A Series of School Readers: A Second Reader. Edwin A. Alderman. Hardbound. NY: University Publishing Company. $7.50 from Heartwood, Charlottesville, VA, April, '98.

Only SW appears (12) and is labeled as "adapted" from Aesop. The version is strong on active dialogue and has a good challenge voiced by Mr. Wind: "Let us try to take it off." The final comment here is unusual: "How pleasant the sun feels after that fierce wind." There is no illustration for this story. The book is in excellent condition.

1906 Eleven Fables from Aesop. Arranged by Harriet G. Reiter. Instructor Literature Series. Dansville, NY: F.A. Owen Publishing Company. $2 from Ed and Dorothy Chesko, Old Delavan Book Co., Nov., '95.

This paper-covered pamphlet contains eleven fables for first graders. The Instructor Literature Series contained 306 volumes at this time. The original price was $.10 or less. The fables are told very simply. In LM the mice were playing hide-and-seek on the lion's back. The illustrations are mostly very primitive. One (27) is formed out of a capital. The last--for " The Fox and the Crab " --features a photograph of the sea. This copy has a familiar cover illustration of LM; the one inside for LM (5) is part traditional and part primitive palm trees! The best of the illustrations may be the view of the departing mouse's back (26). See the listing under the same year and title but bound in limp cloth with the series number 27C. And see 1905 and 1921 for two of the other first-grade readers in this series. Both of this cover is different from all of those; though the two Wonderland Books copies are matched in design, they differ in color.

1906 Eleven Fables from Aesop. Arranged by Harriet G. Reiter. Pamphlet. Instructor Literature Series--No. 27C. Dansville, NY: F.A. Owen. $2.50 from Marsha Halstead, Middleport, NY, through Ebay, April, '99. Extra copy for $6.25 from Wonderland Books, El Cerrito, CA, August, '97.

This limp cloth edition, which identifies itself as 27C in the Instructor Literature Series, seems to follow upon the pamphlet version with the paper cover, which gives its number as 27 in the series. The back cover advertises 350 volumes in the series. See my comments on the paper-covered edition, listed under the same year, title, and publisher.

1906 Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrées par Benjamin Rabier. Librairie Illustrée. Paris: Jules Tallandier. $125 at Bookhouse, Arlington, Oct., '91.

A magnificent book. 310 magnificent illustrations by Rabier, eighty-five in color. His freedom to arrange things often makes for an excellent series of views pertaining to a fable. Favorite illustrations of mine include the title page, GA (1), OF (16), FS (20), "The Bitch and Her Companion" (32), "The Drunk and His Wife" (57), and "The Acorn and the Pumpkin" (212). T of C at the back.

1906 Fables de La Fontaine.  Illustrées par Benjamin Rabier.  Hardbound.  Paris: Librairie Illustrée:  Jules Tallandier.  $22.27 from David Scott, Mystic, CT, through eBay, April, '14.  

Here is a second copy of this magnificent book!  I keep it in the collection because both copies have seen extensive wear.  This copy is better externally and the original copy from Bookhouse, Arlington, VA, in 1991 is better internally.  As I wrote there, this is a magnificent book.  310 magnificent illustrations by Rabier, eighty-five in color.  His freedom to arrange things often makes for an excellent series of views pertaining to a fable.  Favorite illustrations of mine include the title page, GA (1), OF (16), FS (20),  " The Bitch and Her Companion "  (32),  " The Drunk and His Wife "  (57), and  " The Acorn and the Pumpkin "  (212).  T of C at the back.

1906 Fables de La Fontaine (Premiere et Deuxième Partie). Illustrées par Benjamin Rabier. Hardbound. Paris: Librairie Illustrée: Jules Tallandier. €100 from Appolon Moors, Sulniac, France, through eBay, July, '04.

This looks at first acquaintance like the complete Rabier LaFontaine. A closer look reveals that it is a combination of the first and second of three parts. Ironically, those are the two independent parts that I already have! One clue consists in the two T of C's at the back, both showing "Contenues dans ce volume," but one covering 1-80 and the other 81-160. Like the second part of the three-volume set, this first volume (of two?) finishes with VII 14. This combination copy has the same surprising little section in English on the lower left of the pre-title page: "Published December 1, -1906. Privilege of Copyright in the United States, reserved under the act approved March 3 1905 by Tallandier." Favorites among the good illustrations here include GA (1), OF (16), FS (20), "The Bitch and Her Companion" (32), "The Drunk and His Wife" (57), and BF (81). Rabier is really fun! This book has seen serious wear, but still is in fair to good condition. I can find no reference to this publication in Bodemann. Bodemann's illustration for Rabier's 1906 volume is the back cover of this book: a child faces a group of animals.

1906 Fables de La Fontaine: Première Partie. Illustrées par Benjamin Rabier. Canvas spine. Librairie Illustrée. Paris: Jules Tallandier. $34 from Carole Ruttman, Platteville, WI, through Ebay, Feb., '00.

This first volume (of three, I presume) presents the first seventy fables of La Fontaine, through IV 7, "Le Singe et le Dauphin"--which has some black-and-white illustration work typical of Rabier's lively and fun-loving cartoon style. There is a surprising little section in English printed at the lower left of the pre-title page: "Published December 1, -1906. Privilege of Copyright in the United States, reserved under the act approved March 3 1905 by Tallandier." Was a certain number of this edition printed by Tallandier in Paris for the USA? The red ink seems to have been applied to the bottom page edges sloppily. Otherwise it is again a delight to encounter Rabier's great work! I can find no reference to this three-part publication in either Bodemann or Bassy. T of C at the back and a list of fables on the cover.

1906 Fables de La Fontaine: Première Partie.  Illustrées par Benjamin Rabier.  Hardbound.  Paris: Librairie Illustrée.  Paris: Jules Tallandier.  $9.99 from pqt through eBay, Nov., '99.

This volume, in poor condition, duplicates another already in the collection.  It may be the earlier of the two.  Several things are different.  The color of the cover-boards is cream rather than white.  The formatting of the pre-title-page and the title-page is slightly different.  The printer is different: Ch. Bernard, 27, Rue des Cloys, Paris.  The volume has loose pages, some tape, and a crumbling binding.  But it is a treasure!  As I wrote of the other printing, this first volume (of three, I presume) presents the first seventy fables of La Fontaine, through IV 7, "Le Singe et le Dauphin"--which has some black-and-white illustration work typical of Rabier's lively and fun-loving cartoon style.  There is a surprising little section in English printed at the lower left of the pre-title page:  "Published December 1, -1906.  Privilege of Copyright in the United States, reserved under the act approved March 3 1905 by Tallandier."  Was a certain number of this edition printed by Tallandier in Paris for the USA?  The red ink seems to have been applied to the bottom page edges sloppily.  Otherwise it is again a delight to encounter Rabier's great work!  I can find no reference to this three-part publication in either Bodemann or Bassy.  T of C at the back and a list of fables on the cover.

1906 Fables de La Fontaine: Première Partie. Illustrées par Benjamin Rabier. First edition? Hardbound. Paris: Librairie Illustrée: Jules Tallandier. $75 from Jackie Coop, Matteson, IL, through eBay, June, '11.

I had presumed when ordering this copy that it was another copy of a book which I already had. That presumption was wrong, as it has often been wrong before. This book has a different front cover, different quality paper, and a different printer. The front cover of that other book offers the illustrations for FS with a list of the fables in this volume at the place where (on 20) the text of the fable will stand among the illustrations for FS. This front cover, by contrast, offers a large single picture of ox, bird, cat, and frogs, all of whom are apparently happy. This illustration seems to draw from animals in many different fables. Was the illustration perhaps created just for this cover? The paper quality here is less than it was there. This paper is thinner and less cleanly white, and it shows darkening around its edges. The verso of the title-page there, facing GA, proclaims "Imprimé par l'Institut Cartographique de Paris." This volume, in the same place, has "Imp. des Beaux-Arts, 79, Rue Dareau, Paris." I seem to have no resources -- not Bodemann or Bassy -- to help me know which of these two is the more original or how they otherwise interrelate. As I wrote there, this first volume (of three, I presume) presents the first seventy fables of La Fontaine, through IV 7, "Le Singe et le Dauphin." It has some black-and-white illustration work typical of Rabier's lively and fun-loving cartoon style. There is a surprising little section in English printed at the lower left of the pre-title page: "Published December 1, -1906. Privilege of Copyright in the United States, reserved under the act approved March 3 1905 by Tallandier." It is again a delight to encounter Rabier's great work! T of C at the back.

1906 Fables de La Fontaine: Deuxième Partie. Illustrées par Benjamin Rabier. Canvas spine. Librairie Illustrée. Paris: Jules Tallandier. $34 from Carole Ruttman, Platteville, WI, through Ebay, Feb., '00.

This second volume (of three, I presume) presents a second group of fables stretching from IV 8 through VII 14. The same surprising little section in English appears at the lower left of the pre-title page: "Published December 1, -1906. Privilege of Copyright in the United States, reserved under the act approved March 3 1905 by Tallandier." Pagination continues from the first part, beginning here with 81, which happens to feature one of the best illustrations of the book, BF. Rabier is really fun! Of course, finding two of three volumes makes me search now for the third! The bottom corners of this lovely volume have been badly bumped. I can find no reference to this three-part publication in either Bodemann or Bassy. T of C at the back and a list of fables on the cover.

1906 Fables de La Fontaine: Deuxième Partie. Illustrées par Benjamin Rabier. First edition? Hardbound. Paris: Librairie Illustrée: Jules Tallandier. $75 from Jackie Coop, Matteson, IL, through eBay, June, '11.

I had presumed when ordering this copy that it was another copy of a book which I already had. That presumption was wrong, as it has often been wrong before. This book has a different front cover, different different back cover, different quality paper, and a different printer. The front cover of that other book offers the illustrations for BF with a list of the fables in this volume at the place where (on 81) the text of the fable will stand among the illustrations for BF. This front cover, by contrast, offers a large single picture including butterfly, rabbit, crow, several birds, dog, duck, and tortoise and a French flag. This illustration seems to draw from animals in many different fables. Was the illustration perhaps created just for this cover? The back cover there, in color, showed the cat pinning both the hare and weasel. Here the back cover shows the dejected fowl-killer in GGE. The paper quality here is less than it was there. This paper is thinner and less cleanly white, and it shows darkening around its edges. The verso of the title-page there, facing BF, proclaims "Imprimerie Union, 46, Boul. St. Jacques, Paris." This volume, in the same place, has "Imp. Crémieu, 4 bis, Rue des Suisses, Paris." I seem to have no resources -- not Bodemann or Bassy -- to help me know which of these two is the more original or how they otherwise interrelate. As I wrote there, this second volume (of three, I presume) presents a second group of fables stretching from IV 8 through VII 14. The same surprising little section in English appears at the lower left of the pre-title page: "Published December 1, -1906. Privilege of Copyright in the United States, reserved under the act approved March 3 1905 by Tallandier." Pagination continues from the first part, beginning here with 81, which happens to feature one of the best illustrations of the book, BF. Rabier is really fun! Of course, finding two of three volumes makes me search now for the third! T of C at the back.

1906 I.A. Krylov: Basni. N.V. Denisov and P. Pitrinenko. Hardbound. Moscow: A.S. Panaf. $9.99 from Marina Koutyrev, St. Petersburg, through eBay, June, '03. 

I have to thank the eBay seller for providing me helpful information on this lovely little book in fragile condition. It measures just under 4" x 6." Its 315 pages include 85 engravings. While many of the engravings are quite small, some take a full page. These very good full-page illustrations seem devoted to some of the best known of Krylov's fables: OF (12); "Quartet" (74); "Master John's Soup" (106); "The Crane, the Lobster, and the Pike" (137); and "The Monkey and the Spectacles" (156). Some initials look quite clever (13), but I cannot assess well without being able to match the illustration to the fable. There is an AI at the back. The cover is so worn that it is hard to make out the animals pictured in black-and-white on it.

1906 Language Lessons for Common Schools, Part I. No author acknowledged. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House. $5 from Omaha Literacy Book Sale, Crossroads, Feb., '95.

A number of the lessons in this simple pamphlet are formed by asking the child questions about fables; the answer is given in parentheses right after each question. Fables: #10, 15, 31, 45(?), 61, 65, 69, 73, 79, 85, 91, 97(?). Inscribed in Arlington, NE, in 1917 and 1921.

1906 Modern Fables.  Laura Rountree Smith.  Paperbound.  Chicago: A. Flanagan Company.  $6.50 from Sharon O'Day through Ebay, July, '24.

This is a 70-page booklet that is 5¼" x 7¼".  It features pairs of animals making different decisions.  Frequently enough, the decision deprives a character of a chance for something.  The pig that did not keep his face clean is disappointed that he does not win blue ribbons the way the pig with the clean face does.  The curly-tailed dog wants a straight tail.  He lets boys tie a can to his tail and soon regrets his decision.  The gray kitten wants to be white and follows the monkey's bad advice to jump into a barrel of water.  The runaway lamb ends up needing to draw a boy around in a cart.  Each story has one black-and-white drawing.

1906 One Hundred Fables by La Fontaine. Edited with introduction, notes, and vocabulary by O.B. Super. Inscribed in 1919. Boston: Ginn and Company. $.50, Spring, '92.

A helpful little book inscribed in Cambridge. I think the book's first gift lies in its identification of one hundred of LaFontaine's 238 fables for special attention. The copious English notes at the rear help someone struggling with the French; they also regularly identify LaFontaine's source. The vocabulary looks complete. There are some underlinings in the introduction.

1906 Russische Volksmärchen. Gesammelt von Alexander N. Afanaszjew. Deutsch von Anna Meyer. Paperbound. Vienna: C.W. Stern. $4 from an unknown source, June, '05.

Here is a book in wretched condition. Its condition is not surprising if one considers that it is a paperback book produced in the Austrio-Hungarian Empire in 1906! Though a hand has written "2 vols" on the pre-title page, I see no indication of that in the book. Many of the book's pages are still uncut. Many are loose. Of the forty-three Volksmärchen offered here, many of the early exemplars show the presence of fable or even, in several cases, the identity of Märchen and fable. The first story, "Die Füchsin und der Wolf" (1), uses the favorite Renard theme of the fox who plays dead and steals fish by throwing them off the cart on the way home, but the story seems to extend well beyond that beginning point. "Der kranke Löwe" (17) is the standard Aesopic fable. "Alte Dienste vergisst man" (19) is a variation of the story of a man helping a beast and then being threatened by him. Here the beast is a wolf and the man has helped him by hiding him in his sack. The clever fox will get the wolf back into the sack "to see how it happened" but really to free the man. "Füchsin und Krebs" (28) is the old fable about the crab grabbing onto the fox's tale and so being able to win the race. Further offerings get around to "Baba Jaga" and Wassilissa. I am surprised not to find FS here. 

1906 The Bashful Earthquake & Other Fables and Verses.  Oliver Herford.  Illustrated by the author.  Hardbound.  NY: Charles Scribner's Sons.  $9.99 from Elizabeth Kittelberger, Webster, NY, through Ebay, March, '20.

The copyright on this book is 1898.  The title story is a delightful verse creation.  An earthquake knocks down "Houses and palaces all in a lump!" and then moves on, growing weaker all the time, until it rumbles around a dormouse's nest.  The earthquake is trying to apologize when he melts away.  Herford's wit shows up even earlier when the author gratefully acknowledges the illustrator for "his exquisitely delicate art."  Of course, Herford is both author and illustrator.  In "The Lovesick Scarecrow" a scarecrow is smitten with love for a crow and believes she may reciprocate.  He admits to having dreamt of her resting on his breast.  In the meantime, she is plotting with her husband how to pluck out the scarecrow's heart of straw to line her nest!  Herford may get even closer to traditional fable in "The Doorless Wolf."  A wolf confronts a newly rich man and reminds him that he, the wolf, earlier sat by the man's only door.  Now the rich man has many doors.  Can he not help the starving wolf?  The newly rich man thinks and makes an offer.  Will the wolf sit by his door so that all those who have been bothering the rich man will think that he is poor?  The wolf accepts.  "Thus affluence makes niggards of us all!"

1906 The Fables of Aesop: Selected, told anew and their history traced.  Joseph Jacobs.  Illustrated by Richard Heighway.  Hardbound.  NY: F.M. Lupton Publishing Company.  See 1894/1906.

1906 The Lion and the Mouse. By Charles Klein. A Story of American Life Novelized from the Play by Arthur Hornblow. Illustrated by Stuart Travis, and scenes from the play. NY: Grosset and Dunlap. $2 at Half Price, Milwaukee, June, '93. Extra copy for $3.50 from A-Z Books, North Platte, Jan., '94.

I made it through two chapters of this slice of Americana, but have still found nothing indicating the relevance of the Aesopic (?) title. The book reads like a romanticized version of trying to make it on and against Wall Street. Ho hum. Maybe the play was racier in 1906 than its pictures make it seem now.

1906 The Russian Grandmother's Wonder Tales. By Louise Seymour Houghton. Illustrated by W.T. Benda. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons. $2.95 at A Novel Idea, Lincoln, May, '95.

This stained and very well-worn book once owned by the Lincoln Public Library has a very pleasing frame: a young boy hears stories from grandmothers while he travels and visits and makes his way through the year. The stories are wonder stories, filled with dragons and transformations and young men going into the world to seek their fortunes. A few stories include fable motifs. "The Wolf as a Roman" (4) has the familiar motifs of reading a hoof and singing before dying. "The Sick Lion" (14) is the standard fable about bad smells; it adds a round in which the wolf says that it is neither close nor not close; he is torn to pieces for his equivocating answer. Finally the fox uses his traditional "I've caught a cold" answer. "The Fox and the Hedgehog" (73) is like the Aesopic "The Fox and the Goat." "Master Reinecke and Gockeling, the Cock" (77) has Chanticleer's challenge to the victorious fox--only here it is to pray before eating--and the fable motif "Come back when I am fatter." "So Born, So Die" (245) is the story of the mouse-daughter who ends up marrying her own kind after each in a potential series of spouses proclaims that another is stronger than he. I like this old book!

1906 The Silver-Burdett Readers: Second Book. By Ella M. Powers and Thomas M. Balliet. No illustrator acknowledged. NY: Silver, Burdett, and Co. See 1903/06.

1906/06? Aesop's Fables Told to the Children. By Lena Dalkeith. Pictures by S(ophia) R(osamund) Praeger. Told to the Children Series, edited by Louey Chisholm. Printed in Edinburgh. London: T.C. and E.C. Jack/NY: E.P. Dutton and Co. $12.50 from Yoffees, Jan., '92.

A small format book only forty-seven pages long (one fable to a page, with no external morals), but the art is fine: sixteen pages of colored illustrations, all (except the frontispiece) containing two illustrations; the advertisement at the back promises only eight colored pages in the books of the series! Is this Praeger's original 1906 publication, referred to in Ash/Higton? The illustrations might be called "primitive." They are strong and simple, and I like them. The best illustrations include a great frontispiece (and cover) of an old man reading a paper attacked by the friendly ass; the wolf hanged in a sheepskin (facing 16); sleeping girls à la Wilhelm Busch (facing 20); FS (26); MSA (facing 44); and the fat hen with a surprised old woman (facing 44). A wonderful little find! Now in '97 I have had a chance to analyze its texts. They seem to depend heavily on Croxall and less on James. There is less directly quoted speech than is usual in the fables. One of the best texts is "The Wolf as Piper." In TH, the tortoise seems to undergo a sex change during the race! "The Fox and the Eagle" may be the poorest text, not thought through very well.

1906?    Aesop's Fables Told to the Children.  Lena Dalkeith.  Pictures by S(ophia) R(osamund) Praeger.  Canvas-bound.  London/NY: Told to the Children Series:  London: T.C. and E.C. Jack/NY: E.P. Dutton and Co.  $11.28 from George Rutherford, Carlisle, Cumbria, UK, through Ebay, May, '20.

Here is a second copy of this little classic, with two differences from the first copy bought 28 years ago.  Again it is a small format book only forty-seven pages long, with one fable to a page and no added morals.  The first difference is that this copy is bound in a blue canvas cover with creases near the spine on both front and back.  The second, more surprising difference is that I count here twenty-four pages of the lovely colored illustrations, all (except the frontispiece) containing two illustrations.  The other copy has sixteen.  These illustrations, as I commented then, might be called "primitive."  They are strong and simple, and I like them.  The best illustrations include a great frontispiece (and cover) of an old man reading a paper attacked by the friendly ass; the wolf hanged in a sheepskin (facing 16); sleeping girls à la Wilhelm Busch (facing 20); FS (26); MSA (facing 44); and the fat hen with a surprised old woman (facing 44).  In '97 I had a chance to analyze its texts.  They seem to depend heavily on Croxall and less on James.  There is less directly quoted speech than is usual in the fables.  One of the best texts is "The Wolf as Piper."  In TH, the tortoise seems to undergo a sex change during the race!  "The Fox and the Eagle" may be the poorest text, not thought through very well.

1906/12 The World's Wit and Humor: Greek, Roman, Oriental. Volume XV of a fifteen volume set. By an "International Board of Editors." (c)1906 but published 1912. Apparently no illustrations within this volume. NY: Review of Reviews Company. $1.50, Schroeder, '85.

Only six unimpressive Aesopic fables, but a lovely book nonetheless.

1906/17 Merry Animal Tales. A Book of Old Fables in New Dresses. By Madge A. Bigham. Illustrated by Clara E. Atwood. Hardbound. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. $4 from King William Antiques, Williamsburg, VA, July, '00.

At first, I thought this book in poor condition was an extra of the 1919 printing. See my comments both there and under the 1929 edition. Again here, part of the title-page is smudged out. This printing has the same typo on 9 as does the 1917 printing: coud for could. Pages 1-4 are separated.

1906/19 Merry Animal Tales. A Book of Old Fables in New Dresses. By Madge A. Bigham. Illustrated by Clara Atwood? Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. $5 at Estuary, Lincoln, NE, Dec., '94.

This surprising find presents several curiosities. There is a design pasted over part of the title page. I can make out that the design covers "Illustrated by Clara ?. Atwood." It also seems to cover something like "Property of Maureen Grace." The illustrations, five full-page and seventeen in the text, are not the same as those in the same publisher's 1929 edition, illustrated by Clara Atwood Fitts. I find the latter much better than these. The last two full-page designs feature a boxed "A." By contrast with that later edition, this book has "Suggestions to Teachers" and "Seat Work" at its end. The latter gives a moral and an appropriate writing and art activity for each fable. This edition has a typo on 9: coud for could. It has some pencilling on 17 and some torn page bottoms. T of C at the beginning, with lists of both kinds of illustrations. See the 1929 edition for comments on the versions.

1906/20 Fables de la Fontaine. Avec Notes, Exercices et Leçons de Versification par Thomas Keen. Fourth edition. Hardbound. London: Dent's Modern Language Series: J.M. Dent & Sons. £ 2.90 from Digby Dance through eBay, March, '04. 

An English introduction praises Keen's book for enabling the learner to appreciate the fables' literary charm while she or he learns the language, particularly French word formation and vocabulary. Forty-one fables are integrated with exercises, lessons on French versification, essay topics, and reviews. The copious notes on La Fontaine's vocabulary are all done in French. This is a handy and, I think, well-conceived schoolbook.

1906/92 Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrées par Benjamin Rabier. Paris: Jules Tallandier. 96 Francs at Gibert Joseph, Paris, May, '97.

Here is a very nice selection of Rabier's work, done by the same publisher that published his work originally. True to the 1906 edition, the illustrations mix pages of black-and-white with pages of color. T of C at the end. 63 fables, about half in color. There is always something new to notice in Rabier's excellent work. This time I notice, for example, that the hare from whom the frightened hare is running at the top of 23 has a white spot in the shadow where the eye should be; this is just the kind of trick a frightened imagination would play on a poor hare! I found this book several hours before I found a complete edition of Rabier's LaFontaine, all in color, done by Tallendier in 1995.

1906/95 Fables de La Fontaine. Benjamin Rabier. Hardbound. Paris: Jules Tallandier. €7 at Gibert Joseph, Paris, June, '09.

Here is a later printing of a book I found printed in 1992 on a trip to Paris in 1997. In Paris again in 2009 and unsure whether I had this edition, I picked up another copy. This copy, which is printed in Italy rather than France, turns out to be different. The T of C at the end has been reset for a good reason. Two of the 1992 stories were printed without their second pages! Now "Le Combat des Rats et des Belettes" (60 here) and "L'Alouette et ses Petits avec le Maître d'un Champ" (64 here) both have their second pages, lacking before. The book before the T of C thus now runs to 78 pages rather than 76. My, what we find if we look! In this copy, the color of the monochrome pages changes at times from green in the earlier copy to black, as on 14, 66, 74, and 78. As I write there, this is a very nice selection of Rabier's work, done by the same publisher that published his work originally. True to the 1906 edition, the illustrations mix monochrome and multi-colored pages. 63 fables, about half in color.

1906/95 Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrées par Benjamin Rabier. Hardbound. Paris: Tallandier: Éditions Tallandier. $9 from Moe's, Berkeley, Sept., '05.

Here is a good selection of Rabier's work, done by the same publisher that published his work originally. Here all of the illustrations are in color. There is a T of C at the end. 64 fables. It pays to compare and contrast this book with a similar one done in 1992 by Tallandier. That edition alternates black-and-white and colored pairs of pages, as I believe Rabier's original edition did. My new theory is that the poorer colored fables in this edition, which colors everything, are those that were not colored originally. Examples at the end of this book include "Le Jardinier et Son Seigneur," "Le Lion Amoureux," and "La Belette Entrée dans un Grenier." The reds are pink and the browns beige. Rabier's original colors wear much better than that! Now how does this book compare with the four volumes from 1995 that reproduce Rabier's whole work?

1906/95 Fables de La Fontaine. Tome 1. Illustrées par Benjamin Rabier. Paris: Jules Tallandier. 120 Francs at Librairie Compagnie, Paris, May, '97.

At last a comprehensive reproduction of Rabier's La Fontaine! Rabier had followed LaFontaine's order more or less. This book follows Rabier's original strictly except for one section where three fables from Book I ("The Thieves and the Ass," "Simondes Preserved by the Gods," and OF) are skipped , and in their place the editors insert three fables from Book X ("Mother Lion and Mother Bear," "The Shepherd and the King," and "The Fish and the Shepherd Playing the Flute). Here all the illustrations are colored, whereas only about one-quarter were colored in my 1906 edition. The coloring improves them! This is a well printed book. It should be, of course, since it is Tallandier's own book! T of C at the front. This volume handles Books I, II, III, and the first few fables of Book IV. Rabier's original page-header indicated the book of LaFontaine's work, e.g., "Livre Premier." Now it indicates present volume number, e.g., "Tome 1." Where does the cover-picture of GA come from? It is not from either the cover or the illustrations in the 1906 edition.

1906/95 Fables de La Fontaine. Tome 2. Illustrées par Benjamin Rabier. Paris: Jules Tallandier. 120 Francs at Librairie Compagnie, Paris, May, '97.

See my comments on Volume 1. This volume takes TH and "The Carter Stuck in the Mud" from their place in Book VI and inserts them at its beginning, apparently in order to let the cover illustrate the first story inside the book. There is only one other change from Rabier's original order: "The Charlatan" and "Epilogue" are taken from their original place at the end of Book VI and inserted at the end of this volume, which by then has actually included eight fables of Book VII. I think I can see a slight difference of taste in the coloring of the illustrations that my original did not have colored. Would Rabier's coloring of "Le Singe et le Dauphin" (10) have been quite as wild as this? T of C at the front. This volume handles Books V and VI and parts of IV and VII. Where does the cover-picture of TH come from? It is not from either the cover or the illustrations in the 1906 edition.

1906/95 Fables de La Fontaine. Tome 3. Illustrées par Benjamin Rabier. Paris: Jules Tallandier. 120 Francs at Librairie Compagnie, Paris, May, '97.

See my comments on Volume 1. This volume switches the order of "Le Coche et la Mouche" and MM so as to present the latter, its cover picture, first. For its last fable, it imports "Le Loup et le Renard" from Book XI. I am unsatisfied with the color given to several fables, including "Un Animal dans la lune" (18-19), "Le Savetier et le Financier" (22-23), and "Jupiter et les Tonnerres" (46-7). For a good contrast, one might compare the recent coloring of "Le Singe et le Chat" (78) and the old coloring of "Le Loup et le Renard" (79). T of C at the front. This volume handles Book VIII and parts of VII and IX. Where does the cover-picture of MM come from? It is not from either the cover or the illustrations in the 1906 edition.

1906/95 Fables de La Fontaine. Tome 4. Illustrées par Benjamin Rabier. Paris: Jules Tallandier. 120 Francs at Librairie Compagnie, Paris, May, '97.

See my comments on Volume 1. This volume begins with OF, for which the cover provides an illustration. Whence comes this illustration, since it is not from either the cover or the illustrations in the 1906 edition? Along with OF come two other fables from Book I skipped in Volume 1of this series ("The Thieves and the Ass" and "Simondes Preserved by the Gods"). From Book IX of LaFontaine we have "Le Berger et son Troupeau" and the "Two Rats and an Egg" story in the address to Madame de la Sablière usually appended to Book IX. Otherwise this volume's material comes entirely from Books X-XII and the appendices. Missing from the original edition's order are two small sets of materials that have already appeared respectively in Volume 1 ("La Lionne et L'Ourse" [245], "Le Berger et le Roi" [246-7], and "Les Poissons et le Berger qui joue de la Flute" [248]) and Volume 3 ("Le Loup et le Renard" [285-6]) of this series. The last story, "Le Juge Arbitre, L'Hospitalier et le Solitaire" (86-7), is a good example of the naïve modern coloring of the stories not originally colored by Rabier himself. T of C at the front.

1906? Im Spiegel der Tierwelt: Studien von Käthe Olshausen-Schönberger, II. Teil. (Cover: Neue Folge). Dritte Auflage. Hardbound. Printed in Munich. Munich: Braun & Schneider. See 1905?/06?.

1906? The Fables of Aesop. Hardbound. St. Louis: Concordia Pastime Library, Vol. IV: Concordia Publishing House. $2.99 from C. Roscow, Red Bud, IL, through eBay, April, '04. 

This is a fragile little book starting to separate from its spine. There are ninety-five numbered fables, each with an application. The preface starts off by recalling that, when Luther was at the castle of Coburg in 1530 writing some very serious things, he turned to rendering a number of Aesop's fables into German. Luther wrote "I do not know of many books, beside the Bible, that might be deemed superior to this, as regards temporal things in the world." The last line of the preface, signed by "A.L.G.," mentions that the fables have been carefully revised. I have checked only the first two fables, but the clear source is Croxall. Perhaps the biggest revision is that Croxall's long applications have been reduced to a short paragraph. I am surprised at the concept of a "Pastime Library." Is the seminary providing safe and wholesome reading for pastors? There is a 30-page life of Aesop at the beginning.

1906? Wisdom in Fable: Something about Animals. By Palmer Cox. Pamphlet. NY: Pond's Extract. $34.33 from Cammie Boardman, Blue Springs, MO, through Ebay, March, '00.

This is a twenty-page pamphlet, including the covers, 6¼" x 5". It includes nine colored illustrations, all full-page. The best clue to its date comes from putting together two statements. The opening page says "Your grandmother used Pond's Extract in 1846." Two pages later we learn that Pond's has been recommended for sixty years. A favorite illustration of mine is on 4: we see all the animals suffering from various maladies and bruises. Does that bear have a doughnut-cushion to help him with hemorrhoids? The text facing each page includes upper and lower panels of traditional advertising, between which is a verse piece offering something about animals and Pond's. The closest to a fable comes on 5, where mother bear uses Pond's on her bee-stung young baby bears. The item to avoid, we are told time after time, is witch hazel. Pond's Extract can of course be used both internally and externally, by babies and old folks. The last image is of an extravaganza of animals reading (or writing?) testimonial letters about Pond's. There is a price list for Pond's products on the last page. I enjoy finding ephemera like this!

1907 Alte liebe Fabeln und Geschichten. Für die Jugend ausgewählt von Agnes Hoffmann. Mit Bildern von Arpad Schmidhammer. Hardbound. Stuttgart: Verlag von Levy u. Müller. €32 from Antiquariat im Lenninger Tal, Oberlenningen, Germany, Sept., '12.

1907 is the date given by Google Books. There seems to be no date given in the book itself. Schmidhammer is well enough known to have a page in Germany's Wikipedia. He was a children's illustrator and was also happy to be known as an anticlerical caricaturist. As the opening T of C shows, there is a broad selection of fabulists here. The T of C is helpful because each work's writer is indicated only there. Besides Aesop and Phaedrus, they are all German-speaking. I am surprised to find no La Fontaine here. There are plenty of Hey fables early in the book. OF has the frog asking children if he does not outdo the ox for size (20-21). I am happy to find Lessing's "Der Geist des Salomo" among the more predictable stories here. Solomon meets an old man working very hard and asks him what he is doing. "I learned from your advice to go to the ant and work hard." Solomon answers "You learned only half. Go now again to the ant and learn in the winter of your years to rest and enjoy what you have gathered" (35). The colored illustrations are well done, from the small -- like GA on 43 -- to the quite large -- like "Der grüne Esel" on 55. MSA is well illustrated on 97. The cover illustration seems typical of the early twentieth century. A child in pajamas and hat speaks with an owl. There is something billiken-like about the two. The stories here seem to grow in length and maturity as the book goes through its 200 heavy pages. 

1907 Der Rohrspatz: Ein neues Fabelbuch. Theodor Etzel. Mit Zeichnungen von C.O. Petersen. Hardbound. Munich: Albert Langen. DM 35 from the Hamburg flea market, May, '94.

There are thirty-eight fables here in either prose or verse on some 116 pages. Etzel here sees himself as the Rohrspatz, the reed bunting, whose cry is repetitive, sharp, high, and raw. The first fable goes to lengths to offer an image of this bird as first hopeful and then critical. For an extra twist, Etzel has a fable-writing poet hear the reed bunting and write in his notebook "The fresh reed bunting is making noise." "Die Mücke" (15) has a mosquito fly onto a stag, who suddenly raises his head and starts running. The mosquito pursues him, unaware that (as it stands in the fable) a lion is also pursuing the stag. When the lion catches up, the mosquito says to him "You can thank me for this catch," but the lion pays no attention to the mosquito. The mosquito mutters "The great know no gratitude" and vows never again to hunt a stag for a lion. A fox wakes up to find before his hole a sad badger weeping (16). "A vine keeper shot my wife as she traveled through his vineyard." The fox answers that guilt finds revenge and that men hate thievery. "But she stole nothing." The fox agrees but adds that he himself stole some wonderful grapes there last evening. In "Aestheten" (63), a dungbeetle makes himself comfortable in some ox excrement. A fine butterfly happens by and cries with horror "To the Devil with anyone who sits down in Scheissdreck!" Embarrassed, the dungbeetle answers "You should be ashamed, young woman, to utter such hateful words!" C.P. Peterson, known as an "animal artist" from his Simplicissimus, adds the part- and full-page black-and-white illustrations. My prize among the illustrations goes to the illustration on 49 of the hyena whose stomach has burst; here one can see a hoof of the giraffe bursting out of the hyena's belly. The themes are those of the turn into the 20th century: society, politics, morality, and fashion. There is on the back cover a nice caricature of the artist (writer or illustrator?) on a hobby horse looking down on various animals. Surprisingly not in Bodemann. 

1907 Fabeln und Parabeln der Weltliteratur.  Gesammelt uind mit literar-historischen Einführungen herausgegeben von Theodor Etzel.  Erstes bis viertes Tausend.  Dust-jacket.  Hardbound.  Leipzig: Max Hesses Verlag.  €38.40 from Antiquariat Weinek, Salzburg, August., '14.  

I previously knew Etzel's work through a 1990 edition by Bechtermünz Verlag, which -- as is now clear to me -- took Etzel's classic text collection and added illustrations, making a small-format book into a large one.  Now here is a lovely first edition of that original work.  As I wrote then, this book is a library in itself.  I have kept separate notes on the sampling of fables I enjoyed in going through the book and on its good illustrations.  Parable does not get the representation one might expect from the title; a few items are included that are labelled as parables.  The translations wisely follow the original's choice of prose or verse.  The heart of this book is, appropriately, German fable, with over 300 pages and some fifty-three fabulists.  Orientals receive forty pages, and western ancients thirty pages before the Germans, and five other literatures and two continents get eighty pages after them.  Fables labelled "Aesop" here do not always have the texts which one would find in, say, Perry's Aesopica.  I am not sure of Etzel's source for them.

1907 Fables in Feathers. Told by S. Ten Eyck Bourke. Illustrated by J.M. Condé. First edition. Inscribed 1908. NY: T.Y. Crowell and Co. $35 from Drusilla's Books, Baltimore, at Silver Spring, Sept., '91.

Nine short stories on the time when the world was very young. Typically, something that the frightening king/magician Solomon does gets one bird particularly involved. What the latter does then explains some trait or feature of his today. The malicious serpent is usually involved behind the scenes. The prose is rather florid. The stories are engaging, though overdeveloped. Nine nice illustrations.

1907 Flip Flap Fables. A Bunch of Twenty Seven Tales concerning Animals of various kinds from which may be deducted Many Morals. By Frank E. Kellogg. With Illustrations by Louis Grant. First edition. NY: G.W. Dillingham Co. $16 from Greg Williams, July, '93.

A curious opening "Listen" statement claims that these fables were conceived "before the lights had been switched upon George Ade and other modern fable makers." In fact, the stories here are somewhere between Ade and Thurber: full of slang, popular, cynical, funny. I like them. Like Ade, Kellogg likes capital letters for many words. Like Thurber's losing turtle, the turtle here believed the TH story and needed two years and eleven months to lose! Many of these fables build off of Aesop. Among the best: "The Wolf and the Peacock" (9, a replay of FC with the bird much smarter now), "The Old Lion and the Tiger" (14), TH (29), "The Man and the Jackass" (37), GA (54), "The Great Detective Who Unearthed Things" (65), "The Mosquito and the Bedbug (70), "The Wise Old Judge and the Seventeen Brindle Steers" (80), and "How the Animals Chose Their King" (88). Included in the book is a strange bookmark featuring a newspaper article of a presumed relative of the book's former owner and his boasting about his restaurant. The clever descendant/relative made this article into a fable bookmark and it still sits facing 20. There is one design around the title of each fable.

1907 Folk Stories and Fables, Volume 1. Series: The Children's Hour. Selected and arranged by Eva March Tappan. No place: Houghton, Mifflin. $1 from Delavan Booksellers, Aug., '87. Extra copy without covers for $4 from Pageant, NY, May, '91.

There are two illustrations among the seventeen Aesop's fables done here: Velasquez' portrait of Aesop and Billinghurst's TH. No author acknowledged for the fables. The most noteworthy feature of the book is the foldout facsimile of the original manuscript of Longfellow's "The Children's Hour." Outwardly beat up.

1907 Les Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrées de 81 gravures du XVIIIe siècle tirées du "La Fontaine en Estampes", de 31 fac-simile des dessins d'un manuscrit du XIVe siècle et du portrait de La Fontaine d'après Ch. Lebrun. Hardbound. Paris: Éditées specialement pour les Magasins du bon Marché. 24000 Lire from Marco Pagani, Novara, Italy, through Ebay, May, '01.

This book reduplicates an edition I already have listed under 1897. It was already then a derivative but lovely book. Its eighty-one gravures from the eighteenth century "La Fontaine en Estampes" seem to be mostly details from Oudry. That is certainly the case on 9 (DW) and 59 (SS). They suffer only from their relatively small size of 2.5" x 3.5". To them is added the series of smaller drawings from a fourteenth-century manuscript, either identical with or reproduced from those in Fables Inédites des XIIe, XIIIe et XIVe Siècles et Fables de la Fontaine of 1825 by A.C.M. Robert. The covers are part marble and part leather. AI at the back.

1907 Stories to Tell to Children. Fifty-One Stories with Some Suggestions for Telling. By Sara Cone Bryant. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company/Cambridge: The Riverside Press. $9 at Walnut Antique Mall, Walnut, Iowa, April, '93. Extra copy for $15 from Greg Williams, March, '94.

A fine collection of well-told stories gathered by an experienced storyteller. Bryant starts with good tips on storytelling for children, including "Take your story seriously," "Take your time," and "Never admit a blunder." On xxv-xxvii she adds a list of good stories for the first four grades; the lists for the first two grades include many fables. "The Little Jackals and the Lion" (15) is the well-story usually given to rabbit and lion in the Panchatantra tradition. FK (69) includes an unusual second king, an eel. Bryant mentions in a note to TMCM (19) that she offers her fables as examples of the vividness and amplitude that should be added to the compact texts in this genre. Both copies of the book are in very good condition. I am glad I came across it.

1907 The Heart of Oak Books: Second Book. Fables and Nursery Tales. Revised Edition. Edited by Charles Eliot Norton. Illustrator apparently Frank T. Merrill. Boston: D.C. Heath and Co. See 1895/1902/07.

1907 The Little Governor in Fableland. John Howard Jewett. With five illustrations in color by Ethel N. Farnsworth and many illustrations in black and white. Hardbound. New York: Christmas Stocking Series: Frederick A. Stokes Company. $53.24 from Resource Books, East Granby, CT, March, '12.

This sturdy book in excellent condition is extra tall (over 7½") and extra thin (less than 4"). In its three chapters, we find a story strong in its sense of social contrasts. The two children of the governor up the cliffs have an encounter with two poorer children from among the clam-diggers along the shore. Earnest, one of the latter, saves Fortunato, the son of the governor. In the meantime, the well-to-do children go to school with the Kindly Hermit and hear songs of the Blithebird. These two, we learn, have been "planning together new ways to teach old truths" (10). In a second chapter, the Kindly Hermit tells a story to the two governor's children that turns out to be a fable pointing them the way to what to do. A young man urges his giant father to overcome the dragon that hinders some good gypsies from enjoying the good life. Fortunato becomes governor for a day and enacts the fable's program. He has a school built for the children of the clam-diggers and has their houses spruced up. My biggest surprise in all of this is the strong sense of social class; Fortunato and Gentilita need to become conscious of those poor clam-diggers and gypsies and be generous to them. The story, despite its ideology, centers really rather in Fortunato and Gentilita learning to be fellow human beings just like those clam-digger children -- and, God forbid, even like gypsies! 

1907? Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit. By Joel Chandler Harris. (c)1906 by Joel Chandler Harris. (c)1907 by Frederick A. Stokes Company. NY: Frederick A. Stokes Company. $40 at Powell's in Hyde Park, '94.

Eleven stories, five of them in verse in this sideways book. Only one side of each page is used. The first and last stories are four pages long; all others are six. This edition keeps the dialect language. I recognize only one of these stories ("How Brer Rabbit Got a House") after reading the original Uncle Remus, His Songs and Sayings (1880). Especially with the 1906 copyright, could it be that these stories are from one of Harris' later Uncle Remus books? Excellent colored illustrations. Some pages have two illustrations and some only one. There are some crayon markings on the title-page and on the second page of "How Mr. Lion Lost His Wool." Some pages are chipped or torn. The first story-page is upside-down. Both covers have come loose from the binding. Finding this beautiful book convinced me for some reason to put a few editions of Brer Rabbit stories into this collection. That may not be my most logical decision ever, but I am glad to have found the book! I wonder who did the illustrations.

To top

1908 - 1909

1908 Aesop's Fables. Decorations and illustrations by Lucy Fitch Perkins. The Dandelion Classics for Children. First edition. NY: Frederick A. Stokes Company. $50 from Barbara and Bill Yoffee, Nov., '91. Two copies, also of a September, 1908 printing, but with a different cover (milkmaid): for $34 from The Book House, St. Louis, March, '95; and for $30 from Greg Williams, Jan., '92; I will keep both of these in the collection. Another extra copy of the edition with FC on the cover, including some loose early pages, for $45 from (more) Moe's, Aug., '94.

A beautiful traditional Aesop that I had never had in my hand before. Excellent condition. Maybe 250 fables printed very nicely two or three to the page with no runovers. The brief versions may sometimes evidence a lack of care, and the morals are quite general. There are twelve simple but appealing full-page colored illustrations; the best of them are "The Old Woman and the Doctor" (24), "The Old Woman's Maids" (66), and MM (84). Almost all the full-page illustrations are of human events. The cover is beautifully color-engraved, and there is nice black-and-white art work around the title pages. The best of these is FS on xi. AI at front. Of the two milkmaid-cover copies, that from the Book House is lacking the frontispiece, title-page (with publication information on the back), list of illustrations, introduction, and the illustration facing 84. It has one loose illustration (facing 66) and some crayoning on 9. Otherwise it is in good condition. That from Greg Williams is missing the frontispiece and four other illustrations and is more generally in poor condition.

1908 Aesop's Fables for Little People. Told by Mrs. Arthur (Olive) Brookfield. Pictured by Henry J. Ford. Second Edition. Hardbound. The Children's Library. London: T. Fisher Unwin. £12 from Rose's Books, Hay-on-Wye, June, '98.

Change the title and format of one book, and you make a brand-new other book like this one. The same publisher, author, and illustrator collaborated on Aesop's Fables for Little Readers, for which I guessed at a date of 1880. I may need to revise that guess now. Here "Readers" is changed to "People." That book is 6¾" x 8½". Here we move to a smaller book, 4¼" x 6½". The illustrations are unfortunately scaled down and changed from sepia to black-and-white. Some illustrations that were nicely configured onto the page of print have now been removed to a separate page, like TB (107). My favorite illustration is still the second illustration for "The Hermit and the Bear," which shows a hermit with a terribly bent nose, which the bear broke according to this version (58). See my comments on the original edition (also listed under "1880?").

1908 Basni Esopa (Russian). I.N. Pozdnyakov. Drawings by T. Nikitin. Hardbound. Moscow: I. Sytin Co. $39.90 from Juri Rudich, Tallinn, Estonia, through Ebay, Jan., '04.

The seller reports correctly that this volume contains fifty-two fables and eight drawings on its 88 pages. As it is unusual to find Aesop in France because of La Fontaine, so it is unusual, I think, to find Aesop in Russia because of Krylov. The illustrations here are rather expectable. Maybe the most arresting is the silhouette illustration facing the title-page: does it depict Aesop taking the bread-basket that will soon be half-empty? There is an engaging illustration for "Pravda" on 47. The typeface throughout seems to be (small and large) capitals. Looking through this book makes me want to learn Russian!

1908 Children's Classics in Dramatic Form. Book Three. Augusta Stevenson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. $1 in DC (Vassar book sale?), Spring, '92.

The book follows the same approach as found in the 1909 Book Two of the same series. Here three fables appear along with scenes from Anderson, Grimm, and the Arabian Nights: "The Travellers and the Hatchet" (1, with illustrations); FC (3: this version offers both a mother and a daughter crow); MSA (9, with illustrations; this version features three "goodies" and elaborates the action well).

1908 Chinese Fables and Folk Stories. By Mary Hayes Davis and Chow-Leung. With an introduction by Yin-Chwang Wang Tsen-Zan. Hardbound. Printed in USA. NY: American Book Company. $20 from Worn Bookworm, Big Pine, CA, through the mail, June, '98.

The thirty-seven stories here include many more fables than I thought. Put it better: many of these stories are much more fables than I had thought they would be. The book makes a proud boast that it is the first to bring Chinese fables into English. As Yin--Chwang Wang Tsen-Zan says in the introduction, "This is the first book of Chinese stories ever printed in English that will bring the Western people to the knowledge of some of our fables, which have never been heretofore known to the world" (7). Though they are somewhat longer than most Western fables and though they often have a legendary quality, using frequent proper names, still they do mostly what fables do. Several particularly good fables include "The Evergreen Tree and the Wilderness Marigold" (27), "The Snail and the Bees" (31), "The Proud Chicken" (37, very much like our "The Two Cocks"), "The Man Who Loved Money Better than Life" (66), "The Proud Fox and the Crab" (141), "The Lion and the Mosquitoes" (176), and "The Thief and the Elephant" (181), which features confession by fear. The version of SM here (136) results in death. La Fontaine's fable of the acorn and pumpkin shows up here as that of the fig and watermelon (203). Maybe the most touching story in the book is that of Confucius' contemplation of two trees, which helps him to find purpose in a wintry world of rejection (128). Most of the illustrations are signed by a chop with a star over the letter "B." The tone of these stories is heavily didactic.

1908 Fables. J.-P. Florian. Hardbound. Paris: Librairie Moderne: Maurice Bauche, Éditeur. €75 from Russian Woman at St.-Ouen, Paris, July, '09.

Not in Bodemann. Page VIII speaks of some disagreements about the order and quantity of fables that Florian wanted published. Is Bauche claiming here to reproduce the original collection and order of fables? In any case, there are here two books of fables, the first containing twenty-one and the second nineteen fables. The book was originally given out as a school prize in 1916. The special attraction of this edition lies in the cartoons surrounding the texts. These line drawings suggest good things. Some stay close to the text. Most seem to be signed by "R. Candide." Favorites include "L'Aveugle et le Paralytique" (16); "Le Singe Qui Montre la Lanterne Magique" (24); and "L'Enfant et le Mirroir" (26). The red leatherette cover mentions both "Paul Duval" and "Elbeuf," but I have no idea what they have to do with the book.

1908 Fragments of Thought and Life: Being Seven Essays, and Seven Fables in Illustration of the Essays. Written down by Mabel Collins (Mrs. Keningale Cook). Paperbound. London: The Theosophical Publishing Society. $13.20 from Blue Mountain Books & Manuscripts, Ltd, Catskill, NY, through abe, Nov., '02. 

There are seven theosophical fables illustrating seven essays. I made my way through the first three fables. The first is four pages long. A man seeking the "Supreme Father" is advised to lie down in a field of flowers and to wait. Though he will be a cripple all his life, this soul has "taken up the Cross" and "will attain." The second fable is over twenty pages long; it illustrates the "Necessity of Bitterness." I gather that the point is that you have to work through the bitterness of what life gives you to find a saving attitude. Bitterness leads to hardness for Margaret Litton, who has taken the heart from her father and her former lover. Satan (?) instructs that she be bathed deeply in bitterness. She needs to become aware of her own guilt. Under the care and guidance of a guardian angel, a blind woman interacts with Margaret. The bitterness departs while forgiveness, service, and compassion enter in. "Of That Which Endures" leads into the third fable, which is again longer than its essay. This is a sweet-sour story of a nine year old noble son of a suicide. His father killed himself over his wife's supposed unfaithfulness. The man whom she loved comes back and meets the boy and asks whether he may come to the castle. The son wisely says "no." The mother embodies the power to endure. Like her son, she triumphs. This work takes fable into a place where, I think, it does not live easily.

1908 Jewish Fairy Tales and Fables. By Aunt Naomi [Gertrude Landa?]. Illustrated by E. Strellett and J. Marks. Hardbound. London: R. Mazin & Co., Ltd. $12.50 from G.R. Goodman, Bookseller, Stillwater, MN, through eBay, Dec., '02. 

The Library of Congress has a listing for this book that gives the name of Gertrude Landa for "Aunt Naomi." It suggests the date of 1915; however, their copy was published in NY by Block Publishing Company. This book has been a pleasant surprise to me. The stories are good. There are fourteen stories of varying length and character. There is the story of the slave who became a king for a year but then would have to relinquish his throne. One of several stories close to fable has Fox luring Bruin into a well for the supposed cheese and Bruin drowning there (31). The cover illustration is for the story of the peddlar who barters people's miseries for happiness. In the closest to a traditional fable, the fox enters the vineyard through a gap between the railings. After eating, he must wait for days before getting back out (61). An old man plants a fig tree because he is one hundred years young. Solomon enlists the help of a small bee to answer the difficult question posed by the Queen of Sheba. In a great Jewish story, Honeim the Jewish cobbler outwits the rich Arab who wants to buy shoes from him (85). In another shoe story, a visitor from Athina maligns Jerusalem. Hafiz Ben lures him into making a fool of himself before the people of Jerusalem. Sly fox tries to convince the fish that they can live better out of water, but they are too smart for him. A hunchbacked old rabbi teaches a princess that great things can be inside very modest containers. The tongue convinces the other members that he best represents their interests.

1908 Old Fables--Aesop. Adapted by Harriet G. Reiter. Pamphlet. Dayton: School Classic Series: The Paine Publishing Company. $9.99 from Diana Sweeney, Flushing, OH, through Ebay, Oct., '00.

I had presumed that this pamphlet of 32 pages containing some thirteen fables was a printing of some sort from the two volumes Reiter did for the Instructor Literature Series. These were "Eleven Fables from Aesop" (1906) and "More Fables from Aesop" (1905). Apparently these are simply other stories. They are done for the first grade and are listed as #1 among the seventy-eight books in the School Classic Series. There is a misprint ("It" for "I") in the first line of 7. In "The Lion, the Bear and the Fox," the lion and bear set out together to hunt their dinner. The argument in SW (25) is presented according to the poorer version. The black-and-white part-page illustrations are simple. Though intact, this little booklet is very fragile.

1908 Stories of Little Animals. By Lenore Elizabeth Mulets. Illustrated by Sophie Schneider. Princess Series. Phyllis' Field Friends. Boston: L.C. Page and Company. See 1904/08.

1908 The Elementary Spelling Book. Being an Improvement on the American Spelling Book. By Noah Webster. NY: American Book Company. See 1880/1908.

1908 The Tortoise and the Geese and Other Fables of Bidpai. Retold by Maude Barrows Dutton. Illustrated by E. Boyd Smith. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Boston/NY: Houghton Mifflin Company. $15 from Lillie Johnson, Oak Ridge, TN, through Ebay, July, '99. Extra copy for $4 from Bookworm and Bugjuice, Cleveland, OH, through Interloc, August, '98.

Thirty-four fables, mostly told in two or three pages apiece, together with twelve black-and-white illustrations. The stories here are thus offered individually, rather than in the "story within a story" framework usual for Bidpai. The monkey gets his tail caught in the board that is being split (6). Two traditional stories are particularly well told: "The Gardener and the Bear" (22) and "The Ass, the Lion, and the Fox" (101). Also well told is "The Blind Man and the Snake" (39). The blind horse-rider has grabbed a snake instead of his whip, and now he will not believe his riding friend who tells him that it is a snake and that he had better get rid of it. Other good stories include "The Lean Cat and the Fat Cat" (73), in which the former learns from the latter that the king's table is sumptuous. The lean cat's poor mistress warns him that he will do better to keep eating her broth. Unfortunately, this very day the king gets frustrated with too many cats around and delivers an edict that all cats in the palace will be hanged. The fat cat is smart enough to stay away, but the lean cat is apprehended immediately and killed. Also good is "The King, the Hermit, and the Two Princes" (78). The king hides much of his treasure from his dissolute sons and asks a trusted hermit friend to see that they experience want before they receive the treasure. After the king's death, the older son drives the younger out. The latter goes to the hermitage to seek his father's old friend. He learns the simple life and finds the treasure. His brother gets into a war, loses it for lack of money, and is killed. The generals deliberate over a good new king who will be peaceful and prudent. They decide on the younger son at the hermitage. Two of the best illustrations show the lion jumping into the well to confront his "adversary" (frontispiece) and the camel ready to be devoured by the lion and his three wicked counselors (116). I have this book in two different formats and will keep both in the collection. The good copy has thinner, better paper and is covered with yellow cloth on the front of which is a large illustration of TT. The second copy has a plain green cloth cover.

1908 Well-Known Fables Set to Music, For Voice or Piano (Inside title: Well-Known Fables Set to Music, Vocal or Instrumental). Words by Jessica Moore, Music by Geo. L. Spaulding. Weir, Doré, Heighway, Griset. Large pamphlet with tied string binding. Printed in USA. Philadelphia: Theo. Presser Co. $2 from Dawn Toxie, San Diego, through Ebay, June, '00. Extra copy for $58.78 from Evelyn Maloney, Cornwall, NY, through Ebay, March, '00.

Here is a treasure! I have often wondered if such a book exists, and now I have found it twice within three months! My good copy has a cover picturing FG, while the copy from Evelyn Maloney has lost its cover. There is irony in the cost of this publication: the good copy cost me $2, while the extra had cost over $58! The original cost $.75! The first four large-format (12¼" x 9½") pages present, in two columns, the texts of sixteen fables according to Jacobs' version, complete with his moral. All but one have a small black-and-white illustration. The illustrations are taken from Weir, Heighway, Griset, and someone working after Doré. Then follows an AI on 3, followed by the musical rendition of each fable, with the same moral put in quotation marks above the music at the top of the page. Moore's texts are rhymed. The fables put to music here are BS, CP, DS, "The Fox and the Cat," FG, OF, FK, GGE, BF, LM, MSA, MM, "The Miser and His Gold," "The Swallow and the Other Birds," SW, and WSC. Because the good copy shows some crayoning and pencilling, I will keep both copies in the collection.

1908 Well-Known Fables Set to Music Vocal or Instrumental.  Words by Jessica Moore.  Music by Geo. L. Spaulding.  Pamphlet.  Philadelphia: Theo. Presser Co.  Gift of David Dreis, Nov., '24.

Long-term collecting brings surprising experiences.  This fascinating large-format presentation of fable texts and music has its own history in our collection.  Two early copies, since given away with other duplicates, had a price of 50 cents and were in relatively poor condition.  We then kept a 75c version.  Now here is a gift of a 50 cent version in very good condition -- and with a new characteristic, a tied-string binding.  As I already wrote then, this large-format 32-page pamphlet is a treasure!  The first four large-format (12¼" x 9½") pages present, in two columns, the texts of sixteen fables according to Jacobs' version, complete with his moral.  All but one have a small black-and-white illustration.  The illustrations are taken from Weir, Heighway, Griset, and someone working after Doré.  Then follows an AI on 3, followed by the musical rendition of each fable, with the same moral put in quotation marks above the music at the top of the page.  Each fable then gets a one-page or two-page spread with piano music and verse lyrics.  Moore's texts are rhymed.  The fables put to music here are BS, CP, DS, "The Fox and the Cat," FG, OF, FK, GGE, BF, LM, MSA, MM, "The Miser and His Gold," "The Swallow and the Other Birds," SW, and WSC.  The lyrics for the first fable, "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," run this way:

     Now the wolf was hungry and wanted a meal,

     But he found the sheep this time harder to steal,

     And the shepherd dogs did not help his ordeal,

     So he felt he was doomed to defeat.

     Then he came upon an old sheep hide,

     That some farmer's wife had cast aside,

     With this on his back and the field very wide

     He soon had a young lamb to eat.

1908 Well-Known Fables Set to Music Vocal or Instrumental. Words by Jessica Moore. Music by Geo. L. Spaulding. Paperbound. Philadelphia: Theo. Presser Co. $5.99 from Michael Domeier, Littlestown, PA through eBay, April, '09.

I already have two copies of an earlier edition of this work, but I feel justified in adding a new entry since the price has changed. The earlier two copies both had, apparently, "50 cents" printed on the title-page. The better copy has a sticker "75 cents" pasted over that. Now here is a still better copy, and its printed price is 75 cents. I will excerpt some comments from there and then add a new comment. Here is a treasure! This is a large-format 32-page stapled pamphlet. The first four large-format (12¼" x 9½") pages present, in two columns, the texts of sixteen fables according to Jacobs' version, complete with his moral. All but one have a small black-and-white illustration. The illustrations are taken from Weir, Heighway, Griset, and someone working after Doré. Then follows an AI on 3, followed by the musical rendition of each fable, with the same moral put in quotation marks above the music at the top of the page. Each fable then gets a one-page or two-page spread with piano music and verse lyrics. Moore's texts are rhymed. The fables put to music here are BS, CP, DS, "The Fox and the Cat," FG, OF, FK, GGE, BF, LM, MSA, MM, "The Miser and His Gold," "The Swallow and the Other Birds," SW, and WSC. The lyrics for the first fable, "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," run this way:

Now the wolf was hungry and wanted a meal,
But he found the sheep this time harder to steal,
And the shepherd dogs did not help his ordeal,
So he felt he was doomed to defeat.
Then he came upon an old sheep hide,
That some farmer's wife had cast aside,
With this on his back and the field very wide
He soon had a young lamb to eat.

1908 Wie die Tiere auf Reisen gingen. Nach alten Fabeln erzählt von Alexander Redlich. Illustriert von H. Krumhaar und M. Grengg. Hardbound. Vienna and Leipzig: Akademischer Verlag. $10 from Heartwood Used and Rare Books, Charlottesville, VA, April, '99.

There are 61 pages of fables here, without a T of C. They are organized into four chapters: "Wie die Tiere das Haus verliessen" (5), "Die Wanderfahrt der Maus Goldreich" (14), "Hennings, des Hahns, Erlebnisse und der Krieg der Vögel" (34), and "Die Erlebnisse des Ochsen Lebhaft und die Heimkehr" (53). There are frequent illustrations, both part-page and full, in black-and-white, two-color, and three-color formats. It all starts when the dog, who has wandered the nearby forest, starts to tell enthralling tales to the farmyard animals. Soon the dog and the rooster, hungry and afraid, set off into the woods to find a better life. There are no fables in the first section. In fact, the first recognizable fable comes up when Goldreich the mouse is ready to crawl into a mole's hole. The mole warns him that there is a hedgehog inside--and tells the tale of the hedgehog moving in and making life so hard for him that he has moved out of his own hole. Next Goldreich meets a frog, and we are into another fable as he asks the frog how he can get across the water. In this version, the frog carries the mouse on his back and the mouse escapes from the hawk's nest. Soon we touch on stories from the Panchatantra, including "The Jackal and the Deer," in which the former betrays the latter but ends up getting killed in his stead, and a story of Goldreich being asked to free a group of pigeons caught in a net. In fact, stories from the Panchatantra tradition seem to predominate. This book is a lovely creative effort. I think it somewhat unusual that this German children's book from the early 1900's gives a date of publication.

1908 Work That Is Play. Mary Gardner. Illustrated by Helen Hodge. Chicago: A. Flanagan. $10 by mail from mad dog and the pilgrim, March, '94. Extra copy for $15 at The Bookstall, San Francisco, Dec., '90.

A favorite of mine. The book begins with an impassioned plea for play for little folks. It presents a narrative and then the same story in dramatic form. (Note that one similar volume I have was done one year later.) New to me: "The Lion and His Echo" and "The Farmer's Three Enemies." Differently told: the fox sees other beasts go into the "sick" lion's den. The river fairy is a hand: my, how secular can we get! The ant lets the grasshopper in and gives him food. The sun tells the wind that each has strengths. (The bet of the sun and wind follows the poorer tradition.) The mice are interrupted by a servant and then by a boy and a dog together. The lion is tied up while asleep; there is no trap or net. The end-paper illustrations are lovely: scenes of the MM before and after her loss face each other at the front, while the piping wolf and dancing kid are together at the rear. My two copies have different colored endpapers. The spine is weak in the extra copy. The good copy is quite well preserved.

1908/14 Prose That Every Child Should Know. A Selection of the Best Prose of All Times for Young People. Edited by Mary E. Burt. Decorated with Photographs by Eve Watson Schütze. Garden City: Doubleday, Page and Company. $10.80 at Walnut Antique Mall, Iowa, March, '93.

This strange book with wounded spine has many texts every child should know; I count about 218. It has several unusual features. The biggest of them is its early use of photography: on the cover, end papers, and frontispiece. Another is the astounding introduction given to the one Aesopic fable presented, GGE (14). The introduction praises the goose for giving a whole, not a half. It then moves to the question of whether a girl should "let on" when a boy pushes her off the sidewalk! "That's the reason, Honey, why women don't vote." What?! The tale is then told in standard fashion. TMCM (26) is ascribed to Horace and is his version with the addition of a mouse hole. What crazy things one finds!

1908/15? Old Fables--Aesop. Adapted by Harriet G. Reiter. Pamphlet. Dayton: School Classic Series: The Paine Publishing Company. $7.95 from The Side Door, West Yarmouth, MA, through eBay, Oct., '03.

This pamphlet seems to be a later printing of one I have listed already, with the same bibliographical information, under "1908." The cover here is simpler. Without any color, it shows a running child. Now all of the seventy-eight books in the School Classic Series are listed on the inside of the front cover, while the inside of the back cover is given to another series, "Dialogues." Above all, the price of a pamphlet has gone up from 5 cents to 7 cents! I will include my comments from the earlier appearance. I had presumed that this pamphlet of 32 pages containing some thirteen fables was a printing of some sort from the two volumes Reiter did for the Instructor Literature Series. These were Eleven Fables from Aesop (1906) and More Fables from Aesop (1905). Apparently these are simply other stories. They are done for the first grade and are listed as #1 among the seventy-eight books in the School Classic Series. There is still a misprint ("It" for "I") in the first line of 7. In "The Lion, the Bear and the Fox," the lion and bear set out together to hunt their dinner. The argument in SW (25) is presented according to the poorer version. The black-and-white part-page illustrations are simple. This copy is in better condition than the earlier copy.

1908/17 Jewish Fairy Tales and Fables. Aunt Naomi [Gertrude Landa?]. Illustrated by E. Strellett and J. Marks. Hardbound. London: R. Mazin & Co., Ltd. $51 from Meldrum House Antiques, Kamo, Whangarei, New Zealand, June, '00.

This is a curious book. First of all, I spent way too much money for it. Secondly, it is the sixth printing of a book I already have, probably in a first printing. Thirdly, it is curious that its cover has changed slightly. Now there is a tan background, and the title is highlighted by being red. The only other change I can note in the book is the recognition of the printer on 169 has dropped "Selwood Printing Works" and added "Robert Scott." I will add some of my comments from the earlier printing. The Library of Congress has a listing for this book that gives the name of Gertrude Landa for "Aunt Naomi." It suggests the date of 1915; however, their copy was published in NY by Block Publishing Company. This book has been a pleasant surprise to me. The stories are good. There are fourteen stories of varying length and character. There is the story of the slave who became a king for a year but then would have to relinquish his throne. One of several stories close to fable has Fox luring Bruin into a well for the supposed cheese and Bruin drowning there (31). The cover illustration is for the story of the peddlar who barters people's miseries for happiness. In the closest to a traditional fable, the fox enters the vineyard through a gap between the railings. After eating, he must wait for days before getting back out (61). An old man plants a fig tree because he is one hundred years young. Solomon enlists the help of a small bee to answer the difficult question posed by the Queen of Sheba. In a great Jewish story, Honeim the Jewish cobbler outwits the rich Arab who wants to buy shoes from him (85). In another shoe story, a visitor from Athina maligns Jerusalem. Hafiz Ben lures him into making a fool of himself before the people of Jerusalem. Sly fox tries to convince the fish that they can live better out of water, but they are too smart for him. A hunchbacked old rabbi teaches a princess that great things can be inside very modest containers. The tongue convinces the other members that he best represents their interests.

1908/26/38 Tales of Laughter. Edited by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith. Decorated by Elizabeth MacKinstry. NY: Garden City Publishing Co. $12.95 at Downtown Books, Milwaukee, Nov., '92.

Notice the slight shift of title from this book to the 1908/39 edition from the Parents' Institute. See my comments there. Aesopic material includes "The Fox and the Cat" (77), TMCM (206), and BC (232). TMCM includes a chance meeting and mutual Christmas invitations in order to settle a bet on who is better off. The country mouse gets drunk on ale, is caught by the cat, and tells a tale. A banging door gives an opportunity to flee. In the selection and order of stories this edition differs from the 1908/39 edition. This volume is in good condition.

1908/39 Tales of Laughter Every Child Should Know. Edited by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith. Second Series. NY: Doubleday, Doran, and Co. for the Parents' Institute. $5 at Bonifant Books, Oct., '91.

An example of a big collection of well-told children's stories with a few fables mixed in. Boundary lines are hard to draw here. Certain Aesopic material includes "The Fox and the Cat" (81), TMCM (274), and BC (336). Also present are "One's Own Children Prettiest" (323) but told of a hunter and woodcock and "The Race Between the Hare and the Hedgehog" (340). TMCM includes a chance meeting and mutual Christmas invitations. The country mouse gets drunk on ale, is caught by the cat, and tells a tale. A banging door gives an opportunity to flee. A new and excellent tale: "The Fox, the Horse, and the Lion" (153).

1908? A Little Book of Aesop's Fables.  Illustrated by Tom R. Rigby.  Hardbound.  London and Edinburgh: Sands & Company.  £30 from Marchpane, Cecil Court, London, July, '22.

Here is a little treasure from my visit with Matthew Eve at Marchpane in Cecil Court.  Tom R. Rigby is new to me.  His full-page black-and-white illustrations might remind one of Percy Billinghurst's in their format and approach.  They seem to me right for this "little book," since they stress visually and in text a good focus for particular fables.  The book is surprisingly generously illustrated.  TMCM has the city food "hid under the seat" (29).  Like so many before him, Rigby struggles with lion's faces.  "The Little Books Series" is intended "for young and old."  This little book is fragile, and many pages are loose.  93 pages.  About 4" x 5¼".  Oxford and Cambridge are the only places WorldCat lists as having the book besides us!  I am following their guess of 1908.  Our copy is inscribed in 1912.

1908? Fables from Aesop. Illustrated by Percy Billinghurst. Hardbound. London: Henry Frowde and Hodder and Stoughton. £12 from Abbey Antiquarian, June, '98.

I have loved this book from the beginning because of its dramatic, simple cover-illustration of a wolf with glasses reading a book. Inside are twelve strong chromolithographs, one for each story in the unpaginated book. There is a four-page pattern for each story: title-page with a black-and-white illustration, a page of text, the full-page chromolithograph, and a final page of text. The illustrations here are not as stylized as I find Billinghurst in his better known works. The color work here is very pleasing. Do not miss the dramatic red-and-black mouse on the title-page! The fox in FG "was a wise fox, and knew that it is better not to long for things which we cannot have." Green cloth spined pictorial boards. Some foxing. See my identical edition from Stokes in NY under the same year.

1908? Fables from Aesop. Illustrated by Percy Billinghurst. Hardbound. Printed in England. NY: Frederick A Stokes Company. $60 from Magers & Quinn, Minneapolis, Dec., '98.

I have loved this book from the beginning because of its dramatic, simple cover-illustration of a wolf with glasses reading a book. Inside are twelve strong chromolithographs, one for each story in the unpaginated book. There is a four-page pattern for each story: title-page with a black-and-white illustration, a page of text, the full-page chromolithograph, and a final page of text. The illustrations here are not as stylized as I find Billinghurst in his better known works. The color work here is very pleasing. Do not miss the dramatic red-and-black mouse on the title-page! The fox in FG "was a wise fox, and knew that it is better not to long for things which we cannot have." Green cloth spined pictorial boards. See my identical edition from Henry Frowde and Hodder and Stoughton in London under the same year.

1909 Aesop's Fables in Irish--Parts I. to V. Very Rev. Peter Canon O'Leary, P.P. The Leigean Eirean Series, edited by Norma Borthwick. Dublin: The Irish Book Company. $30 from June Clinton, March, '93.

Fifty fables and a vocabulary that stretches almost longer than the fables! Sorry. Since I cannot read this text, I do not have much more to say!

1909 Child Classics: The Third Reader. By Georgia Alexander. With pictures by Alice Barber Stephens, Sarah K. Smith, and Fanny Y. Cory. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. $10 at Horizon Books, Seattle, July, '93.

Six fables. "The Crab and His Mother" (14) is uneventful, with a simple black-and-white engraving. MM (64) has a nice impressionistic black-and-white illustration. MSA (90) is done as a play without illustration. It has "thee" in the nominative several times. The donkey falls from the bridge as they try to turn him over. GA (95) is done in a standard verse presentation without illustration, as is Emerson's "Fable" (132). Tolstoy's "The Two Horses" (229) is brief and pointed: work and you will eat.

1909 Children's Classics in Dramatic Form. Book Two. Augusta Stevenson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. $3 at Renaissance, July, '88. Extra copy in poorer condition for $17.50 from The Book House, Williamsburg, VA, August, '00.

A novel (if direct and naive) approach to children's stories, including ten fables, with standard illustrations.

1909 Fablichonneries.  Georges Gillet.  Illustrées par José Roy.  Hardbound.  Paris: Les Conteurs Joyeux:  Collection Ollendorff.  $30 from Christian Tottino through Bidstart, Oct., '14.  

This is a set of 124 independent titled panels, each presenting a black-and-white cartoon image and a poem with a "moralité."  These are the stuff of newspaper or magazine cartoons that border on the risque and flirtatious.  Not all, from a reading of the first few, are about sex.  A wife wants at last to vacation in Switzerland, and the husband has to inform her "Point d'argent, point de Suisse" (6).  I think there are frequent plays on words.  Might that be at work in this moralité: "Il ne faut pas courir deux lèvres à la fois"?  That is a famous aphorism found in Balzac.  In this case, a man is apparently flirting with two women at once (8).  The following cartoon is about a couple that make love only once a month.  The woman complains.  The man says it is more hygienic.  Does she run off to her dear cousin?  "Où y a de l'hygiène, y a pas de plaisir."  I do not understand the unusual word "fablichonneries," but I suspect that there is a play on fable combined with some other verbal element. Half leather.  Marbled boards.  Bound here with "La Petite Nèfle" by Edmond Deschaumes.

1909 Folk-Lore and Fable: Aesop, Grimm, Anderson. The Harvard Classics, edited by Charles W. Eliot, Volume 17. NY: Collier and Son. $3.50 at Shorey, Seattle, Aug., '85. Second, more expensive, copy with gold embossing on cover and different title page for $.50 from Book Cellar, March, '88. And a third copy with a black cover and spine that originally featured gold embossing, for $1 in DC, April, '92.

An unspectacular selection of Joseph Jacobs' Aesopic fables claims the first 35 pages or so of this collection. It is, as far as I can see, valuable only as testimony to Aesop's popularity. No illustrations. T of C at the beginning of the Aesop section.

1909 Folk Stories and Fables, Vol 1.  Eva March Tappan.  Hardbound.  London: Series: The Children's Hour:  Cassell and Company.  $5 from an unknown source, May, '14.  

This book is allied with one already in the collection, published by Houghton Mifflin in 1907.  This particular edition is, as an early insert proclaims, specially prepared for subscribers by Cassell and Company.  The copyright information on the back of the title-page includes this extra line after the Houghton Mifflin copyright of 1907: "Special English Edition 1909."  The only change I seem to find from the Houghton Mifflin 1907 copy is the lack here of Billinghurst's TH.  There is still Velasquez' portrait of Aesop in black-and-white facing 376.  I also notice "The Country Where the Mice Eat Iron" on 335.  Fables are on 375-383.  No author is acknowledged for the fables.  The most noteworthy feature of the book is the foldout facsimile of the original manuscript of Longfellow's "The Children's Hour."

1909 Gotthold Ephraim Lessings Abhandlungen über die Fabel nebst einem Anhang: Fabeltexte. L. Lütteken. Zweite vermehrte Auflage. Hardbound. Paderborn: Schöninghs Ausgaben deutscher und ausländischer Klassiker mit ausführlichen Erläuterungen: Druck und Verlag von Ferdinand Schöningh. €10 from Antiquariat Richart Kulbach, Heidelberg, August, '12.

Here is a serious German book. I appreciate that this book brings together Lessing's writings on fable. Even more, I appreciate the gathering on some thirty pages (97-129) of the fables he mentions in his various discourses on fables. They come from Aesop, Phaedrus, La Fontaine, Lichtwer, Gellert, and himself. In fact, they make a fine representative little selection of fables. A curiosity of this book is the conflation of two series. The cover and first page both give the series in which this book exists as "Schöninghs Ausgaben deutscher und ausländischer Klassiker mit ausführlichen Erläuterungen." The verso of that page lists "Schöninghs Ausgaben deutscher Klassiker mit ausführlichen Erläuterungen" and lists this book as one of them. The title-page then has a page facing it. On the left page we get the latter, with this book listed as Volume 31. Perhaps Schöningh was not very careful to distinguish one series from another; Lessing could be in both "classic German" and "classic German and foreign." Somehow that approach does not seem very German to me! 

1909 Reineke Fuchs: eine Sage aus dem Königreich der Tiere.  Translated by Severin Rüttgers.  Illustrations by or after von Kaulbach. Hardbound.  Cologne: Schaffsteins Volksbücher #75: Hermann Schaffstein.  €20 from Dresden, July, '24.

Nach der niederdeutschen Ausgabe von 1498 übertragen durch Severin Rüttgers.  This is an unusual version of Reineke in that the text does not follow Goethe's famous version but is rather a translation of the sage as written in 1498.  There is an extensive T of C at the book's beginning covering the four books in detail.  I gather that the course of the story is not different from what we know elsewhere.  I note the early mishandling of Braun and Hinze, the narrow escape from being hanged, the promise of treasure for king and queen, the supposed pilgrim-journey, the beheading of Lampe, the trial, Reineke's fable-telling, the duel with Isegrim, and Reineke's reinstatement at the court.  Some pages are loose.  The 8 illustrations -- including the one laid onto the cloth cover -- seem to me to be either after von Kaulbach or else done from his plates.

1909 Sparks of Truth, or Living Truth in Full Flames. By Rev. W.S. Harris. Illustrated by Paul Krafft, J.R. Connor, Harry E. Knouse, et al. Hardbound. Luther Minter. $20 from Steven Temple Books, Toronto, Jan., '94. Extra copy with a bowed cover and in poor condition for $2.75 from Jill Ivankovits, Coplay, PA, through Ebay, March, '99.

This book, sold by subscription only, began to ring bells after I read a few stories. It turns out that the book takes over almost entirely--and utterly without mention--the earlier Modern Fables and Parables or Moral Truth in a Nutshell from 1903. The preface seems verbatim the same. The number of stories has contracted from 111 to 96. One curiosity that I note as dropping is "The Bug and the Capitalist," which presented social criticism of capitalism. The vast majority of the offerings there, as well as their accompanying illustrations, are back. We have lost the very serious photograph of Harris at the beginning of the book. The beginning still has a T of C, as well as a list of illustrations. The stories continue to disappoint me. They are forced and anti-intellectual. See my comments on the earlier book.

1909 Tales within Tales Adapted from the Fables of Pilpai.  Sir Arthur N. Wallaston.  Hardbound.  London: John Murray.  £22.50 from Tobo Books through ABE, Dec., '21.

Here is a gem.  Wallaston presents Pilpai in an appropriate modern English form.  He claims to be adapting a source from the "end of the fifteenth century."  Might this be Directorium Humanae Vitae?  He does away with the florid poetry of Pilpai and follows a coherent narrative thread.  Within it, he highlights each individual story with a title and groups these into fourteen chapters, each with a heading like "The Danger of Misplaced Confidence" or "Fate, Destiny, and the Cruelties of Fortune," the last two titles.  This may be a source for my favorite "Kalila and Dimna" by Ramsay Wood in 1980.  While there are lots of stories here with which I am well acquainted, there seem to be an equal number that I do not know.  I hope I can get back to teaching Bidpai someday!

1909 The Boston Collection of Kindergarten Stories. Written and Collected by Boston Kindergarten Teachers. Seventh Edition. Hardbound. New York and Boston: J.L. Hammett Company. $7.87 from Bookfever.com., Ione, CA, through abe, Nov., '12.

This collection of over sixty stories for kindergardeners includes some seven fables, including LM (31); TH (57); SW told in the poorer version (74). After 172, there is an unannounced section including four stories: "Aesop's Fables to Be Adapted by Kindergartners." This section includes FG, AD, DS, and "The Lark and Her Young Ones." Notice the typo "litle" on 32: what a bad example for beginning readers or their teachers! 

1909 The Fables of Aesop. Illustrated by Edward J. Detmold. No editor named. First edition? NY: Hodder and Stoughton. Illustrations separately printed and pasted in. $36 from Edward Bowersock, Audubon, NJ, at Silver Spring, Oct., '91. Extra copy in July, '96 from Clare Leeper.

I am delighted to find at last an early Detmold; the good copy is inscribed in 1912. The colored illustrations are lovely. Apparently the frontispiece (TMCM) is missing in both copies. The illustrations are separately printed and pasted in. The combination of cardboard and paste has some of the illustrations waffling. The cover and spine of Aesop teaching are beautifully imprinted. I notice that Detmold follows Babrius' version of "The Monkey and Her Children."

1909 The Ontario Readers: Second Book.  Hardbound.  Toronto: T. Eaton Co.  $13.05 from Haslam's New and Used Books, St. Petersburg, FL, July, '03. 

I had earlier catalogued a 1971 facsimile of the 1923 printing of this book.  Now I find the (original) edition--and perhaps even printing--of 1909.  This reader includes "The Arab and His Camel" (1); "The Bat, the Birds, and the Beasts" (8); DLS (43, illustrated); BC (44); "The Price of a Song" (53, La Fontaine's "The Cobbler and the Financier," acknowledged as by La Fontaine); "The Blind Men and the Elephant" (56, illustrated) by John Godfrey Saxe;  "The Hare with Many Friends" (58), presented as from Aesop rather than Gay; FS (61); TT (62, illustrated); "The Rabbit's Trick" (68, including a duel actually waged by whale and elephant); GA (77, in a verse rendition by an unknown author); AL (94, illustrated, described as "A Roman Tale"); and "The Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal" (128, illustrated), well told by Flora Anne Steel.  The illustrations are black-and-white and are signed by C.W. Jefferys.  There is a T of C at the book's front.  Note "God Save the King" facing 1; there also several scriptural passages and stories here.  The book is in very good condition.  I found it one shelf away from the place where I was directed to find fable books.

1909 The Progressive Road to Reading: Book One. By Georgine Burchill, William L. Ettinger, and Edgar Dubs Shimer. NY: Silver, Burdett and Company. $5.30 at Dinkytown Antiquarian, July, '94.

For fables, one finds here only TMCM on 109, with five lovely (unattributed) black-and-white etchings. See "A First Reader" in 1909/10 for a slight refashioning of this book.

1909 The Progressive Road to Reading: Book Two. By Georgine Burchill, William L. Ettinger, and Edgar Dubs Shimer. NY: Silver, Burdett and Company. $5.30 at Dinkytown Antiquarian, July, '94.

There are three fables here, starting with "The Camel and the Jackal" (5). "The Little Jackals and the Lion" (42) is "The Hare and the Lion" from Kalila and Dimna, but it uses a pool. "The Cock and the Fox" (70) is the Chanticleer story, but here the fox gets the cock down onto the field outside the walls. Once caught, the cock shouts to those pursuing that he is taking the fox to the woods. He thus gets the fox to open his mouth in laughter, and so the cock goes free. Standard black-and-white etchings.

1909 The Two Travelers: A Book of Fables. Carlota Montenegro. Hardbound. Boston: The Poet Lore Company. $10 from Nautilus Books, Turlock, CA, Oct., '98.

This is a book of forty-three stories for reflection roughly a la Kahlil Gibran. I read the first four. The book aptly belonged to the San Francisco Lodge of the Theosophical Society.

1909 Von Löwen und Lausbuben: Fabeln und Firlefanz. Theodor Etzel. Hardbound. Munich and Leipzig: Georg Müller. DM 30 from Leipzig, July, '95.

This volume has some 144 pages and is divided into two sections according to its title. Its black cover pictures a smiling lion and four rascals. There are some curiosities to note about this book. Before its last two pages of standard advertising, it has five pages of published comment on Etzel's three other fable works. How nice that I now have all three in the collection! Those pages are preceded by a remark on the two groups of LaFontaine imitations in the book: three fables (56-61) and three "Schwänke" (droll stories, 68-81). Of the two major sections, "Firlefanz" presents tomfoolery: eighteen short pieces, mostly in verse. The "fable" section includes at its end the three imitations of La Fontaine and three "Makamen," old Arabian improvisations. The La Fontaine fables, rendered here in verse, are MM, 2P, and "Die weltflüchtige Ratte." A cursory reading suggests that they are very faithful to La Fontaine's text and theme. The fables are like those we know from Etzel's other works, a comment on individual and social human weaknesses. Some are prose and some in verse. Many are wonderfully short and pointed, like "Hündin und Henne" (15). "This bitch of a dog shamelessly lures a dozen strange dogs behind her!" So says the hen. "This shameless hen shares with a dozen other hens the favor of one single rooster!" So says the female dog. Or again in "Die Uhr," the clock is in the midst of complaining about lazy men, who lie down and sleep while she works tirelessly through the night, but her complaint stops suddenly because the man forgot to wind her (21). "I build my own house," boasted the snail. "I use people for that purpose," answered the mouse. Good fun! Surprisingly not in Bodemann. 

1909 Zweites Lesebuch: Deutsch-englische Lesebücher für katholische Schulen. No author or artists acknowledged. NY: Benziger Brothers. $.12 at Georgetown University library, Oct., '91.

Another little treasure. This collection of mostly pious stories and prayers includes "Der Fuchs und die Trauben" (37) with an illustration and vocabulary. There are also "The Merchant and the Sailor" and "The Little Goat and the Wolf" (74-5). Even Catholics need fables!

1909/10 A First Reader. By Burchill, Ettinger, and Shimer. California State Series. (c)1910 by the People of the State of California. (c)1909 by Silver, Burdett and Co. Sacramento: Superintendent State Printing. $5 in Lincoln City, Aug., '87. Extra copy for $2 from Vintage Bookshop, North Platte, Jan., '94.

This book represents a very slight modification of The Progressive Road to Reading: Book One from 1909 from the same authors and publisher. The back of the title page notes the dependence on that edition. This book adds diacritical marks to the texts and, in the introduction, one paragraph about the marks. It uses the same plates but has smaller margins.

1909/13 Standard Catholic Readers by Grades: Third Year. Mary E. Doyle. Two Aesopic illustrations by Rinehart? NY: American Book Company. $.25 at Antiquarium, Omaha, Jan., '89.

A Catholic reader! Two fables are especially well told ("The Lark and Her Young" and FWT). There are three others, one (SW) with an evocative drawing.

1909/22 Child Classics: The Second Reader. By Georgia Alexander. With pictures by Alice Barber Stephens, Sarah Stillwell Weber, and Sarah K. Smith. Hardbound. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. $5.75 from Daedalus Books, Charlottesville, April, '98.

This reader, in the same series with another that I have listed under "1909," offers seven fables. Three take only a few lines and are presented almost as page-fillers: GGE (14), DS (43), and FG (58). Two are presented as dialogues: "The Lame Man and the Blind Man" (20) and "The Farmer and the Stork" (72). "Why the Bear Is Stumpy-Tailed" (32) is offered as "A Norse Folk Tale." FS (34) includes two illustrations. The others are done without illustration. The spine is deteriorating on this old schoolbook.

1909/22 Second Reader. By Walter Hervey and Melvin Hix. No illustrator acknowledged. The Horace Mann Readers. NY: Longmans, Green, and Co. $1.50 in Omaha or Boston, Jan., '89.

This book changes the greedy dog with meat or a bone into a crane with a fish. Other fables here are "The Crows and the Doves" and "The Farmer and the Nuts." It is in poor condition.

1909/37 Folk-Lore and Fable: Aesop, Grimm, Anderson. The Harvard Classics, edited by Charles W. Eliot. NY: P.F. Collier and Son. Gift of Linda Schlafer, March, '94.

This volume, in very good condition, has elements of both my 1909 and my 1909/37/69 editions. With the latter it shares pagination and frontispiece but not the fancy binding. With the former it shares the notation that it is Volume 17. This edition has a lovely blue cover. It puts the text reference for the frontispiece on a thin slip-sheet.

1909/37/69 Folk-Lore and Fable: Aesop, Grimm, Anderson. The Harvard Classics, edited by Charles W. Eliot. Registered edition. NY: P.F. Collier and Son. $3.50, Summer, '89.

The texts included seem to be identical in this 1937 edition (sixty-second printing in 1969), but there are many subtle changes: a new frontispiece, no indication that this is Volume 17, and new typeface. This edition has a fancy leatherette cover.

1909/39 Journeys Through Bookland. Volume One. A new and original plan for reading applied to the world's best literature for children. By Charles H. Sylvester. New Edition. Various illustrators. Chicago: Bellows-Reeve Company. $4 at Holmes in Oakland, June, '89.

Thirty-two fables are sprinkled around a lovely book in very good condition. The colored illustrations are fine. Sometimes the morals get developed with concrete applications for children. "The Cat and the Chestnuts" (and monkey) appears in an elaborated version (142-3).

1909/81 The Fables of Aesop.  Illustrated by Edward J. Detmold.  No editor named.  Bound in genuine leather.  Hardbound.  Printed in the U.S.A.  London: Hodder & Stoughton.  $14 at MacIntyre & Moore in Cambridge, Jan., '89.

First published in 1909 by Hodder and Stoughton.  This edition ©1981 by Hodder and Stoughton.  Illustrations separately printed and pasted in with protective sheets.  A much nicer edition than the Crown edition (1985).  The pictures come alive.  Other than the pictures and covers (inside and out), the editions are identical.  I have three varying copies of this book.  Copy A has marbled endpapers and standard page edges.  I found it for $14 at MacIntyre & Moore in Cambridge, Jan., '89.  Copy B is identical with the first except for red satin end-papers rather than marbled paper.  I found it for $14 in August, '89.  Copy C also has red satin cover backing but has a softer red leather cover and gilt-edged pages.  Found for $18 at Powell's, Chicago, Sept. ,'92.

1909/85 The Fables of Aesop. Illustrated by Edward J. Detmold. Classic Collector's Series. No translator mentioned. Dust jacket. Manufactured in Spain. Original 1909 by Hodder and Stoughton, England. NY: Weathervane Books/Crown Publishers. $8.98 at Schwarz, Dec., '85.

Some 300 fables in standard form and twenty-three beautiful colored illustrations. Their shortcoming is that they have little to do with the story. The best of the illustrations may be of the monkeys and their mother facing 41. The stories and illustrations are located far from each other. T of C and list of illustrations at the front; no index. This book could go into a "beautiful books" section of my collection.

1909/94 The Fables of Aesop. Illustrated by Edward J. Detmold. No translator mentioned. First Gramercy printing. Dust jacket. Printed in the U.S.A. Original 1909 by Hodder and Stoughton, England. Avenel, NJ: Gramercy Books. $12.99 at Oxford TOO, Atlanta, Dec., '94.

By contrast with my other versions of Detmold's work, this edition has some 174 pages, since the twenty-three illustrations are numbered pages. A quick check suggests that the print plates are still the same, however. I am surprised to see Detmold reprinted so soon again; see 1909/81 and 1909/85.

1909? La Fontaine: Fables. Préface de Jules Claretie. Collection Gallia. Inscribed in 1913. Paris: Georges Crès et Cie./Londres: J.M. Dent and Sons. $3 at Lord Randall, Marshfield, MA, April, '89.

This is a straightforward, no-nonsense LaFontaine: complete, but with no notes or comments. The preface notes that LaFontaine is the author for those who have lived their life. Its size would make it handy for travelling.

 

To top