Creighton University

• Fables Home
• Introduction & Orientation
• Books of Fables
  • Individual Books
  • Series Books
  • Publications about this collection
  • Search
• Aesop's Artifacts
• Exhibits of This Collection
• Fable Research Resources
• Links - more on Fables
• Fables - Video
• Contact Me

Aesop's Fables > Books of Fables > Individual Books > 1920 to 1929

• 1920 - 1921
• 1922 - 1923
• 1924 - 1925
• 1926 - 1927
• 1928 - 1929

1920 A Spanish Reader. With Exercises. By William Hanssler and Clarence E. Parmenter. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons. $2.50 at A-Z Books, North Platte, Jan., '94.

Before the second and third parts of this reader go on to Latin America and to Spanish literature, respectively, its first part presents some easily readible segments, among which are three Aesopic fables: "El burro y la sal" (illustrated, 23), GGE (verse, 39), and BC (illustrated, 42). The last is followed by a version in verse.

1920 Aesop's Fables Interpreted Through Music. Mabel Wood Hill. Paperbound. NY: J. Fischer & Bro. $10 from Peter Manno, Frisco, TX, through eBay, Feb., '09.

Here are seven fables set to music: OF, LM, MM, TH, FC, "The Two Crabs," and GA. The format is large, as is frequent with music for piano playing: 9¼" x 12¼". The whole pamphlet is 28 pages long. There is a prologue ("or epilogue"): "These tales were old when Aesop lived. He told them all anew -- But morals good for people then -- Are just as good for you!" There is a moral under each fable title. OF interrupts its singing at the very end. "But then he burst" is spoken rather than sung (4). MM closes with "'Ah my child!' said her mother" (11). I do not think I have seen that element before. The hare lies down to take a nap to show his contempt for the tortoise (14). This is not the way the story is always told. The crow in FC is female. GA closes laconically: "When winter came the Ant had food, But the Grasshopper found himself dying" (25). The front cover is separated. There are some pencil and red marks along the way. Harrison Weir's illustration of LM is on the cover and title-page, but that is the only illustration. Signed on the top of the cover by Jesse K. Bailey, Jr.

1920 Alte Tier Fabeln. Aus Karl Wilhelm Ramlers Fabellese, Leipzig 1783. Mit Steinzeichnungen von August Gaul. Limited edition of 110 hand-pressed copies. Dust jacket. Berlin: Paul Cassirer. $25 through Bibliofind from Megabooks, Palo Alto, Oct., '97.

Forty-six fables. Traditional fables (like FG; "The Lion, the Ass, and the Fox"; FC, which is overturned in a second phase; AD with a bee instead of an ant; GA; "The Goat, the Lamb, and the Pig"; and "The Lion and the Ass") are intermixed with a majority of stories new to me. I enjoy the opinions of the scientific birds on 10-11. When a poisonous insect (34) shoots its poison at a glow-worm and is asked "Why did you do that?" it asks in return "Why do you glow?" The dust jacket is missing an inch at the top of the spine. Do not miss the red gilt lettered label on the front cover. T of C at the end. I found a fine traditional treasure here!

1920 Amoralische Fabeln. Von Lisa Wenger. Mit Zeichnungen von Carl D. Petersen. Jena: Eugen Diederichs. DM 28 at Antiquariat Müller & Gräff, Stuttgart, July, '95.

My one find in the short time I had in Stuttgart after taking a train in for a lunch with Friedo Ricken, who trained in from Munich. There are twenty-six stories of four-to-six pages each touching critically and mockingly on social mores, particularly dealing with marriage, diversity, and how to get along in society. Most frequently cheery, like the good "Das unschuldige Lämmlein" (19) or "So oder So!" (27), but sometimes tragic and pointed, like "Der weiße Maulwurf" (14). In the very first story ("Was das Schäfchen sagen darf und was nicht!"), a female lamb learns to say neither that she wants to marry nor that she wants not to marry; rather she should just stay silent until she is engaged, and then she can say whatever she wants. "Das Festessen" (34) may be the funniest story in the first half of the book. "Das kluge Huhn" (50) tells of a dumb hen who was wise enough to be silent with men and to ask women about their children. One or two quarter-page illustrations per fable. Maybe the best illustration stands across from the T of C at the back: a bespectacled bird looks down on the "Finis" page of a book.

1920 Das Buch der Fabeln. Zusammengestellt von C.H. Kleukens. Eingeleitet von Otto Crusius. Second edition. Hardbound. Leipzig: Insel Verlag. DM 65 from Hatry, Heidelberg, August, '98. 

This book has a strong sense of itself, starting from the leather spine and the embossed cover displaying a peacock. Crusius offers a sixty-three page introduction on the history of the fable. Babrius, Phaedrus, Avianus, and Romulus represent the ancient world. A rich sampling of German fables starts with Der Alte Spervogel about 1150 and moves up through Boner, Waldis, Luther, Sachs, and Alberus. Leonardo and La Fontaine are included, as are Iriarte, Kyrlov, and Andersen. Kleukens even includes two fables of his own (198). At the end one finds sections on "Volksfabeln," and fables of Asiatic, African, and North American peoples, respectively. The only interior art is on the title page, which includes vignettes of several animals and birds. The texts, both prose and verse, are in Gothic script.

1920 Fabels van Aesopus.  Bewerkt door Hermanna.  Geillustreerd door G. Wildschut.  Amsterdam: H. Meulenhoff.  €12.50 from Antiquariaat Klikspaan, Leiden, through Abe, July, '16.

1920 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. See 1906/20.

1920 Fables de La Fontaine classées par Ordre de Difficulté avec Notice en Tète de chaque Fable et notes. Par A. Gazier. 34th edition. Hardbound. Paris: Librairie Armand Colin. €4.50 from Jean-Pierre Bouleau, Privas, France, through eBay, August, '04. 

Here is a later copy of a very curious book that I already have in its thirtieth edition from 1916. It classifies and organizes La Fontaine's fables in three levels: suitable for little children, moderately difficult, and difficult. The book then drops those fables--and those parts of fables--not suitable for children and presents these three levels with simple notes and pictures less of fables than of the objects one finds in each fable. From the back, there is first of all a T of C, then an AI of fables presented here, then the classic division into twelve books with the corresponding page numbers here, and finally the fables. This copy is in better condition than the earlier copy.

1920 Fables Retold. A. Isabelle Gibbons. Vom Humboldt School Art Club. $26 from Joe Ribar, Hudson, NY, Sept., '99.

Thirty-one pages containing twenty-two traditional prose fables and primitive illustrations. My guess is that Ms. Gibbons gathered into this pamphlet the art work of the eleven students listed on the title page. I love finding items like this to bring into the collection! The very first fable, "The Two Foxes," is a rather rare story told by Dodsley (2.40). In fact, the version here may be a simplified version of Dodsley's text. The second fable seems to borrow from James with its final phrase "stuffed with straw." The cover illustration, taken from 15, gives a sense of the methods the young artist uses to differentiate the several mice. One of the two staples has lost its grip. "The Dog and the Goose" (20) and "The Hen and the Horses" (22) are new to me. The text includes "disapper" (11) and "starring eyes" (26). There is a T of C at the beginning.

1920 Folk Stories and Fables. By Carolyn Sherwin Bailey. Illustrated by Frederick A. Nagler. For the Children's Hour Series. Springfield, MA: Milton Bradley Company. See 1916/20.

1920 Hand-Made Fables. By George Ade. Illustrated by John T. McCutcheon. First edition. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, and Co. $15 at Booksellers Row, Chicago, May, '89. Extra copy with inverted frontispiece for $7.50 from Half Price Books, Seattle, July, '93.

Vintage Ade. I believe this is some of his latest work. There is nothing Aesopic here, but there are some very funny stories--and an education in the slang and dialect of the time. The McCutcheon illustrations are lively.

1920 John Martin's Big Book for Young People. Volume 4 of a seven-volume set. NY: Collier and Son. See 1919/20/21/24/26/29.

1920 John Martin's Big Book for Young People. Volume 5 of a seven-volume set. NY: Collier and Son. See 1919/20/24/28.

1920 John Martin's Big Book for Young People. Volume 6 of a seven-volume set. NY: Collier and Son. See 1919/20/22/23/24/32.

1920 Les Fables d'Esope Phrygien Illustrées de Discours Moraux, Philosophiques, et Politiques.  Avec des Reflexions Morales Par J. Baudoin.  Unknown artist.  Nachwort von Michael Birkenbihl.  #34 of 220.  Hardbound.  Brussels/Munich: Chez François Foppens/J. Michael Müller Verlag.  $175.99 from Arkady Reznikov, Newtown, PA, through eBay, Feb., '14.  

1920 McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader. Revised Edition. Eclectic Educational Series. No illustrator acknowledged. NY: American Book Company. See 1879/1920.

1920 Studies in Reading: Second Grade. J.W. Searson, George E. Martin, and Lucy Williams Tinley. Illustrated by Ruth Mary Hallock. Lincoln: University Publishing Company. See 1918/20/26.

1920 Studies in Reading: Third Grade. J.W. Searson and George E. Martin. Illustrated by Ruth Mary Hallock. Lincoln: University Publishing Company. See 1918/20.

1920 The Elson Readers: Book Two. By William H. Elson and Lura E. Runkel. Most illustrations by L. Kate Deal. Hardbound. Printed in Chicago: 12 Year Reading-Literature Program: Scott, Foresman and Company. $10 from The Book Eddy, Knoxville, TN, April, '00. 1928 printing for $6.50 from Bluestem Books, Lincoln, Dec., '97. 1929 printing for $12.50 at Curious Book Shoppe, Los Gatos, Nov., '97. 1930 printing somewhere in North Carolina for $6.50, June, '97.

There is a fable section (38-50) containing five stories, each illustrated with at least one very nice one-colored illustration. In GA, the grasshopper opens discussion during the summer, asking why the ant works so hard. When the ant says that she is working so that she has food for winter, the grasshopper says that winter is a long way off and goes away singing. The ant's last statement is curious: "Now you may dance for your supper" (39). In OF, the little ones are not hurt; they just see an ox for the first time. After two puffs, the frogs say that even if she were to try till she bursts, their mother will not be half as big as this beast. She tries again and again and does burst. In MSA, the miller unties the donkey, throws away the pole, and does as he thought good at first, with all three parties walking. "Little Mouse and the Strangers" is a mother-child dialogue about meeting the cat and the cock. Also DM. There is also "The Elephant and the Monkey" (57), who learn that they need each other's gifts; there is no resolution to the question "Is it better to be strong or to be quick?" Finally, "The New Voices" (63) allows all the animals to take on different voices; the result is that they harm each other seriously, and they are changed back to their old voices. The 1920 copy is inscribed in 1924. Page 23 is missing in the 1920 copy. Some pages are pencilled in the 1928 copy, slightly torn in the 1929 copy, and--particularly OF--weak in coloring in the 1930 copy. I will keep all four in the collection.

1920 The Golden Blackbird Story Book: A Treasury of Sunshine Stories for Children. Illustrations by Frederick Richardson. Hardbound. Philadelphia: Winston Easy-to-Read Books: The John C. Winston Co. $2.50 from Black Swan, Oakland, Feb., '04. 

Here is a lovely little 95 page book with a pasted-on picture on its blue cloth cover. There are many fables late in the book. "The Monkey and the Crocodile" (64) turns around not the heart but the skin of the monkey, which has allegedly been left back at home. I find this story harder to believe than the traditional version. This story is followed by six fables. "The Wise Tortoise" (71) is TT but with an excellent interchange that leads to the tortoise's open mouth and subsequent death. Someone on the ground asks who was wise enough to think of the trick of riding on a stick carried by two ducks. The proud tortoise cannot resist answering. There is a good illustration for TT on 73. It may have been used elsewhere. New to me is "Why the Dog Is an Enemy of the Cat" (81). The stories after the announced fables include "The Lion and the Mosquitoes" (91), also new to me. The lion refuses to give up his claim to drink from the well in which the mosquitoes have lived all their lives. The lion jumps into the well to attack them. TMCM is presented as a drama (93). The verso of the title-page mentions another copyright in 1917.

1920 Trois Fables de Jean de La Fontaine.  André Caplet.  Pamphlet.  Paris: A. Durand & Fils: Durand & Cie.  $30 from Partitions Anciennes: Librairie Musicale, Blois, France, April, '19.

1920 Von Mensch und Tier: Ein Fabelbuch fur die deutsche Jugend.  Walther Schwabe.  Mit 12 Tonbildern nach Radierungen von Professor Walter Klemm.  Dust-jacket.  Hardbound.  Stuttgart: K. Thienemanns Verlag.  €10.70 from Neusser Buch-&-Kunst Antiquariat per ZVAB, July, '14.  

1920 Windmills: A Book of Fables. By Gilbert Cannan. First American edition? Hardbound. Printed in USA. NY: B.W. Huebsch. $28 from Katahdin Books, Queensbury, NY, Jan., '02.

I have read far enough--four chapters into the first story--to know that these are not fables in the Aesopic sense. I have enjoyed the reading thoroughly and plan to pursue it. What we have here is satire and very enjoyable satire at that. If we need to further specify the genre, then we are probably dealing with a short story or a novella that is satiric. I take it that the general target is England before World War II, though any empire, including the German before World War II, will do as the referent. The edition has a "Preface to the American Edition."

1920 Windmills: A Book of Fables. By Gilbert Cannan. First American edition? Hardbound. NY: B.W. Huebsch. $2.99 from J.D. Sheehan, Wildwood, FL, through eBay, Dec., '11.

I had forgotten that I already have a copy of this book, purchased in 2002 from Katahdin Books, Queensbury, NY. This copy has a canvas binding and paper boards. And it cost 10% of what the other copy cost. Let me repeat my comments from there. I have read far enough--four chapters into the first story--to know that these are not fables in the Aesopic sense. I have enjoyed the reading thoroughly and plan to pursue it. What we have here is satire and very enjoyable satire at that. If we need to further specify the genre, then we are probably dealing with a short story or a novella that is satiric. I take it that the general target is England before World War II, though any empire, including the German before World War II, will do as the referent. The edition has a "Preface to the American Edition."

1920/21 Children's Literature. Charles Madison Curry and Erle Elsworth Clippinger. Hardbound. Chicago: Rand McNally. $2.50 at a San Francisco Flea Market, August, '88.

I already have in the collection a copy of the 1926 reprinting of this book. Here is a more original 1921 printing, perhaps even a first printing. It contans a comprehensive collection of fables from seventeen different sources, with a bibliography and an introduction on fables (262-300). The introduction wisely points out that fables are not lighthouses but lanterns for our lives. 

1920/26 Children's Literature. A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes. Edited, with introductions, notes, and bibliographies by Charles Madison Curry and Erle Elsworth Clippinger. Chicago: Rand McNally. $5.98 at Half-Price Books in St. Paul, July, '89.

A comprehensive collection of fables from seventeen different sources, with a bibliography and an introduction on fables (262-300). The introduction wisely points out that fables are not lighthouses but lanterns for our lives.

1920? A Book of Fables Very Simply Told for Infants. Gladys Davidson. Paperbound. London and Edinburgh: T.C. & E.C. Jack. $2.50 from oldbooksgrandma through eBay, Sept., '10.

This is an intermediate-sized (about 5" x 7") pamphlet of 32 pages without illustration. The red canvas cover shows on its front a young man and woman sitting on a loveseat with a large book open on their laps. The texts seem to me not to be so simply told as the title proclaims. They mix poetry and prose. Often the moral is given in verse. FWT, GGE, MM, LM, FC, WSC, TMCM, FS, DS, FG, TH, UP, "The Mice and the Cat" (hanging by a nail), "The Eagle and the Brave Mother Fox," DM, "Mercury and the Woodman," and BC. The point of the last fable is that the clever young mouse who proposes the belling plan is nowhere to be seen when it comes to executing the plan. This book seems to have had many previous possessors, including the Brandon School Board, Alexandra School, and H.L. Dobson.

1920? A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine. With pictures by Percy J. Billinghurst. No editor acknowledged. Third Edition. London: John Lane The Bodley Head. See 1900/20?.

1920? Aesop A Thainig Go h-Eirinn. Peadar Ua Laoghaire. Hardbound. Teor: Brun Agus O Nuallain. €25 from Dublin Bookbrowsers, April, '11.

Some ninety-four fables in this book of 138 pages with a bright red cloth cover showing BW in white. There are delightful little black-and-white illustrations, like that for the battling frog and mouse on 35; one hardly notices the huge claws descending from the sky. In fact the stories open with a fine quack frog on 9. Enjoy the contrasting expressions on the faces of the two pots on 55. TB on 65 is funny, as the supposedly dead traveller under the bear's weight and scrutiny keeps one eye open. The black-and-white illustration for BW is on 134, and it is good. I wish I could fill in more information, like the artist's name and the publisher's location; Gaelic script is temptingly close to our own. I have a lingering suspicion that I have seen these illustrations elsewhere. Start your search with the smug fox on 126. 

1920? Aesop's Fables. No author. Illustrations by Billinghurst, Weir, Rackham, and Griset. NY: Hurst and Co. $1.50 from Constant Reader.

A remarkable book in poor condition. The frontispiece picture is of an Indian attacking a buffalo! The last fifteen pages or so are missing, and in their stead 45-57 or so are repeated! The only original illustration is a page border signed "T.G." that is repeated on every page! The book is worth showing as a typical example of what happens to a family's Aesop: it gets used (up).

1920? (Aesop's Fables). (Billinghurst, Weir, Rackham, and Griset). Hardbound. NY: Hurst?. $2 from Mark Hertel, Evansville, IN, through eBay, Sept., '05.

This item sets the record as the most used-up "book" in the collection. "Book" is a euphemism. What is here is pages 7 through 156 of what seems identical with a book I have from perhaps 1920 published by Hurst and titled "Aesop's Fables." The pages show water damage and are very brittle. The distinguishing mark of this book remains the page border signed "T.G." It is repeated on every page. I mentioned of the Hurst edition that it is "a typical example of what happens to a family's Aesop: it gets used (up)." This item makes that demonstration even more dramatically! 

1920? Aesop's Fables. Based Upon The Versions Of La Fontaine, Croxall & L'Estrange. NY: J.H. Sears & Company. $10 at Book Gallery, El Paso, August, '96.

This little book brims with questions. First, do I not recognize these covers of a boy and girl, respectively, reading? Next, how does this text expand the usual set of texts derived from Rundell (sometimes labelled "J.B.R.") from its usual 401 to the 426 fables here? Comparing the book with others in the tradition is difficult because a page is missing, and I believe it (143-44) is an especially important one, because it begins the second part of the book. It includes, e.g., the beginning of "The Hare and Many Friends." Even the book's subtitle is slightly different here, perhaps since there are no illustrations, for the usual subtitle is "With texts based chiefly upon…." One work that seems new by comparison with others in this tradition is "Hodge and Raven" (171) in verse. T of C at the front, numbered in tens by a previous owner. There is a page of advertisements for Sears' books at the back. Travel and little, and you will discover some strange things….

1920? Aesop's Fables. Pamphlet. Chicago: Little Classic Series: A. Flanagan Company. $10.76 from John Abbas, Dixon, IL, through Ebay, Feb., '00.

A thirty-four page booklet listed as appropriate for the first grade. A "Five Cent Edition" if one buys at least five booklets! Otherwise one has to pay a whole six cents! There are many monosyllabic words and short sentences here. There is a simple line drawing for each of the fables. The hare here intends to take a nap along the way. In GA, the grasshopper says that he was singing and dancing all summer, and the ant says he can do both all winter. In SW, there is no bet. The wind sees the man and says that he can blow his cloak off. When he fails, the sun says "I can make him take it off," and the wind answers "Let me see you do it." I think any first-grader will see through that story! Also included: CP, FC, BC, "The Fox and the Lion," "The Dove and the Bee," BW, DS, LM, FG, "The Kid and the Wolf," and "The Fox and the Cat." The booklet is in delicate condition.

1920? Aesop's Fables. Pamphlet. Chicago: Little Classic Series: A. Flanagan Company. $5 from Linda Karaba, Albion, MI, through eBay, Dec., '06. Extra copy for $9.99 from Margaret Hamlin, Duluth, MN, through eBay, Sept., '10.

I have another copy of this booklet in a different printing. I will refer to it by the name of the man who sold it to me on eBay in 2000, John Abbas. This Karaba copy found in 2006 may be older. The only difference I can find in the two booklets comes on their covers. The inside front cover of the Abbas copy seems more extensive in its listings, for example, of "five cent editions" for "eighth and high school grades." My guess is that Flanagan developed greater and greater listings in time, and so there are fewer in this earlier, Karaba copy. The layout of these pages has also changed. As I mentioned in commenting on the Abbas copy, this is a thirty-four page booklet listed as appropriate for the first grade. It is a "Five Cent Edition" if one buys at least five booklets! Otherwise one has to pay a whole six cents! There are many monosyllabic words and short sentences here. There is a simple line drawing for each of the fables. The hare here intends to take a nap along the way. In GA, the grasshopper says that he was singing and dancing all summer, and the ant says he can do both all winter. In SW, there is no bet. The wind sees the man and says that he can blow his cloak off. When he fails, the sun says "I can make him take it off," and the wind answers "Let me see you do it." I think any first-grader will see through that story! Also included: CP, FC, BC, "The Fox and the Lion," "The Dove and the Bee," BW, DS, LM, FG, "The Kid and the Wolf," and "The Fox and the Cat." Both booklets are in delicate condition. This copy seems to have a brown honeycomb pattern on its cover, as though it had been up against a lattice for a long time. The extra copy has a cleaner cover but some internal handwriting and smudging. I will keep both in the collection.

1920? Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by Edgar Norfield. Paperbound. The Children's Press. $1.99 From Francine Day, Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, through eBay, Oct., '02. 

This is a large-format (about 8" x 11") book stapled together with identical front and back colored covers and heavy-stock paper for its pages. The front cover is creased. Nineteen fables are told and illustrated, using from about one to three pages apiece. The black-and-white line drawings inside this booklet seem to me only average. The spine of this book is weakening. There is already a portion at the bottom missing. SW is told in the better fashion.

1920? Aesop's Fables (cover title: Aesop's Fables for the Children). No editor acknowledged. Illustrations signed by Savile Lumley. Inscribed in 1921. London: J. Alfred Sharp: the Epworth Press. $9.50 from Voltaire and Rousseau, Glasgow, July, '92.

A remarkable find in very good condition. Fifty-two fables, listed in a T of C at the beginning. No numbers on the pages. Four full-color inserted pages of rather simple art ("The Cock, the Fox and the Dog" on the frontispiece; MM; TB; and "The Hunter and the Thief"), many two-colored pictures (including two--FG and DS--in which the red color misses the black lines), and even more line drawings. The latter represent the best art of all here. The cover picture of WL looks like it was done through painting by numbers.

1920? Aesop's Fables. Retold by Blanche Winder. Hardbound. London and Melbourne: Ward, Lock & Co. AU $4 from Mary Kreppold, Melbourne, Australia, through eBay, Sept., '05. 

Here is a fragile book of 256 pages. As the opening T of C shows, there are 58 fables. This is the only non-illustrated edition I have of Blanche Winder's work. Normally her texts are associated with the visual work of Harry Rountree. Her texts are also used in a 1965 Airmont paperbound edition that does not declare who its artist is. It looks as though this edition once had a picture pasted onto its cover, but that picture is gone. It seems as though a little of its glue remains.

1920? Aesop's Fables.  Retold by Blanche Winder.  Dust-jacket.  Hardbound.  London and Melbourne: Ward, Lock & Co.  €20 from a buchinist in Paris, July, '22.

1920? Aesop's Fables as told by the Poll-Parrot Solid Leather Shoemakers: Drawing Book. Pamphlet. Star Brand Shoes. $29.51 from Downtown Antique Mall, West Plains, MO, through Ebay, May, '00. Extra copy in poorer condition but with the package of four crayons for $12 from Clara Zechin, Rapid City, SD, through eBay, June, 2005. Also an extra copy in fair condition for $18.27 from Robert Mayle, Mingo Jct., OH, through Ebay, April, '00.

This 6" square pamphlet is in mint condition. As happens so often, I found this copy within weeks of finding the pamphlet for the first time--in fact of learning that it existed. This is a drawing book for children, with numbers of the basic eight colors assigned to each section of the illustration presented for each of the nine fables here. The first illustration is also shown in an already-colored version. The last line of TH adds a good second half to its moral: "The race is not always to the swift, and it does not pay to underestimate your rival's ability." This pamphlet comes stamped by "Harker & Son in Platteville, Wisc." The pamphlet comes with a box of crayons.

1920? Broderies & Ouvrages de Dames, Les Fables de La Fontaine, Album #4.  Pamphlet journal.  Paris: Broderies & Ouvrages de  Dames.  $29.99 from Jorge Daniel Muñoz Rodriguez, Puebla, Mexico, through Ebay, Feb., '20.

1920? Comic Fables with Morals Advertising Washburn Crosby's Gold Medal Flour. Pamphlet. $9.98 from Joann Cummings, Colfax, Iowa, through Ebay, April, '00. Extra copy in poorer condition but on different paper for $6 from Richard Graham, Oswego, NY, through eBay, June, '05.

This lovely little pamphlet, in surprisingly good condition, has the printed stamp on its back of Grant Ramsey of Grinnell, Iowa, one of the many grocers happy to sell Gold Medal Flour. The multi-colored pictures are excellent. In the first of the six fables, a tramp broke several teeth biting on a pie crust which he had expected to be hard. It had been made with Gold Medal Flour, and so his hard chomp was unnecessary! These simple stories show that Gold Medal Flour brings women proposals of marriage, praise, success, and prizes. The Moral to "The Fable of the Rich Man and His Appetite" is "Healthy Food is better than Health Foods." I will keep the extra copy in the collection because of its different-textured paper.

1920? Complete Collection of Ivan Krylov's Fables with Numerous Illustrations (Russian).  Illustrator not acknowledged.  Hardbound.  Berlin: Olga Diakova and Company.  $10 from morhu_zorya through Ebay, Dec., '20. 

1920? das buch der weißhait der alten weisen. Text after Anton Pforr. Woodcuts after the Ulm edition of 1483. Canvas-bound. Berlin: Mauritius Verlag. DEM 80 from Frankfurter Bücherstube, Frankfurt, June, '95.

Here is a 9" x 12" canvas-bound book with boards from perhaps the 20's. It is a treasure! The fables and beautiful woodcuts here are taken from the 1483 Ulm edition of Buch der Beispiele der alten Weisen. Anton von Pforr there translated into German these famous and widely circulated Indian fables from the Panchatantra. The present collection takes only animal fables and preserves as much as is possible of the medieval language. Two stories were seriously shortened: "Dymna und Kellila" and "Die Raben und die Aren." (Is that "The Ravens and the Owls"?) The latter is of course a great story of Sinon-like betrayal. This edition starts with a "Vorred" on the history of the stories and their purposes. By my count, there are fifteen fables here, with a total of twenty-five illustrations. Every story is illustrated with at least one illustration. What we are used to as "The Lion and the Hare" here uses a fox instead of the hare; it still has the same gambit of bringing the lion to a well. Elephants and jackals are very curiously pictured here! New to me is "Der kranke Aff," a story of one ape who brings another, sick ape to a dragon's lair on a pretext of getting him healed; once the sick ape is consumed by the dragon, the devious ape takes over his home. Also new is "die Linsen," the story of an ape who comes down from his tree and steals beans but has to let them go one by one as he climbs back up his tree. "Die listige Vogel" is begun within the story of the crow avenging the snake beneath his home, but there is no return then to the main story! Also new to me is "wider den Tod is kein Kraut." It tells the story of a man who lives through many dangers only to have a wall fall upon him while he is healing! Another new story pictures a cat but speaks strangely of "ein Tier, das war gleich einem Hund, der die Mäus nicht mag"). The biggest mouse makes an offer of peace to this cat which answers nobly that it cannot accept against its owner's interest. The cat offers three days for the mouse to find a new place to live. When the mouse is not bothered on the first and second days, it presumes that it can go on living as before. On the third day, it is captured and eaten. The work is unpaginated, and the binding is loose.

1920? das buch der weißhait der alten weisen.  Anton Pforr.  Ulm.  Canvas bound.  Berlin: Mauritius Verlag.  €80 from Antiquariat Kitzinger, Munich, July, '19.

1920? Das Fabelbuch. Eine Auswahl von Aesop's Fabeln. Mit vielen Schwarz-Weiß Zeichnungen von Arthur Rackham. Illustrierte Universal-Bücherei. Munich: Phoebus Verlag. $20 through Interloc from Arundel Books of Los Angeles, Sept., '97.

This is a little book with a damaged spine and a fine selection of Rackham's black-and-white work integrated into the text: silhouettes, smaller designs, and full-page illustrations (the latter with blank backs). T of C at the end. When I ordered it, I thought I was getting the German reprint look-alike of the 1912 Heinemann edition. A nice surprise.

1920? Das Fabelbuch: Eine Auswahl der schönsten Fabeln für die Jugend. Bearbeitet von Karl Becker. Mit zwölf Bildern. Hardbound. Berlin: Verlag Jugendhort. €38 from Dresdener Antiquariat, Dresden, August, '06.

This is really two books bound together. The cover has a colored illustration of WC. The beginning T of C covers both books. The texts of the first half bring together German fabulists, Aesop, and La Fontaine. The second half is "100 Fabeln für Kinder von Wilhelm Hey -- Nebst einem ernsthaften Anhange." The first half is 128 pages long and includes one-hundred-fifty-four numbered fables. There is a good mixture of prose and verse. The title-page advertises twelve pictures. I find four full-page colored pictures. The frontispiece shows a lion reclining in a farmyard. The second (64) shows a wolf or dog outside a barn but inside a fence. The third (112) shows monkeys wearing boots. The fourth (II 48) shows the bear bringing a very large rock to kill the fly on his sleeping friend's nose. Black-and-white partial-page illustrations show the eagle releasing the turtle in mid-air (47), WC (65), FC (118), "Murmeltier tanzt" (II 10), "Die Ziege" (26), and "Bär und Klotz" (II 44). It may be that two pictures have fallen out of this old text, or that my search missed two, or that the publisher told a partial truth.

1920? Fables Ancient and Modern Adapted for the Use of Children. Edward Baldwin, Esq. Eleventh edition. London: Thomas Tegg. See 1840/1920?.

1920? Fables and Other Poems by John Gay. With a biographical Sketch of the Author. Undersized. London: William S. Orr and Co. $11.40 at Cooper Hay, Glasgow, July, '92.

I do not know if this book qualifies as an authentic miniature, but it is surely the smallest Gay that I have. The book packs in a surprising amount of material, as the opening T of C shows: both sets of fables, fifty and seventeen respectively, and some ninety pages of poetry. The life is by Dr. Johnson. Gilt page edges. The book may well be older than 1920. Good condition.

1920? Fables for Little Folks. Pamphlet. Colgate's Ribbon Dental Cream. $8.03 from Bob Niederhauser, Anamosa, Iowa, through Ebay, June, '99. Extra copy for $11.05 from Paul and Teresa Fisher, Pottstown, PA, through Ebay, Sept., '00.

Pamphlet 3.3" x 4.25" containing seven short prose fables with exquisite colored illustrations. The cover has a stage of animals with an audience of two children, the center page a rebus poem, the last page children's height being measured by a giant "Colgate's Ribbon Dental Cream" package ("Growing Up With Colgate's"), and the back cover the same two children reading "Fables for Me" and dreaming of animals. A random check does not place the texts among those I have processed. The fables are: LM, "The Kid and the Wolf," "The Donkey, the Cock and the Lion," "The Tortoise and the Eagle," GB, "The Peacock and the Crane" (my prize-winner for best illustration), and WC. This kind of popular and off-the-beaten-track kind of find is what I treasure especially! I crosslist this item on my advertising page.

1920? Fables from Aesop. Retold by Dorothy King. Hardbound. London & Glasgow: Blackie Stories Old and New: Blackie & Son. £8 from Steven Pedlar, Surrey, UK, through eBay, March, '04. Two extra copies with different colored cloth covers: tan for £13.17 from Tom McEwan, Ayrshire, Scotland, through eBay, Sept., '03 and green for $22.70 from alibris, Nov., '02.

This is a book I almost missed. It looks familiar. Even after I received it, I thought it must be a copy of something I already have. Its front cover features a pasted colored illustration of a peacock with a crane soaring into the air. The same picture, the only colored illustration inside the book, is the frontispiece, signed by Allan Carter. There is an AI at the front of the book. I count one hundred and fourteen fables on 128 pages. Many of the twenty-five black-and-white illustrations, half-page and full-page, are also signed by Carter. Among the best of these is FK (14). The extra copies have different colored cloth on their covers--tan and green rather than gray--and the McEwan copy has a simple design for endpapers rather than the bow-and-ribbon design of the other two. The McEwan copy was inscribed in 1937. I will keep all three in the collection.

1920? Fables of Aesop and La Fontaine. Illustrated in Colours by G. Vernon-Stokes. London: Geographia Ltd./NY: Geographia Inc. £10.50 from Children's Bookshop, Hay-on-Wye, June, '98.

There are thirty fables from Aesop and ten from La Fontaine in this oversized book with cardboard covers. The spine is particularly worn. T of C at the front. Inserted among the text-pages are these full-page colored illustrations: BF (1), "The Lion and the Four Bulls" (10), DS (17), DW (21), OF (28), "The Bruin and the Bees" (60), and "The Partridge and the Hare" (86). The colored illustrations seem to be done with soft-focus pastels. The method may show up best in "The Bruin and the Bees" (60). Perhaps the best of the thirty or so partial-page black-and-white illustrations shows the woman, knife in hand, with her head buried in her arms on the table next to the dead goose (68). On 49, the city dog chases three mice, even though there are only two in the story. The texts are longish prose. I could not find a source from a random sampling of them. The cover raises the images nicely of the fox, vine, and grapes as well as the print of the title. Inscribed at Christmas, 1921.

1920? Famous Fables in Modern Verse. No author or illustrator acknowledged. London and Edinburgh: Nelson and Sons. $7.50 at Andover Antiquarian Books and Gallery, Feb., '89.

Good graphics for the fifteen fables in a nice small book.

1920? Fox Fables (Hebrew).  Pamphlet.  Jerusalem:  Publisher not acknowledged.  Printed by Zukerman.  $10 from Dr. Baruch Falach, Netanya, Israel, May, '12.

1920? Funfzig Fabeln für Kinder. Von Wilhelm Hey. Mit Bildern von Otto Speckter. Hardbound. Insel-Bücherei Nr. 309: Insel-Verlag. $12 from Second Story Books, Washington, D.C., Dec., '02. 

Unnumbered fables on numbered pages 5-54. No appendix. The illustrations are imitations of those in, e.g., the volume I have listed under "1845?". The covers and format seem typical for Insel publications. Here the cover has blue stars within white circles on a yellow background. Are we to think that Insel hired a copyist to create new illustrations modeled on those in the more original editions? Should we also presume that there is no problem with calling these Speckter's illustrations when they are really only "after" Speckter?

1920? Hundert und acht Äsop'sche Fabeln für die Jugend. Mit vier Bildern in Farbendruck nach Aquarellen von Walter Zweigle. Sechste, durchgesehene Auflage. Hardbound. Stuttgart: Verlag von Wilhelm Nitzschke. $6.99 from Roy Cary, Canastota, NY, through eBay, Nov., '01.

Neu bearbeitet und mit moralischen Anmerkungen versehen. Not in Bodemann. Seventy-two pages plus four inserted water-color illustrations. T of C at the beginning notes the four fables that have the colored illustrations. It can be fascinating to compare this sixth edition with an earlier, perhaps first, edition I have listed under "1890?". The printer has changed from H. Christian to Carl Liebich, both in Stuttgart. The four illustrations are of the same subjects and by the same artist, but they are different pictures! Thus the cover picture is still of TB, but it is a new picture. Eight fables have been added. The texts have changed--some very slightly--and even their titles have changed, e.g. from "Die Schatzgräber" (22) to "Der Schatzgräber" (20 here). Orthography has changed too, e.g., from "Ihr seht" to "Ihr sehet" in the stories just mentioned. "Hahn und Diamant" (23) changes to "Der Hahn und der Diamant" (8). Even the title on the cover changes from "Äsops Fabeln" to "Aesops Fabeln." There are three pages of advertisements at beginning and end, including the endpapers. Somehow a total of one hundred and eight fables became standard, and this copy is an example of that trend.

1920? Im Fabelland: Die schönsten Tierfabeln. Gesammelt, ausgewählt und herausgegeben von P. Baensch. Illustriert von G. Röder. Hardbound. Leipzig: Verlag von Georg Görtitz. DM 28 from Altstadt Antiquariat, Freiburg, July, '01.

There are 141 pages here of fables divided by subject into twenty-nine categories. Each chapter receives from two pages for the cat to fourteen pages for the wolf. Those twenty-nine chapters appear in an opening T of C. At the close of the book there is a listing of individual fables by author. There are some thirty-seven authors. The only non-Germans I notice are Aesop and La Fontaine. Most strongly represented are Aesop, Gellert, Gleim, Hey, La Fontaine, Lessing, and Sturm. Lessing has the most fables of all here. I do not think that I had before noticed Lessing's fable of the ass and the fox. "Tell me an animal I cannot imitate" demanded the ape. The fox answered: "Tell me one that would imitate you!" The illustrations seem rather predictable. One of the best may be "Der grüne Esel" (83), but it is hard to make the point here with a black-and-white illustration! Like so much German work for children, this book is well thought through and well executed.

1920? Krilòff's Fables. Translated from the Russian into English in the original metres by C. Fillingham Coxwell. With four plates. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Two versions: With "London" on spine for $10 from Eric Cline, Santa Monica, Aug., '93. With "Kegan Paul" on spine for $16.50 from Carl Sandler Berkowitz, July, '92.

Eighty-six fables. The two versions have different cover and spine material, title on spine, endpapers, page size, page cut, and tint on the top of the pages. That is, the version with "London" on its spine is larger, has as its spine title Fables by Ivàn Krilòff, Coxwell, London, and has rough-cut pages tinted red on top. The version with "Kegan Paul" on its spine has a space block-printed on 156. Both have misprints on 73 ("it's" for "its") and 141 ("I" for "It"). The introduction proclaims that LaFontaine remains a star of the first magnitude: lively, elegant, witty and arch; but it finds Kriloff more versatile, forceful and humorous than LaFontaine. The introduction includes an extensive biography. The plates facing 43, 51, and 108 are taken from Billinghurst, but with Russian titles added! "The Wolves, the Dogs, and the Sheep" illustration on 51 does not fit Krilòff's adjoining fable "The Wolves and the Sheep." The illustration on 129 ("The Three Peasants") is from elsewhere, like the fable itself. T of C at the beginning. Notes. AI on 173-6. There may be some meaning lost in getting the verse to work in English. For example, I do not think someone could understand "The Chest" (VIII) in this version. I gather from other versions that the point is that the "expert" never tries simply to open the lid! The fable touches on the experience of those who cannot get a computer to run because they have not plugged it in! Ditto on "The Nightingales" (XVIII). I had to go back to Ralston to understand it. "The Parishioner" (LXXIV) is still a mystery to me. "The Fly and the Bee" (69) is an answer to the tradition, I think; here the fly gets the last word.

1920? La Fontaine.  Hardbound.  Paris: Les Roses de France; Collection des Poètes: Éditions de l'Abeille d'Or; T. Rombaldi.  €15 from a Buchinist, June, '22.

1920? La Fontaine: Fables Complètes. Illustrations de G. Ripart. Hardbound. Paris: Maurice Glomeau. £14.99 from J. Paul, Brighton, UK, through eBay, May, '06.

Not in Bodemann. This is a stout (6" x 7¾") one-volume edition of La Fontaine's fables. At the beginning of each book of fables, there is a black-and-white illustration, and at the end of each book there is another illustration related to one of the fables. These are well done. Notice, e.g., the good illustration for OR on 27 and the illustration on 29 for "Les Deux Taureaux et une Grenouille." Book III opens with another very good illustration of MSA (55). In Book IV, the dogs attack the lion who has given up his claws and teeth (77). There is also a series of signed colored illustrations, one per book. These indulge sometimes in somewhat garish colors. Consider the peach-colored sky for SS facing 36 or the aqua sky for WC facing 68. Perhaps the worst is the overly blue illustration of "Le Rat et l'Éléphant" facing 220. 'When the colors are somewhat natural, the illustrations work, as in the illustration for "La Grenouille et le Rat" facing 92. The frontispiece illustrating FC is also well done. For MM facing 172, the proportions simply do not work! I am particularly taken with the illustration for "Le Chat et un Vieux Rat" on 76: you almost need to "connect the dots" to perceive the cat in the trough. Another success is the picture of the wolf who wounded himself with an arrow on 236. At the end one finds "Philémon et Baucis," an AI, and a simple T of C. Apparently 300 numbered copies were produced, but this is not one of them.

1920? Leon Tolstoy: Cuentos y Fabulas. Traduccion de Eusebio Heras. Nueva Edicion. Hardbound. Barcelona: Casa Editorial Maucci. $20 from The Owl at the Bridge, Cranston, RI, through TomFolio, Sept., '06.

There are about ninety-five stories here, each with a simple illustration. Many are labeled "Story," "Fable," or "True Story." I do not find the labels here helpful or even accurate. A rich panoply of Tolstoy's fables are represented here in any case. The combination of covers for a book like this is intriguing. It seems to have been produced as a paperback pocketbook, but then covered with a very firm set of cloth covers.

1920? Misericordia Readers: Second Reader. Hardbound. NY?: Benziger Brothers? $3.50 from Heartwood Books, Charlottesville, VA, April, '98.

This book is in poor condition. It lacks a title-page, and some of its last pages are torn out. Still, it has some lovely illustrations done in several colors. FG (24); LM (27); "The Dog, the Rooster, and the Fox" (30); and TMCM (200) are all told well with several colored illustrations each. The latter is told in a rather expanded style. Cook and dog interrupt, and the country mouse is immediately on her way back home. There are some very pious stories in this book. Who knows, I may have studied it as a kid!

1920? Phädrus Augusti Libertus: Aesopische Fabeln: Acht Holzschnitte.  Erich Glas.  Signed; #20 of 50.  Hardbound.  Berlin: Amsler & Ruthardt.  €262 from Antiquariat Burgverlag, Vienna, May, '14.  

1920? Phèdre. J. Chauvin. Paperbound. Paris: Librairie de L. Hachette. FRF 140 from Chapitre.com, Jan., '00.

The format of this work is the same as in the 1846 Hachette Phèdre. That is, there are three items for each fable: Phaedrus' Latin, a prose translation, and a two column phrase-by-phrase presentation of the Latin in a new word order with a corresponding French phrase at its side. The work certainly appeared in or after 1895, since it is based on Havet's Phaedrus, published by Hachette in 1895. As in the earlier work, the pre-title here is just too long to try to fit into the title slot: "Les Auteurs Latin expliqués d'après une méthode nouvelle par deux traductions françaises, l'une littérale et juxtalinéaire presentant le mot a mot Français en regard des mots Latins correspondants, l'autre correcte precedée du texte Latin avec des arguments et des notes par une société de professeurs et de Latinistes." Whew! The earlier "et fidele" after "correcte" in this title has been dropped, and "summaires" has changed to "arguments." There is no section of notes in this edition. Carnes 1021 has a listing that seems to fit this work, though it reports one more page than the 204 I find here. I take the suggestion of a publication date from Carnes; I would have guessed that it appeared earlier.

1920? Pour Charmer Nos Petits. Par Mlle M. Capus; Edited by Clara Fairgrieve. Hardbound. Boston/NY/Chicago: Heath's Modern Language Series: D.C. Heath & Co. $15 from Linda LaMarca, Roynton Beach, FL, through eBay, Sept., '04. 

Fairgrieve's preface describes this as a school edition of selections from Capus' little book. "This prose version of a few well-chosen fables of La Fontaine is written in the purest and simplest French, and is followed by a short modern story ingeniously illustrating the idea conveyed in the fable." There you have it! Twelve of La Fontaine's favorite fables are handled here in some thirty-seven chapters. The story following the "Two Goats" is thus a story of two children who arrive at the class door at the same time and fight over who will enter first. There is a partial-page black-and-white illustration for each story. These successfully picture the story's central action or situation. There is also the usual battery of exercises for pupils, including a short English passage to be translated into French. A vocabulary at the end lists important new words in each of the lessons. This little book was inscribed in 1923.

1920? St. Enda Readers Junior Book. D. O'Daly. Hardbound. Printed in Ireland. Dublin: The Educational Company of Ireland Limited. $1.50 from The Antiquarium, Omaha, August, '98.

This school reader contains one fable, "The Old Tree and the Gardener" attributed to Aesop (63). This is a difficult enough fable. The version of it here may not help clarify things. Its hint is to call the gardener "rather greedy" at the start of the last paragraph. He refused to spare the tree because of the fruit it had given or the songs it has provided his wife--but he will spare it for the honey he stands to get from it regularly. One possible point to get from this fable would have been that the right appeal gets a person to see it all positively, since the farmer ends up listing all of the tree's benefits past and present, even though he seems to be sparing it only for one advantage, honey. The binding is coming loose, and the book is in fair condition.

1920? 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. Rahway and NY: The Mershon Company. Gift of Phillip Vuchetich from Adams Avenue Book Store, San Diego, Jan., '95.

Closest to the 1901? and 1902? Lupton editions with the same title. See my comments there. Except for the title page and cover, the books seem identical. Like those, this book has no illustrations. In fact, this book makes sense of their skipped page (157-8) when it adds there a title page "Later Fables" for the second part of the book. It adds ten pages of publisher's advertisements at the end. See my 1920? The Fables of Aesop published by Burt for an attempt at listing the important editions I have that include the J.B.R. preface. "Parker" inscribed this book on its page bottoms and on the back endpaper.

1920? The Children's Wonder Book(?). Title page missing. Illustrations by Harry Rountree and others. $2.60 at A-A Books 'n Bargains, Grand Island, NE, Jan., '93.

It is a shame that this book is in such terrible shape. Pages 325-334 contain fourteen fables, ten of them illustrated by Rountree with somewhat indistinct black-and-white designs. My other Rountree books all have exclusively full-page colored illustrations. And the one full-page colored illustration that Rountree did for this book (TH, facing 352) is missing! The best of the black-and-white illustrations here are the pair for TMCM on 330-1. What is that dog doing on the bottom of 328? And is that a wolf with the lamb on 329? The last pages of the book are also missing. My one treasure from Grand Island.

1920? The Fables of Aesop. With 75 illustrations. Texts by J.B. Rundell, not acknowledged. Illustrations from Percy Billinghurst, not acknowledged. Chicago: W.B. Conkey. $7 at Time Traveller, May, '88.

A fascinating melange in a cheap book for kids. The seventy-five illustrations are stolen from Billinghurst. The top of the T of C page (5) is stolen from Heighway. The cover picture is colored in from Billinghurst. The tellings seem mostly from the familiar "JBR" version. In fact, this book follows the pattern set by The Fables of Aesop (1900?) put out by Charles E. Graham & Co. Page 81-82 here has become detached and is inserted.

1920? The Fables of Aesop. Complete, with Text Based upon Croxall, La Fontaine and L'Estrange. Selected from the Most Reliable Sources. No editor acknowledged; preface is signed J.B.R. No illustrator acknowledged, but the etchings are Heighway's. "Cornell Series" on spine. NY: Burt. $5.95 at Brattle Bookshop, Jan., '89.

Already one of my favorite books because of the hand-colored illustrations. Also it takes the "JBR" text used with so many other illustrators. A lovely book! See the adjacent Burt edition of same year and title for references to works with the same text.

1920? The Fables of Aesop. Complete, with Text Based upon Croxall, La Fontaine and L'Estrange. Illustrations by Richard Heighway, NA. Hardbound. NY: Cornell Series: Burt. $3 from Clare Leeper, July, '96.

This book is identical with one already in the collection, purchased from Brattle Books, but I give this copy a separate listing because that other copy includes hand-colored illustrations. This book is just as it came from the printer. As I note there, this edition takes the "JBR" text used with so many other illustrators.

1920? The Fables of Aesop. Complete, with Text Based upon Croxall, La Fontaine and L'Estrange. J.B.R. Illustrations by Richard Heighway, NA. Hardbound. NY: Burt. $3.75 from Holly Mabbott, Aiken, SC, through Ebay, Dec., '99.

This book is interiorly identical with another copy done by Burt for which I have guessed the same year of publication. This copy has a distinctive white cover picturing FS. Like other Burt editions, it adds Heighway's work to the frequently used "JBR" text marked by a preface ascribed to JBR and often including an extra set of fables, here beginning on 198 and not including any illustrations. I have noticed this time that this text has the beaver biting off his tail, not his testicles (69)! It is also the first time that I have noticed Heighway's unusually strong depiction of "The Envious Man and the Covetous" (84, "Avaricious and Envious" in standard Jacobs/Heighway editions). One page (139-40) is missing. 

1920? The Fables of Aesop, Selected, Told Anew and Their History Traced. (By Joseph Jacobs, NA). With Numerous Illustrations (by Richard Heighway, NA). Hardbound. Chicago: The Rare Book Collectors Original Edition: Albert Whitman & Co. $23 from Alibris, June, '99.

By my best count, this is the seventeenth version I have of Heighway and Jacobs' work. This is a simple and smaller book than many (4½" x 6¾"). It acknowledges neither Jacobs nor Heighway, but it does have "J.J." as the signature under the preface. The illustrations come through find here. It offers the usual eighty-two fables on 198 pages. I do not know what the series "The Rare Book Collectors Original Edition" implies. It has a simple red cover and belonged to the Elkton School in the Beaver Local School District.

1920? The Fables of Aesop with 75 Illustrations (Cover: Aesop's Fables Profusely Illustrated). Texts by J.B. Rundell, not acknowledged. Illustrations from Percy Billinghurst, not acknowledged. Hardbound. Chicago: Homewood Publishing Co. $5 from Mary Bee, South Colby, WA, through Ebay, May, '99.

I am proud and delighted that I was able to find two parallels for this strange book. In fact, it uses the same plates as an edition by W.B. Conkey that I have also assigned to "1920?" The cover of that book featured a strange paste-on illustration of "The Fox and the Goat." This edition by Homewood features FK on its cover in three colors on cloth-covered boards. The front cover is loose. I will repeat several comments from there: A fascinating melange in a cheap book for kids. The seventy-five illustrations are stolen from Billinghurst. The top of the T of C page (5) is stolen from Heighway. The tellings seem mostly from the familiar "JBR" version. In fact, this book follows the pattern set by The Fables of Aesop (1900?) put out by Charles E. Graham & Co.

1920? The Fables of Aesop with 75 Illustrations (Cover: Aesop's Fables Profusely Illustrated). Texts by J.B. Rundell, not acknowledged. Illustrations from Percy Billinghurst, not acknowledged. Hardbound. Chicago: W.B. Conkey Company. $5 from Clare Leeper, July, '96.

This book duplicates one I already have in the collection from Homewood Publishing Company. I will list this under the same date as that. In fact, this copy is in better condition than that one and includes the frontispiece of "The Fox and the Goat." That very picture shows up on the next nearest parallel to this book, Aesop's Fables published by Conkey, which I have also listed under "1920?" Like the Homewood edition, the present book features FK on its cover in three colors on cloth-covered boards. I will repeat several comments from there: This is a fascinating melange in a cheap book for kids. The seventy-five illustrations are stolen from Billinghurst. The top of the T of C page (5) is stolen from Heighway. The tellings seem mostly from the familiar "JBR" version. In fact, all these books follow the pattern set by The Fables of Aesop (1900?) put out by Charles E. Graham & Co.

1920? The Fables of Phaedrus Literally Translated with Notes. Henry Thomas Riley. Hardbound. Reading, PA: Handy Literal Translations: Handy Book Company. $9.99 from Greg Noll, Montgomeryville, PA, through eBay, Jan., '12.

This "trot" or literal translation is one of ninety in the series "Handy Literal Translations," listed on the obverse of the title-page. Riley did the translation in the Bohn edition of 1853 putting Phaedrus together with Terence, perhaps because they both made for good school learning and translating. This book has identifying materials from Our Lady of Angels, Glen Riddle, PA and Neumann College Library. Someone gave it a helpful library call number. A little research showed me that Our Lady of Angels College, founded in 1965, became Neumann College in 1980 and Neumann University in 2009. There are sixty-nine pages here and nothing but texts, not even a T of C. It is indeed a handy book!

1920? The Fox and the Stork. Hardbound. London: Shaw's Sunshine Series: John F. Shaw & Company. £.99 from Nicky Stell, Wiltshire, GB, through eBay, June, '04. 

The cover adds an explanatory phrase to the title: Stories from Aesop. The book was apparently once given to Jean Blakeley from Zion Methodist Sunday School in Bradford. There are twenty fables reproduced on very heavy paper, almost cardboard stock. They have a variety of black-and-white illustrations, several of which has received some coloring. Some of the larger illustrations are signed "Sexton." The fox leaping for the grapes has a human pose. The hare in one illustration for TH has an almost human torso. There is a colored frontispiece of "The Jackdaw and the Peacocks." The front and back covers show, respectively, the two scenes of FS. If one puts together two of the illustrations within FS and the one on the front cover, there are actually three different kinds of vase pictured! Here is a book I would have expected to run into by now, but better late than never. The texts are chatty and a bit over-extended. The field mice deliberately run over the lion, thinking that he will not mind. The narrator praises the fox for calling the grapes sour at the end of FG.

1920? The Fox and the Wolf: Stories from Aesop.  Illustrations by Ethel Tanner and "S".  Hardbound.  London: John F. Shaw & Co., Ltd.  £11.99 from Chrislands.com through World of Rare Books, June, '14.  

1920? Un Petit Bréviaire de la Sagesse: Fables de la Fontaine. Illustrations d'André Warnod. Small pamphlet. Paris: Petits Livres d'Heures: Eugène Figuière & Cie. 50 Francs from Librairie Picard, Paris, August, '99.

The excellent small illustrations caught my eye in this lovely little book, starting with the detail of GA on the cover: a dog faces a cold young woman with long blond hair and a guitar strung over her back. The fuller version faces 32 near the end of the booklet. MM faces 9. Is that "L'Hirondelle et les petites Oiseaux" facing 16? (I had thought it might be "The Mosquito and the Coach"). There are thirteen texts here, and MM is not one of them! Nor is "The Mosquito and the Coach." There are advertisements at the back. The booklet came with three others in the series, on "le bonheur," "le patriotisme," and "la gourmandise." The first of these, written by Figuière himself and embellished with nice art, lists a catalogue of eleven books in this series.

1920? Un Petit Bréviaire de la Sagesse: Fables de la Fontaine.  Illustrations d'André Warnod.  Hardbound.  Paris: Petits Livres d'Heures: Eugène Figuière & Cie.  €15 from a buchinist, Paris, July, '22.

1920?/25? The Children's Wonder Book. Edited by John R. Crossland and J.M. Parrish. Illustrations by Harry Rountree et al. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Printed in Great Britain. Pageant of Knowledge Series. London/Glasgow: Collins Clear Type Press. $40 from Bibelots and Books, Seattle, July, '00.

This is another edition of a book I have listed under "1920?" I presume that it is a later edition that has added the new material on 417-512. It has the same cover and endpapers. It adds a dust jacket, frontispiece, and title-page, as well as pages 415-16, all of which are missing in the other copy. This copy also has the colored illustration of TH on 352 missing in the other copy. As I mention there, 325-334 contain fourteen fables, ten of them illustrated by Rountree with somewhat indistinct black-and-white designs. The best of the black-and-white illustrations here are the pair for TMCM on 330-1. I still wonder if that is a wolf with the lamb on 329. People good with numbers will notice that this copy cost me fifteen times as much as that other copy! I am happy to have a better exemplar with which to illustrate this book's family, if not the book itself.

1921 Aesop A Thainig Go h-Eirinn Cnuasach A II. Peadar Ua Laoghaire. Paperbound. The Irish Book Company. €25 from Dublin Bookbrowsers, April, '11.

I found this book at the same time that I found a book that is probably contemporary from a different publisher but also presenting fables in Gaelic. I have that other book, Aesop A Thainig Go h-Eirinn, also by Peadar Ua Laoghaire, listed under "1920?" That was a book of texts and illustrations, entirely in Gaelic. This is more of a pedagogical book. It uses English to identify not only the publisher but to identify each of the forty-four fables in the notes (65-92). It adds a Gaelic-to-English dictionary on 93-114. I am of course curious about that short addition that expands that other title here: "Cnuasach A II." Since there is no T of C, a reader without Gaelic will have to use the notes to identify which forty-four fables are presented here. 

1921 Aesop's Fables Translated and with Full Notes. Sixth edition. Paperbound. Shanghai: Commercial Press, Limited. $34 from Nanhai #1 through eBay, June, '10.

Here is a softbound reader with lots of explanations right after each paragraph -- and even each sentence -- of a fable. There are 126 fables on 326 pages. The whole book is deteriorating. There is a T of C at the beginning. Now this is an unusual treasure! I am amazed to have found this book! 

1921 Aldine Speller. Revised Edition. Part Two: For Grades Three and Four. Catherine T. Bryce, Frank J. Sherman, and Arthur W. Kallom. NY: Newson and Co. $4 at Old Books and Curiosities, Bay St. Louis, MS, August, '96.

This speller has five fables in its third-grade portion and three in its fourth-grade portion. They are CP (13), "The Fox and the Lion" (14), GGE (17), "The Fly on the Cart Wheel" (38), and "The Hunter and the Lion" (39) in the first half. In the second half there are these: "The Fox and the Wolf" (52), "The Eagle and the Arrow" (65), and OR (71). There is no T of C or AI. This book does not seem to borrow from the Aldine First Language Book (1913) meant for the same grades; where they use the same fable, they use at least slightly different texts. No fable illustrations. The book is in excellent condition.

1921 An Argosy of Fables. A Representative Selection From the Fable Literature of Every Age and Land. Selected and Edited by Frederic Taber Cooper. Illustrations in Color by Paul Bransom. First edition. NY: Frederick A. Stokes Company. Gift of Linda Schlafer from Shaw's Books, Grosse Pointe Park, at DePaul Book Fair, March, '93.

A magnificent book. An impressive array of fables divided carefully according to source into four books, each with multiple parts. By comparison with its counterpart, The Book of Fables (1921), this edition has some 200 more pages covering modern fables. For the first 275 pages of text, this book uses the same plates as that but has bigger margins. This copy is in very good condition. The twenty-four colored illustrations are excellent. Their sharpness here helps to give them much more life and expression than they have in copies. The best of them are FM (8), "The Eagle and the Turtle" (59), "The Hare and the Hound" (102), and "The Kite and the Pigeons" (138). Originally sold at Hudson's in Detroit.

1921 An Argosy of Fables. A Representative Selection From the Fable Literature of Every Age and Land. Selected and Edited by Frederic Taber Cooper. With Twenty-four Illustrations in Color by Paul Bransom. Formerly in the Omaha Public Library Reference Room. NY: Frederick A. Stokes Company. $40 from Bluestem, Lincoln, May, '95. Extra with two of the tipped-in illustrations removed from their heavier page mounts, inscribed in 1921, for $20 from Richard Barnes, Evanston, Oct., '94.

This edition is the next step up from the classy edition from Shaw's Books. Here are the points of contrast: This edition has a black cover with gold and red inlay. The excellent illustrations (except the missing FM [88] and "The Kite and the Pigeons" [140]) are tipped in on heavy paper. The title page has a colored illustration of Zeus. There is a list of illustrations after xxiv; this list helped me to locate an illustration in the Shaw's Books edition that I had not been able to find, and I suspected that there were twenty-four there. The text and its pagination here are exactly the same as there. See my comments there. I keep both copies in the collection because the Omaha copy is somewhat worn, and the glue mounting its illustrations sometimes mars the facing pages.

1921 An Argosy of Fables. A Representative Selection From the Fable Literature of Every Age and Land. Selected and Edited by Frederic Taber Cooper. With Twenty-four Illustrations in Color by Paul Bransom. Large paper edition. Signed by Bransom. #140 of 365. NY: Frederick A. Stokes Company. $175 from Richard Barnes, Evanston, Oct., '94.

The fanciest of the four related editions I have of this book, this magnificent book has a red spine and a white cover with gold inlay. Its pages are gilt on top, and its end-papers colored. The pages are larger and the paper finer than those in the other Barnes and in the Shaw editions. I was lucky to find this beautiful book sitting forgotten in Mr. Barnes' basement.

1921 Children's Literature.  Charles Madison Curry and Erle Elsworth Clippinger.  Hardbound.  Chicago: Rand McNally.  See 1920/21.

1921 Eton Fables. By Cyril Alington. Hardbound. London: Longmans, Green and Co. £ 3 from Eastgate Bookshop, Beverly, Yorkshire, England, August, '01.

These are fourteen talks given apparently starting in 1917 to the students at Eton. They are chapel talks, some closest I think to what we might call exhortations and others really a form of parable. They often have an imaginative character. The author, a former headmaster at Eton, will describe himself as dreaming or as hearing the founder (King Henry VI) speaking. Perhaps the closest to a fable is "The Two Palaces" (52) about two servants who, commanded to build the king a palace, take alternative approaches. The first builds himself a house and waits to learn what the king wants. The second has only a shack for himself but has started a magnificent palace for the king. At their best, these sermons work from a good metaphor or image. At their worst, they labor a bit.

1921 Fabelbuch. Wilhelm Hey. Mit 31 Bildern (artist's initials seem to be "I.K."). Stuttgart: Loewes Verlag Ferdinand Carl. $3 at Vassar Book Sale, DC, May, '92.

A check of the first half of the thirty-one fables in this unpaginated, sideways book confirms that all are in the 1836 Opera-Verlag edition illustrated by Otto Speckter. The illustrations here are simpler: sometimes more charming (there is, e.g., a good snowman about halfway through), often a bit awkward. Hey's single-character approach to fable is not my cup of tea. His offerings are very regular: two six-line strophes with "aa bb cc" rhyme. This book represents a wonderful find in the chaos of the Vassar sale!

1921 Fables and Tales from Africa. Adapted by Eliot Kays Stone. Pamphlet. Instructor Literature Series--No. 320. Dansville, NY: F.A. Owen. $3.25 from Mary Kleinahns, Smethport, PA, through Ebay, Sept., '99.

Here is an earlier printing of a booklet I have already listed under "1921." I presume that it is earlier because it does not advertise some items that are advertised on the back cover of the other edition (e.g., #316 and double numbers). Interiorly they seem to me identical. Let me add comments on a few things missed when I reported on that volume. Surprisingly, I cannot find it on the lists of readers recommended for each grade on the inside and back covers of either booklet. There are some attractive materials here. "The Cunning Cock" (3) might be subtitled "How the White Man Prays." It is the Chanticleer story about closing one's eyes while a jackal is nearby. The jackal is the trickster in this booklet. In "The Frog's Horse" (22), the frog's "horse" is an elephant. "The Trumpeter" (26) has a great moral: "In a combat between liars, the greater one always wins." It turns out that a caterpillar had frightened the likes of the rhinoceros and the elephant.

1921 Fables and Tales from Africa. Adapted by Eliot Kays Stone. Instructor Literature Series. Dansville, NY: F.A. Owen Publishing Company. $2 from Ed and Dorothy Chesko, Old Delavan Book Co., Nov., '95.

A pamphlet containing twelve stories for first graders. The Instructor Literature Series contains 306 volumes! The original price was $.07 or less. The fables are again told very simply, as they were in the other booklets in this series, Eleven Fables from Aesop (1906) and More Fables from Aesop (1905). Unlike them, this booklet has no illustrations. "The Cunning Cock" (3) is a Chanticleer-like story. "The Lion and the Baboon" (4) has a nice trick and a surprise ending. In "The Dove, the Jackal, and the Heron" (6), there is an Aesopic element: the jackal recognizes that someone has given the dove a new perspective, since the dove no longer sacrifices her children to the jackal. This story adds an etiological explanation of how the heron's neck got bent. There is another traditional fable trick in "The Leopard, the Jackal, and the Ram" (9): the ram says to the arriving jackal "Friend Jackal, you have done well. You have brought us the Leopard to eat." "The Wise Jackal" (19) is a slightly different version of the traditional tale of getting the attacker (here a snake) back into his original captivity (here pinned under a stone). "The Frog's Horse" (22) is an Uncle Remus and African tale. "The Lion, the Jackal, and the Hyena" (24) is the Aesopic "sick lion" fable, with the wolf and fox using the lion's illness to attack and even destroy each other. "The Trumpeter" (26) is too long for a fable but very nice.

1921 Fables Chinoises du IIIe au VIIIe Siècle de Notre Ère. Traduites par Édouard Chavannes, Versifiées par Mme. Édouard Chavannes. Ornées de 46 Dessins par Andrée Karpelès. Paperbound. Paris: Éditions Bossard. $22.45 from La Poussiere du Temps, Paris, through abe, April, '06.  Extra copy with some uncut pages for €22.87 from Librairie "Ici Aussi" through abe, May, '04  

Here is a small-format (5" x 6½") paperback book containing eighteen stories, two tables, and a T of C. The tables give first the date of the translation of these fables from Sanscrit into Chinese and next the correspondence between these stories and those published by Chavanne in a larger volume of stories. The title adds as description of the fables offered here "d'origine hindoue." They are indeed stories of the Buddha. Might they all be Jatakas of some sort? An example may be the fifth story (38), in which the Buddha helps an old mother of a deceased only son to accept the fact that we all face death. She gets a sense of our common impermanence. A few fables later (52), a goose carrying a turtle to water opens her mouth to say something sage--and of course drops the turtle to the ground, where humans pick it up and eat it. On 76 is the familiar story of the hare who throws himself into the fire in order to nourish another. The woodcuts range from small printer's designs to full-page illustrations. I find them rather simple and predictable. Notice the swastika that shows up as a small design on 93. A curiosity of the cover (but not of the title-page) is that the name of Edouard Chavannes is spelled without an accent on the beginning "E" while his wife's name includes the accent on the same word. On the title-page, it is accented for both.

1921 Fables Patoises (Dialecte de Nimes).  Leon Méjan.  Nouvelle Édition.  Paperbound.  Nimes: 'Imprimerie Coopérative L'Ouvrière.  €15 from Sarl Antiquités Carli, Marseille, through Ebay, April, '22.

1921 Jean de La Fontaine: Dix fables.  Louis Bouquet.  #343 of 390.  Hardbound.  Paris: Éditions de la Sirène.  €325 from Edition-Originale.com, July, '18.

1921 John Martin's Big Book for Young People. Volume 4 of a seven-volume set. NY: Collier and Son. See 1919/20/21/24/26/29.

1921 John Martin's Big Book for Young People. Volume 7 of a seven-volume set. NY: Collier and Son. See 1919/21/22/23/24/25/26.

1921 John Martin's Book: The Child's Magazine. Volume XXIV, Number 2: Aug., 1921. $2.50 from Phyllis Tholin Books, UWM Bookfair, April, '88.

The first piece in this magazine is LM, illustrated by George Carlson. Both (prose) text and illustrations differ completely from the rendition in Aesop's Fables in Rhyme for Little Philosophers and John Martin's Big Book (#7), so there are three different renditions of the same fable by the same author/publisher.

1921 John Martin's Book: The Child's Magazine. Volume XXIV, Number 4: Oct., 1921. $2.50 from Phyllis Tholin Books, UWM Bookfair, April, '88.

The first piece in this magazine is DS, illustrated by George Carlson. The text is in prose. Both the text and illustrations differ completely from the rendition in Aesop's Fables in Rhyme for Little Philosophers. I would say that they are less fun here.

1921 Les Plus Belles Fables de La Fontaine. Avec 38 figures en silhouettes découpées par Félicien Philippe. Lausanne: Éditions Spes. $60 from Gilann Books, Darien, CT, at Rosslyn Book Fair, March, '92.

A beautiful book presenting a great moment in the Scheerenschnitte tradition. Twenty fables, with most getting one large and one or two smaller illustrations. The best of the silhouettes: LaFontaine himself (5), TB (31), "The Oyster and the Litigants" (45), and "The Acorn and the Pumpkin" (47). A selection of the silhouettes is nicely repeated on the endpapers. This may be the only Swiss book in my collection.

1921 Mischle Schualim: Die Fuchsfabeln des Berekhja Ben Natronaj. Nach der ersten Ausgabe herausgegeben und eingeleitet von Lazarus Goldschmidt. Mit Holzschnitten von Leo Michelson. Einmalige Ausgabe in 750 Exemplaren. Hardbound. Berlin: Erich Reiss Verlag. $100 from Meir Biezunski, Haifa, Israel, through eBay, Feb., '04. 

Bodemann #406.1. T of C on XIII shows the one-hundred-and-seven fables with rhyming German morals. In fact, it is a strange experience to read the title-page, Einleitung, and this T of C from the left-hand, as we do typically with Western books, and then to find that the rest of the book reads in the opposite direction through its 121 pages of "jiddischer Reimprosa," as Bodemann calls it. Berekhja Ben Natronaj (sometimes known as Berechiah ha-Nakdan) lived sometime before the first half of the thirteenth century, perhaps in the Provence. Goldschmidt's introduction seems to indicate that this collection and Marie de France's overlap considerably in their material, so that there are good questions of which collection may have come from the other. Goldschmidt finds this author emphasizing the entertaining as well as the instructing function of his fable collection. Michelson's thirty-one woodcuts vary somewhat in size from 3" x 4" to 4" x 6". As Bodemann writes, they are medieval in style and technique. Among them I am most impressed by "Der Affe und der Panther," which I take to be the Aesopic fable of the monkey that is mother of twins (112). Strong illustrations include WL (13), "Der Esel und der Hund" (14), "Das Reh und die Hunde" (80), "Der Fuchs und die Katze" (99), and "Der Fuchs und die Fische" (106). I feel privileged to have one of the seven-hundred-and-fifty copies of this book in the collection!

1921 Oral and Written English: Primary Book. Milton C. Potter et al. Boston: Ginn and Company. $2 at Pageturners, Nov., '89.

This classroom book uses four fables to teach lessons from storytelling to paragraph organization: GA (15), "Two Goats" (168), "Trying to Please Everybody" (208), and SW (221). There are two pages of colored pictures of MSA after 206. All the grasshoppers die in winter except one. Pages 29-30 and the last page of the index are missing.

1921 Oral and Written English: Primary Book: Part Two. Milton C. Potter et al. Boston: Ginn and Company. $4 at Librairie, New Orleans, Dec., '92.

This classroom book, equivalent to and paginated the same as the second part of a book acquired earlier from the same year and publisher, uses three fables to teach lessons from storytelling to paragraph organization: "Two Goats" (168), "Trying to Please Everybody" (208), and SW (221). There are two pages of colored pictures of MSA after 206. The index at the end is adjusted to remove references to Part One.

1921 Reineke Fuchs.  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.  Illustrationen nach den 57 Radierungen von Allart von Everdingen.  Hardbound.  Leipzig: Introduced and edited by Johannes Hofmann:  Verlagsbuchhandlung von J.J. Weber.  €32 from Buecherstube Eilert, Ludwigsburg, Germany, Jan., '23.

1921 The Book of Fables. A Representative Selection From Fable Literature. Inside pre-title: An Argosy of Fables. Selected and Edited by Frederic Taber Cooper. Illustrations by Paul Bransom. NY: Hampton Publishing Co. $45 at The Bookstall, San Francisco, Dec., '90. Extra copy for $19 from St. Croix, Stillwater, March, '94.

Apparently a scarce book, since prices for it are always high. An impressive array of fables divided carefully according to source into two books, each with four parts. The Bookstall copy is in very good condition. The six colored illustrations (no black-and-white) are disappointing: like Detmold's, they are sometimes more impressive and grandiose than expressive and insightful; some also suffer from inexact color printing. The best of them, besides the cover's "Eagle and Turtle," are WL (26), FS (95), and "The Kite and the Pigeons" (138). Others include LM (frontispiece), CP (171), and "The Camel and the Mouse" (234).

1921 The Herford Aesop: Fifty Fables in Verse. Oliver Herford. Illustrated by the author. Preface by C.H. Thurber. Dust jacket. Boston: LeRoy Phillips, Publisher/Boston: Ginn and Co: Athenaeum Press. Originally sold by Brentano's in NY. 27.50 Guilders at Straat in Amsterdam, Dec., '88; second copy with better cut pages but without dust jacket for $5 in Goodspeed's basement, Dec., '89.

The verse seems good. Several of the illustrations catch hold of the reader: the exploding frog (19), the lion having eaten a man (21), and the crane with a "bill" in his bill (81).

1921/21? Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by Nora Fry. No editor acknowledged. Philadelphia: Washington Square: David McKay Company. $25 from Greg Williams, May, '96. Extra copy for $8 at Bonifant Books, Wheaton, MD, Oct., '91.

I had seen too many reproductions of Fry's work. This early (first?) edition, sitting on the shelf at Bonifant, shows how good her work is in color and black-and-white. The latter offer their own witty commentary on the story, as when Cupid weeps over the cut rose of the lion's love (19). There should be eight full-page colored illustrations in all. From the good copy, the last (FG, 127) is missing; from the extra copy "The Tortoise and the Eagle" (75) is missing, and "King Stork" (58) is loose and damaged. "The Ass and his Master" (24) is the best of the colored pieces, I believe. T of C at the end. The book has a red cover with a paper paste-down repeating the illustration of FG; in fact this illustration is remarkable because it features a ladder.

1921/24/27 Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by Nora Fry. No editor acknowledged. London: George G. Harrap and Co. $13 at P.J. Hilton, Cecil Court, London, July, '92.

Most similar in items like cover and title page to my Coker edition (1930) of Fry's work. This edition at last gives me a date with which to anchor the first edition of this book. Unfortunately three of the eight colored illustrations are missing here, and two of the others are loose (the vain jackdaw for one and the tortoise and the eagle for another). Some staining. The black-and-white illustrations are frequently very sharp here.

1921/27/30 Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by Nora Fry. No editor acknowledged. London: J. Coker and Co. $37.50 from Yoffees, April, '92.

A beautifully preserved book. A quick check suggests that the colored illustrations here are not quite as sharp as those in my McKay edition. See my comments there on the art. This edition does have "The Tortoise and the Eagle" at 76/77.

1921/31 Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrations de Félix Lorioux. Cloth spine. Paris: Librairie Hachette. $19.99 from Barbara McManus, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, through Ebay, June, '00.

The last page signals that this is the 1931 printing of Lorioux' work, which originally appeared in 1921. See my comments on the original edition, also by Hachette, under "1921?" This edition changes the cover to offer a full-page illustration of La Fontaine reading with children. The first signature or so is loose, the first page is torn, 3-8 are missing, and the back end-paper is missing. Between these problem areas the book is in reasonable condition. The Lorioux illustrations remain thrilling!

1921/32 Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by Edwin Noble. No editor acknowledged. October, 1932 reprinting. £10 from an unknown source in England, July, '98. Extra copy of the March, 1932 reprinting, inscribed in 1932, for $12.50 from Green Apple, August, '94.

A treasure I am glad finally to have. Noble illustrated Vredenburg's fables (1920?) in a different style; frankly I prefer those illustrations to these. The six colored illustrations (in one-third and two-third page segments) are in a "block" style with large masses of color and simple forms; the best are DS and DLS. The copious black-and-white engravings here seem to come from Tenniel; "The Mice in Council" is particularly good. There are no page numbers. The cover (unsigned, in a different style) does not seem to be from Noble. The cock faces not one pearl but a string of them! AI at the back.

1921/34 Eton Fables. By Cyril Alington. New impression. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Printed in Great Britain. London: Longmans, Green and Co. £3 from Eastgate Bookshop, Beverly, Yorkshire, England, August, '01.

See my comments on the first edition, bought at the same time and in the same bookstore. Other than the addition of "New impression" and the stipulation that it was printed in England, I do not think that the seventeen years brought any changes.

1921/88 Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by Nora Fry. Edited by Lois Hill. No translator acknowledged. Stamford, CT: Longmeadow Press: Dilithium Press. $9.95, Dec., '88.

A pleasing nostalgic edition. Probably a good source for morals (e.g., "The creaking wheel gets the oil"). Good black-and-white illustrations of two mice (5) and of the thief and his mother (79). Good colored illustrations of the ass and its master (13) and the tortoise and the eagle (77). Some black-and-white decorations are ineptly repeated. AI on v.

1921/92 Fables. Jean de la Fontaine. Illustrations de Félix Lorioux. Paris: Hachette Jeunesse. 100 Francs at FNAC, Metz, Sept., '92: purchased by Wendy Wright.

A beautiful book, with about a dozen illustrations each for six fables: "Le Rat de ville et le Rat des champs," "Le Renard et la Cigogne," "La Cigale et la Fourmi," "Le Loup et l'Agneau," "Le Corbeau et le Renard," and "Le Héron." The full LaFontaine text comes out a few lines at a time. I had loved the few illustrations that Whitman's Fontaine's Fables does in color. I love this book even more because it does them all in color. A lovely facsimile that Hachette did from one of the books in its own archives.

1921? Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by Nora Fry. Hardbound. Printed in Great Britain. London: J. Coker & Co. Ltd. £24 from Rose's, Hay-on-Wye, July, '98.

Compare with my Coker edition of 1921/30. This has sharper illustrations. Here there is nothing on the back of the title-page where that has a history of printings. Might this be a first edition? The only item against its chances as a first is a 1951 inscription. The cover is a delightful set of diamonds with colored illustrations of fable characters inside. This is a very nice book!

1921? Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by Edwin Noble. No editor acknowledged. Hardbound. Printed in Great Britain. London: George G. Harrap & Company Ltd. £15 from Stella Books, Monmouthshire, Dec., '98.

This book is closest to the Crowell edition I have listed under 1921?/1925?. Like it, this copy has illustrations of TH (22) and FS (84). Contrast with the British Coker edition (1921/33), which lacks those two illustrations. Check my notes in those two places. This copy has pencilling on the upper half of the TH illustration on 22. As in the Crowell edition, the colors are lively here, and all the illustrations except the frontispiece are on the right-hand page. This edition also has, like the Crowell, page numbers and a T of C at the back. Finally, it has the Crowell edition's cover illustration, developed from Noble's illustration of FS. A lovely book without dates: might it be a first edition?

1921? Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrations de Félix Lorioux. Paris: Librairie Hachette. £30 at Great Russell Hotel Book Fair, London, May, '97.

Bodemann describes the book very well (#409) and lists it as "ca. 1921." I find no date indicated in this book, but I have no doubt that this is the first edition of a book I have loved for a long time, first through Whitman's Fontaine's Fables (1934) and then through Hachette's reprint in 1992. See my comments there. The illustrations in this edition are slightly larger than in the 1992 edition. They have a dull finish that seems to me better than the 1992 edition's glossy finish. Some of the best illustrations in a book full of beautiful work: the anthill with its beautiful colors (6), the ant at work in a scene that is used recently for the cover of a French pocketbook La Fontaine (10), the face of the cheese-mouthing crow in a rich variety of hues (14), and several title-pages, including TMCM (25), WL (37), and "The Heron" (61). The spine is weak internally, and the pages are loose; it is also split and taped externally. A wonderful surprise find!

1921? Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrations Félix Lorioux. Hardbound. Paris: Hachette. $18 from Antiques on the Square, Marietta, GA, through eBay, August, '11.

I already have an edition of this lovely book that I think is a first edition, but it differs from this one in its cover and last page. This cover has a strip of gold background over the top quarter featuring the title. Superimposed on this gold strip and the tan lower three-quarters is a lively picture of the wig-wearing La Fontaine reading a large copy of his book to two children, who are perched on his arms. The other book, purchased at the Great Russell Hotel Book Fair in 1997, has the same picture within a flecked tan frame. Where that copy's last page declares simply "Imp. E. Desfossés," this copy has four lines: "Imprimé en France/Brodard et Taupin/Paris - Coulommiers/334-3-1491." I suspect that this, rather than that, is the derivative edition. It has a weak spine and has crayon scribblings on the upper left front cover and on 16-17, 25, 33, and 50-51. Still, it is a spectacular book! I am so glad that that little artist did not deface more of these lovely pages!

1921?/25? Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by Edwin Noble. No editor acknowledged. Second Edition. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell Company. $24 at Midway, St. Paul, Nov., '92.

Apparently the American version of the British Coker edition (1921/33). Check my notes there. This edition adds two illustrations: TH (22) and FS (84). The pictures are done here on better, thicker paper; their colors are much livelier. They are differently placed in the text. All illustrations here except the frontispiece are on the right page. This edition adds page numbers and a T of C at the back. It has a stronger cover illustration, developed from Noble's illustration of FS. The color here makes it even easier to like Noble.

1921?/1927? Fables de La Fontaine.  LaFontaine.  Illustrations Félix Lorioux.  Canvas bound.  Paris: Hachette.  $17.51 from The Last Bookstore, LA, through Ebay, Jan., '21. 

1921?/1929 Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrations Félix Lorioux. Hardbound. Paris: Hachette. $25 from Hoboken Books, Jan., '98.

This is a 1929 reprint of a book whose original I have listed under "1921?"; Bodemann describes that original very well (#409) and lists it as "ca. 1921." This copy, owned by the Newark Free Public Library, has a date of 1929 on its last page, 72. This copy has a library binding and cover, monochrome brownish red, by contrast with the original's pictorial cover featuring a wigged La Fontaine with writing quill in hand, an open book of fables, and two children reading with him. This book has numerous tears and tape repairs, and one page with a portion missing (37). It has known considerable use! But, oh, those Lorioux illustrations are glorious! The book dealer reported it lost for several months after I ordered it--and then was nice enough to call when he found it again. I will include some of my comments on the original. I have loved this work for a long time, first through Whitman's "Fontaine's Fables" (1934) and then through Hachette's reprint in 1992. See my comments there. The illustrations in this edition are slightly larger than in the 1992 edition. They have a dull finish that seems to me better than the 1992 edition's glossy finish. Some of the best illustrations in a book full of beautiful work: the anthill with its beautiful colors (6), the ant at work in a scene that is used recently for the cover of a French pocketbook La Fontaine (10), the face of the cheese-mouthing crow in a rich variety of hues (14), and several title-pages, including TMCM (25), WL (37), and "The Heron" (61).

1921?/29 Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrations by Félix Lorioux. Hardbound. Paris: Hachette. $24.99 from Mary Beyer, Mt. Arlington, NJ, through eBay, July, '11.

I already have a copy of this 1929 printing of Lorioux's great work, formerly owned by the Newark Free Public Library, from Hoboken Books in 1998, and in fact I paid then one cent more than I just paid for this edition! I find the two copies identical except that the Newark copy has a library cover and binding, while this copy has the typical canvas binding and the lively picture on its cover of wig-wearing La Fontaine reading from a large volume with two children perched on his arms. This canvas-bound copy lacks the usual pre-title-page and the title-page; that is, it starts promptly with the title-page for GA (1). Pages 25-26 and 31-32 are lacking. For endpapers, it uses the FC design regular in other editions, as the Newark library-bound copy does not. As I wrote there, I find the Lorioux illustrations glorious! I have loved this work for a long time, first through Whitman's "Fontaine's Fables" (1934) and then through Hachette's reprint in 1992. Some of the best illustrations in a book full of beautiful work: the ant at work in a scene that is used recently for the cover of a French pocketbook La Fontaine (10), the face of the cheese-mouthing crow in a rich variety of hues (14), and several title-pages, including TMCM (25), WL (37), and "The Heron" (61).

To top

1922 A Critical Fable. No author acknowledged. Boston and NY: Houghton Mifflin. $1 at McIntyre & Moore, April, '89.

A strange little paperbound book with a quaint colored picture of "Hermes and the Sculptor" on its cover. Its one hundred pages seem to review poets in entertaining fashion, but I will admit that I did not get past 10. There is an amusing title page in an older style.

1922 A Hundred Fables of Aesop. From the English version of Sir Roger L'Estrange with pictures by Percy J. Billinghurst and an introduction by Kenneth Grahame. London: John Lane the Bodley Head. See 1898/1922.

1922 Biisha Ya Poto; Cover: Bembila Ya Nyama Ya Poto (Selected Aesop's Fables in Ekele). (Translated by W.M. [William Millman]). Paperbound. Yakusu, Haut Congo Belge: Baptist Missionary Society. £40 from Clive Farahar, Calne, Wiltshire, UK, June, '08.

I have heard of unusual finds like this before. I tried for one at an auction in San Francisco a couple of years ago. I am delighted to get hold of this little booklet of 28 pages. As the Farahar description points out, that page total is a bit problematic, since the T of C inside the front cover lists items on pages 29, 30, 31, and 32. The only language I can understand in this book are the publisher and place words printed on the title-page and some additional handwriting on the title-page. That handwriting reads "Selected Aesops Fables in Ekele Translated by W.M. 1st edition 2,000." I presume that the 2000 refers to the number of copies printed. Stitched binding. I would describe the cover as something close to oilcloth. I am not even sure what language is here!

1922 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.  See 1909/22.

1922 Die Fabeln von Jean de Lafontaine.  Ins Deutsche übertragen von J. Wege.  Paperbound.  Leipzig: Phillipp Reclams Universal-Bibliothek 1718-1720: Druck und Verlag von Philipp Reclam jun.  €8.50 from Heidelberg, August, '17.

1922 Fables de La Fontaine. Avec Images de André Hellé. Nancy: Berger-Levrault. $25 at Midway Books, St. Paul, March, '88.

A real treasure. The beautiful watercolors are in great shape and show lovely taste and imagination. It is hard to pick favorites: the guitar-carrying grasshopper, the fox looking up at the crow, the fox and the crane, the heir with a valuable manuscript, or the borrowed plumes. A pure visual delight!

1922 Fábulas y Cuentos en Verso.  Seleccion Hecha por Maria Goyri de Menendez Pidal.  Dibujos de Fernando Marco.  Paperbound.  Madrid: Biblioteca Literaria del Estudiante 1:  Instituto - Escuela: Junta para Ampliación de Estudios.  $14 from Christian Tottino, Buenos Aires, through eBay, Oct., '14.

1922 Fontaine's Fables, With Which Are Included Aesop's Fables. Adapted by Edwin Gile Rich. Illustrations (not acknowledged) by T.C. Derrick. Boston: Small, Maynard & Company. $12.75 from David Morrison, Portland, March, '96.

This book has some fascinating features among its forty-three fables from LaFontaine (through 75) and its fifty-four from Aesop. There is never more than one fable to a page. The LaFontaine portion seems to me to represent LaFontaine faithfully in English prose; the Aesopic texts seem to represent the tradition without any clear errors. The plates are from T.C. Derrick, but he is nowhere acknowledged; several of the illustrations have his "1910 D" monogram. In a curious move, two of the illustrations are used for quite distinct fables. Thus the DLS there becomes an illustration here for "The Ass and the Mule." And the illustration there for GGE becomes here that for "The Birdcatcher, the Partridge, and the Cock." In both cases, some French text is removed from the original illustration. The break between authors comes on 78. There is a T of C at the beginning.

1922 Grasshopper Green and the Meadow-Mice. Written and illustrated by John Rae. Sunny Books. NY: Algonquin Publishing Co. $15 at Second Story Books, Rockville, MD, Jan., '11. Extra copy in poor condition for $2 at Book Nook, College Park, MD, Feb., '92.

A delightful small-format book that picks up at the end of GA. In keeping with the philosophy of Sunny Books, which "leave out fear, mischief, and cruelty," the book is cheery, delightful, and upbeat. A family of meadow mice take Grasshopper Green in. He pays his keep with dancing lessons and even saves the children from Mouser by using magic pellets supplied by friendly fairies. It is all good fun, and I enjoy Rae's art thoroughly. The book even has one groaning pun in a sea story of "pie-rats."

1922 Grasshopper Green and the Meadow-Mice. Written and illustrated by John Rae. Sunny Books. Thirteenth edition. Chicago: Volland Publishing Co. $9 at Martha Merrell's Bookstore, Racine, Oct., '94.

Almost identical with the Algonquin edition of the same year. This book adds a different back end-paper stating the golden rule and displaying a mouse. It lacks the summary facing the title page there. It has several crayoned pages early. I cannot yet decipher the relationship between Algonquin and Volland.

1922 Greetings Christmas 1922. Kaufmann's. Cover illustration by Lentz. Paperbound. Kaufmann's. $14.94 from Nord Parkinson, Robesonia, PA, through eBay, Oct., '08.

The book is written by Santa Claus for all the good boys and girls. It is published by "Kaufmann's, The Big Store." "Christmas, 1922" is at the base of the front cover, which features a picture of Santa with two children in front of the Christmas tree, surrounded by various gifts. Together they are reading a book of Mother Goose. After "Three Bears"; "Ding, Dong, Bell"; and "Little Red Riding-Hood" there are four unillustrated fables: FG, WS, "The Fox and the Lion," and "The Hares and the Lions." WS is mistitled "The North Wind and the Lion"! Someone was asleep at the switch! "Little Jack Horner," "Humpty-Dumpty," and verses by Robert Louis Stevenson follow. The latter part of the book features poetry on the alphabet and animals, "Mary's Lamb," "Ten Little Animals," "Christmas," and "Old Woman in a Shoe." Many of the selections feature full-color illustrations. In curious fashion, the alphabet is partly full-colored, and the animal poems are partly illustrated with monochrome illustrations and partly with black-and-white. This pamphlet is losing its cohesion. The fables as the middle page have already come loose. The fox in FG "turned away, beguiling herself of her disappointment.." The moral is "Out of reach is not worth having." WS is told in the better form. "The Hares and the Lions" has for a moral "Arguments backed by power are most convincing." The hares' argument that all should be equal received this reply from the lions: "Your words. O Hares! are good; but they lack both claws and teeth such as we have." The cover illustration is signed "Lentz." Here is a rare piece of ephemera! According to Wikipedia, "Kaufmann's was an iconic department store that originated in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The store became a regional chain in the eastern United States, and was last owned by Federated Department Stores. At the height of its existence it had some 59 stores in 5 states."

1922 Jean de La Fontaine: Ouvrage Orné de Gravures. André Hallays. Ouvrage Orné de Gravures. Hardbound. Paris: Essais sur le XVIIe Siècle: Perrin & Cie, Librairies-Éditeurs. $17 from Schwabe Books, Simi Valley, CA, Sept., '10.

There are only six chapters to this life of La Fontaine. The book may be shorter than it seems; though it is thick, it has only 295 pages, including six appendices, a list of illustrations, and a T of C. Those six chapters cover his infancy and youth; his time with Fouquet; Limousin and Mademoiselle de La Fontaine; "Psyché" and his friends Boileau, Racine, and Molière; the Duchess de Bouillon and Madame de La Sablière; and his old age and conversion. There seems not to be a particular section devoted to the fables. There are twenty-one helpful illustrations. A few pages are still uncut. Hallays seems to be best known for his writings on the various sections of France. 

1922 John Martin's Big Book for Young People. Volume 6 of a seven-volume set. NY: Collier and Son. See 1919/20/22/23/24/32.

1922 John Martin's Big Book for Young People. Volume 7 of a seven-volume set. NY: Collier and Son. See 1919/21/22/23/24/25/26.

1922 La Fontaine: Fables.  D'après l'édition de É. Gerusez par M.E. Thirion.  26th edition.  Hardbound.  Paris: Hachette.  $4 from purpleaceofbass through eBay, Sept., '13.

1922 More Jataka Tales. Re-told by Ellen C. Babbitt. With illustrations by Ellsworth Young. First edition? Hardbound. Printed in USA. NY: The Century Co. $10 from Thomas Joyce, Chicago, April, '97.

Twenty-one fables, with a T of C before them. Again, I am taken first with the exquisite silhouettes. Notice the detail in the red-bud tree on 34, for example. Most of the stories are new to me. The fishes in "The Three Fishes" (8) are named as in the standard Kalila and Dimna story, but the story now has to do with one fish who saves two others from a net. "The Golden Goose" (21) presents a goose whose golden feathers turn white if they are plucked out against his wish. Furthermore, the new feathers that come in are not golden either. I like "The Cunning Wolf" (27). In it the wolf reveals a man playing dead by tugging at his weapon. "The Woodpecker and the Lion" (36) seems like a replay of WC. The spine is split internally. Tom Joyce got a charge out of adding this line to his listing of this book: "Not in Carlson!"

1922 Picture Tales from the Russian. Valery Carrick. Translated by Nevill Forbes. First Selection. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. $10 at Arkadyan, Dec., '90.

Looks at first like a companion to More Russian Picture Tales (1914)--except that the Aesopic "The Dog and the Cock" (40 here) appears in both. An unusual 5" x 7" format with linen binding. The other eight tales and illustrations are delightful; "The Fox and the Lobster" may be the best known. The lobster grabs onto the fox's tail to arrive at the finish line as the fox does. "The Gold Egg" is not the Aesopic fable.

1922 Second Reader. By Walter Hervey and Melvin Hix. No illustrator acknowledged. The Horace Mann Readers. NY: Longmans, Green, and Co. See 1909/22.

1922 Still More Russian Picture Tales. By Valery Carrick. Translated by Nevill Forbes. NY: Frederick A. Stokes Company. See 1915/22/24.

1922 The Lincoln Readers: Third Reader. Isobel Davidson and Charles J. Anderson. Illustrated by Bernice Oehler. Hardbound. NY: The Lincoln Readers: Laurel Book Company. $20 from Burlington Antique Mall, Lincoln, NE, Jan., '13.

It is somehow appropriate that I have found this Lincoln Reader in Lincoln, NE! This particular copy is marked on its title-page as a "sample copy taken from our regular stock, compliments of the Laurel Book Company." Laurel also had offices in Chicago and Philadelphia. This series as of this printing ran from third through sixth readers. The two authors are both from the Wisconsin Department of Instruction. "The Cat, the Monkey, and the Chestnuts" is listed as by Aesop (53). It features a fine initial "O" and a lovely two-colored tailpiece. This telling has several unusual features. The monkey compliments and even flatters the cat into trying to get chestnuts out of the fire. The latter burns her paw on the first chestnut and hops around the room in pain, but the monkey kisses her paw and coaxes her to try again. The collection of stories here is quite broad. It includes "How to Know Cotton from Wool"; "Earthworms at work"; "Soap-Making"; and "Storing Food in Pioneer Days." 

1922 The Talking Beasts.  Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith.  Harold Nelson.  Hardbound.  Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Co.  See 1911/1922.

1922 The Winston Companion Readers: Primer. By Ethel H. Maltby and Sidney G. Firman. Illustrated by Frederick Richardson. Philadelphia: John C. Winston Company. $10 at Dog Eared Books, San Francisco, July, '13.

A longer version of My Animal Story Book (1923). Among the six added stories is BC (91) with one good Richardson illustration. The version of the story has only two mice. Here, as in the later edition, are "The Fox and the Cheese" (47) and "The Rooster and the Grasshopper" (71). This good copy replaces an earlier poor copy.

1922 The Wisdom of the Beasts. By Charles Augustus Strong. 780 copies printed for the USA. Hardbound. Boston & NY: Houghton Mifflin Company. $65 from Pellbooks, Pelham, NY, through, Nov., '02. 

I am amazed now, almost two years later, that I paid so much money for this slim little volume. What we have here are ten philosophical fables. Strong says in his preface that he is saying here, in words that can be read on the go, the same thing that he has said in his serious books. T of C at the beginning. "The Bird and the Fish" (7) presents a headstrong bird who invents bad theories to explain the impact of wind upon the time and effort of his flight from steeple to stream. "Achilles and the Tortoise" finds the latter thanking Zeno for not allowing Achilles to catch up to him. A bullet and an eagle argue in deeply philosophical fashion over whether lines and points exist. The busy bee starts one fable by declaring "Time is honey" (41). An intelligent and skeptical young lamb argues with her practical mother over whether she can know that the grass is really green, and asks whether everything is not really one. "Do you not know that these things have been definitively threshed out by the Germans, and that it has been proved beyond question that things in themselves are unknowable and do not exist, and that the universe is One?" (60). The mother asks "One what?" and the daughter's reply is "one Lamb."

1922/30 Everyday Classics Second Reader. By Franklin T. Baker, Ashley H. Thorndike, and Mildred Batchelder. Illustrated by Maud and Miska Petersham. Twelfth reprinting. NY: The MacMillan Company. $7.20 from Book Ark, NY, April, '97.

See 1917/25 for a third reader in the same series. Though the illustrators here are different from Pogany there, the illustrations are gems again. The book presents five fables, with one illustration for each: "The Wise Goat," FS, CP, BC, and (later in the book, on 122) AL.

1922/82 Grasshopper Green and the Meadow-Mice. Written and illustrated by John Rae. Paperbound facsimile by Merrimack Publishing Corporation, NY. $15 from Elaine Woodford, Haddonfield, NJ, Oct., '97.

This seems closest to my 1922 Algonquin edition. It is in very good condition. The illustrations come out quite clearly here. See my comments there.

1922? Aesop's Fables. (FS on cover.) Illustrated by Harry Rountree. London and Glasgow: The Children's Press. £15 from June Clinton, May, '97.

This is a beautiful, large-format edition with eight colored illustrations, particularly well rendered here. Fifty fables. This book represents the most comprehensive presentation I have of one group of Rountree's work; see my Ward, Lock (1924?) edition for the most comprehensive presentation of the other group. His illustrations here fill out their rectangles; there they frequently had a completely white background, with only a foreground figure to stand out. Many black-and-white designs and full-page illustrations; there are none in the other (1924?) group. One finds some of the less-than-full-page black-and-white illustrations in Children's Wonder Book (1920?) and The Mammoth Wonder Book for Children (1935). Do not miss the illustrations for "The Cat and the Mice" and "The Thief and His Mother." Also do not overlook the great MSA illustration under the last item in the T of C. The (prose) texts here seem generally from James, sometimes altered slightly. Not paginated.

1922? Aesop's Fables. (TH on cover.) Illustrated by Harry Rountree. Inscribed in '35. Glasgow: The Children's Press. $30 in trade from Linda Schlafer, who had it from Swiss Village in St. Louis, June, '93.

This is one of two thinner editions that present portions of the above book. The pages here are like cardboard: thick and blottery. No T of C, index, or pagination. Thirty-three fables. Rountree's work is typically very lively. Four colored full-page inserts: the lion and the fox, the horse and rider (and stag), the cat and the fox, and the lion and the tiger with their tails tied. I do not know to what fable the latter belongs! It is not represented in the work just above. There are some fine scenes in the black-and-whites. The cock kicks away not just a jewel but a whole necklace! The tortoise who wants to fly smokes a pipe, even when he is falling. The repeating capitals are nice, especially the guitar-playing pig that is "O." The texts and illustrations are identical with those in the comprehensive edition; I presume they are mainly from James. The back cover has an outside advertisement for Nestlé's milk.

1922? Aesop's Fables. (TH on cover). Thomas James et al, NA. Illustrated by Harry Rountree. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Glasgow: The Children's Press. $30 from Roe & Moore, London, June, '02.

This book is very close to another that I have, but it also shows tantalizing differences. The most obvious is that the back cover (and the back dust jacket) advertise not Nestlé's milk but rather its competitor Ovaltine! What a surprise! Another striking difference lies in the different introduction and typesetting for the inside cover's list of not eight but five other books in the series. The lower number makes me think that this printing is earlier (though both books are inscribed in 1935). The imprints tend to be much cleaner here. The typesetting of "The Children's Press" on the title-page is slanted here, and the verso has "Printed in Great Britain," not "British Made." The spine's title runs from bottom to top, and there is no price indicated. To show the similarities between the two books, let me include portions of my remarks from there. In fact, we consulted my website while I was in the store to find the similarities and differences. The pages here are like cardboard: thick and blottery. No T of C, index, or pagination. Thirty-three fables. Rountree's work is typically very lively. Four colored full-page inserts: the lion and the fox, the horse and rider (and stag), the cat and the fox, and the lion and the tiger with their tails tied. I do not know to what fable the latter belongs! There are some fine scenes in the black-and-whites. The cock kicks away not just a jewel but a whole necklace! The tortoise who wants to fly smokes a pipe, even when he is falling. The repeating capitals are nice, especially the guitar-playing pig that is "O."

1922? Aesop's Fables (FC on cover). Thomas James et al, NA. Illustrated by Harry Rountree. Hardbound. London/Glasgow: Collins' Clear-Type Press. £7.65 from Ripping Yarns, Highgate, May, '97. Extra copy for $10 from Nigel Allum, Middlesex, England, through Ebay, Oct., '99.

This is another thinner edition of The Children's Press edition of the same year, but it has more in common with it than the previous listing. The layout of the T of C is identical, as are the title-page illustration and the decorations on both sides of the "List of Illustrations" page. This edition has colored illustrations of "The Eagle and the Fox," "The Mice in Council," "The Ass and the Frogs," and TH. Note that its illustration serves as the cover of the other partial edition! This book has 25 fables in common with the other partial version and 13 of its own. (OF is missed in the T of C; it belongs fourth from the end.) This edition adds something like fourteen full-page black-and-white illustrations not found in the other partial edition (but all found, I believe, in the comprehensive edition). The texts and illustrations are identical with those in the comprehensive edition; I presume they are mainly from James. The cover has "Fully illustrated by Harry Rountree" while the title-page has the simpler "Illustrated by Harry Rountree."

1922? Aesop's Fables (FC on cover, no colored illustrations). Thomas James et al, NA. Illustrated by Harry Rountree. Hardbound. London/Glasgow: Collins' Clear-Type Press. $8 from O'Leary's Books, Tacoma, WA, through Ebay, Oct., '99.

This is a derivative version--shorter and no doubt cheaper--of Rountree's works from The Children's Press (1922?) and Collins' Clear-Type Press (1922?). This book has only twenty fables, no colored illustrations, and a very gray thick cardboard-like paper for its pages. There is no pagination, T of C, or list of illustrations. Its images and page-layouts are identical with those in the just mentioned editions. See my comments there. The inside front-cover mentions the other five books in this series but does not name the series! This is #4.

1922? J. de La Fontaine: Fables, Tome I (Cover: La Fontaine Fables Illustrées).  Illustrations after Oudry.  Preface and notes by Maurice Morel.  Paperbound.  Paris: Bibliothèque Larousse.  $6 from ioachris through Ebay, Nov., '22.

1922? J. de La Fontaine: Fables, Tome II (Cover: La Fontaine Fables Illustrées).  Illustrations after Oudry.  Paperbound.  Paris: Bibliothèque Larousse.  $6 from ioachris through Ebay, Nov., '22.

1922? Reineke Fuchs.  Eine Prosaerzählung von Walther Schwabe.  Bilder von K. Wagner.  Hardbound.  Stuttgart: Thienemanns Jugendschriften: K. Thienemanns Verlag.  €30 from Dresden, July, '24.

1923 California State Series: Third Reader. By Martha Adelaide Holton, Mina Holton Page, and Charles Madison Curry. Illustrated by Frederick Richardson. Sixth edition. ©1916 by the People of the State of California. ©1916 by Rand McNally & Company. See 1916/23.

1923 Die erneuerten Aesopischen Fabeln nebst den hiezu geeigneten Lehren zusammengetragen zum wahren Nutzen und unterhaltenden Vergnuegen. Mit zwanzig handkolorierten Holzschnitten aus der Ausgabe den Joh. Zainer, Augsburg 1475. Paperbound. Munich: Mittelalterliche Volksbuecher/Band 1: Holbein-Verlag. $60 from Berlin, Sept., '95. Extra copy in poor condition for $25 from Oak Knoll Books, Sept., '89.

This is one of my favorite books in the collection, since it offers the twenty hand-colored illustrations similar to or identical with Steinhoewel's original Ulm edition. Some of the most dramatic of the twenty are: WS (6); TMCM (9); "Vom dem Esel und dem Huendlein" (14); FS (27); "Vom dem Loewen und dem Pferde" (35); and "Vom der Tanne und dem Rohr" (63). There are 64 pages covering four books of Aesopic fables. The books include, respectively, 20, 20, 19, and 20 fables.

1923 Die erneuerten Aesopischen Fabeln nebst den hiezu geeigneten Lehren zusammengetragen zum wahren Nutzen und unterhaltenden Vergnuegen. Mit zwanzig handkolorierten Holzschnitten aus der Ausgabe den Joh. Zainer, Augsburg 1475. Hardbound. Munich: Mittelalterliche Volksbuecher/Band 1: Holbein-Verlag. $24.98 from Antiquations.Com, Bolton, MA, August, '08.

Here is a hardbound copy in good condition of a favorite book of mine that, in both copies, is in only poor condition. This book offers the twenty hand-colored illustrations similar to or identical with Steinhoewel's original Ulm edition. Some of the most dramatic of the twenty are: WC (6); TMCM (9); "Vom dem Esel und dem Huendlein" (14); FS (27); "Vom dem Loewen und dem Pferde" (35); and "Vom der Tanne und dem Rohr" (63). There are 64 pages covering four books of Aesopic fables. The books include, respectively, 20, 20, 19, and 20 fables. What a find! 

1923 Die Zwiesprach der Tiere.  Selection of "Dialogus Creaturarum" published first by Peter van Leu.  #262 of 550.  Hardbound.  Munich: Verlag der Münchner Drucke.  €45 from Peter Everaers, Hulst, Netherlands, Dec., '21.

1923 Fabeln. Jean de LaFontaine. Ins Deutsche übertragen von Theodor Etzel. Mit 24 Tafeln in Kupfertiefdruck nach den Stichen von J.B. Oudry. Berlin: Im Propylaen-Verlag. $17.50 from Carl Sandler Berkowitz, April, '95.

One of the chief glories of this book lies in the twenty-four copper engravings after Oudry. By contrast with a similar edition of Etzel from Müller in 1911, the illustrations here are larger and lack titles. Among the strongest are those of Death and the woodman (18), of the wolves and sheep (60), of the old woman and her two maids (90), and of the coach and the fly (134). That edition had eighty fables and thirty reproductions, while this edition has forty more fables and six fewer engravings. One finds a Nachwort, notes, and a T of C at the back. On the second-to-last page one reads "Von diesem Werk wurde eine einmalige Vorzugausgabe von 200 numerierten Exemplaren gedruckt." Were these numbered copies printed before this more general printing? On the very last page we learn that the printing of text and illustrations was done by two different firms.

1923 Fabeln des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts.  Eingeleitet und hrsg. von Willy Kurth.  Mit 24 Kupfern von Daniel Chodowiecki.  #736 of 850.  Hardbound.  Berlin: Eigenbrödler-Verlag.  €36.17 from Gebrauchtbücherlogistik H.J. Lauterbach, Oct., '18.

1923 Fables. By Robert Louis Stevenson. Inscribed in 1929. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons. $10 at Titles, June, '93.

A very mixed group of twenty short writings. None seems to me Aesopic. The first, "The Persons of the Tale," reminds me of John Barth's "Menelaiad." "The Yellow Paint" moves toward Ade or Twain, "The House of Eld" towards Poe. "The Man and His Friend" and "Something in It" are quite close to Bierce. "The Tadpole and the Frog" sets the mark for brevity with its four sentences. The best of the book are "The Two Matches," "The Touchstone," and "The Poor Thing." Inscribed at Smith College.

1923 Fables de la Fontaine: Édition a l'Usage de la Jeunesse. 20 Compositions de J.-B. Oudry. Hardbound. Printed in Villefranche-de-Rouergue. Paris: Librairie Delagrave. 30 Francs from Buchinist, Paris, August, '99.

How many thousands of copies of books like this are sitting in French attics?! It includes twenty indifferent renderings of great Oudry illustrations, but its special charm is that it was a prize. The embossed cover proclaims "Ville de Paris Prix Municipal" around a seal and under "République Française: Liberté - Égalité - Fraternité." Life does not get more dramatic than this! On the inside paper is a pasted slip from the "Écoles Communales de Paris" naming school, street, class, date (1926), and student. What is left of the spine is breaking up. I consider this a steal, marked down from 70 Francs. There is a misprint of the book number on the top of 337.

1923 Fábulas de Iriarte.  Hardbound.  Barcelona: Biblioteca Selecta 35: Ramón Sopena.  $25.50 from Christian Tottino, Buenos Aires, through eBay, Jan., '19.

1923 Fairy Stories and Fables. James Baldwin. Hardbound. American Book Company. See 1895/1923.

1923 Fairy Tales and Fables: A Collection of Stories and Rhymes that Children Love. Pamphlet. Printed inUSA. Cleveland, OH: The Goldsmith Publishing Co. $9.99 from Robert Rigsby, Noblesville, IN, through Ebay, Oct., '99.

This is a large pamphlet with a wide selection of materials, some illustrated with colored images almost a full page in size, others with smaller colored images, and others with black-and-white drawings. There are several different repeated border designs along the way. Four fables are offered about a third of the way into the booklet: "The Kid and The Wolf," "The Dog and The Hare," "The Mice in Council," and "The Dog in the Manger." Do not ask why the last "the" here received no capital letter while the two earlier instances within a title did! Good condition.

1923 Fairy Tales and Fables: A Collection of Stories and Rhymes that Children Love.  Paperbound.  Cleveland, OH: The Goldsmith Publishing Co.  $10 from Intergalactic Trading Company, through eBay, July, '07.

1923 Fireside Stories. By Annie Klingensmith. Illustrated by Dorothy Dulin. Chicago: A. Flanagan Company. $10 at Westport Bookstore, May, '93.

Six fables in a reader in good condition. The versions are simple and the illustrations two-colored. The best illustration is for TMCM (48). Others include LM (40), WS (50), and DS (52). OF (41) has several different twists: the mother frog had never seen anything as big as an ox; when she stopped short of bursting, she convinced the children that they had been dreaming of this big monster. "A Good Joke" (45) is new to me: a rich student learned to put dollars, not stones, into a poor workman's shoes.

1923 Four and Twenty Famous Tales. A Silent Reader For Lower Grades. By Anna G. Clark. Chicago: Hall & McCreary Company. $2 at Venice Antiques, March, '95.

A small booklet in very poor condition. The last few pages are missing. This booklet represents an approach of "reading for meaning." It surprises me that, among twenty-four tales, all but six are clearly fables. "The Camel's Nose" (#11) is read here, I believe, as though it were a fable, and I would find it hard to attack that characterisation, even though the story is not from Aesop. Other non-Aesopic material is under #12, 17, 22, 23, 24.

1923 John Martin's Big Book for Young People. Volume 6 of a seven-volume set. NY: Collier and Son. See 1919/20/22/23/24/32.

1923 John Martin's Big Book for Young People. Volume 7 of a seven-volume set. NY: Collier and Son. See 1919/21/22/23/24/25/26.

1923 Les Fables de Pitje Schramouille.  Roger Kervyn de Marcke ten Driessche.  First edition?  Paperbound.  Brussels: Éditions de la Jeunesse Nouvelle.  €6 from Pele Mele, Brussels, August, '19.

1923 My Animal Story Book. A Treasury of Sunshine Stories for Children. Edited by E.H. Maltby. Illustrated by Frederick Richardson. Philadelphia: John C. Winston Co. $3.50 from Renaissance, Jan., '88.

"The Fox and the Cheese" (33) has a very nice four-color illustration. "The Rooster and the Grasshopper" (57) looks like Aesop, or at least La Fontaine.

1923 Phèdre: Fables. Texte Établi par Alice Brenot. Collection des Universités de France publiée sous le patronage de l' Association Guillaume Budé. Paris: Societé d'édition "Les Belles Lettres." Hardback $13.50 from Carl Sandler Berkowitz, Middletown, NY, Dec., '89. Paperback $8 at Book Stop, Alexandria, VA, Jan., '96.

An unusual Budé edition in that it has no accompanying French translation. The notes seem purely textual. The hard-bound cover apparently stems from the publisher. The back endpapers contain an old advertisement for the Hoogstraten 1701 Phaedrus.

1923 Phèdre: Fables. Texte Établi par Alice Brenot. Collection des Universités de France publiée sous le patronage de l' Association Guillaume Budé. Paris: Societé d'édition "Les Belles Lettres." Paperback $8 at Book Stop, Alexandria, VA, Jan., '96.

Like the hardbound version, this seems to me unusual Budé edition in that it has no accompanying French translation. The notes seem purely textual.

1923 Promenade au Jardin des Fables. Camille Schlumberger. Hardbound. Limited edition of 1200 copies. Dornach/Paris: Braun & Cie/Berger-Levrault. 1000 Francs from Librairie F. Chanut, Paris, May, '97.

One of the heavier and more pretentious books in the collection. The book seems to me to represent a kind of printer's dream, drawing in all sorts of illustrations. I have listed Berger-Levrault as a publisher, but they may be only the exclusive seller of the book. "Ribeauvillé" appears next to the date on the title-page, but I hesitate to put that down as the place of publication when the publisher has already assigned himself two other places! Schlumberger herself does an intricate silhouette surround the text material of the title-page. Overall the book has two parts, including 370 reproductions in the text and 15 plates outside. The first part presents forty-three fables (listed at the part's beginning as a T of C for it) with illustrations from the fourteenth century until today. This is arguably a list of the most popular La Fontaine fables. Illustrations used in the first part do not follow the dimensions or context of the original. Reading through a fable in the first part sometimes gives a good sense of the visual motif; for GA, there are five illustrations from 1566 and before on two facing pages (2-3). Pages 3-6 are loose. Schlumberger's favorites seem to include Lyon 1556, Solis, Gheeraerts, Barlow, Chauveau, Oudry, Grandville, Barboutau, and Rackham. My only complaint about the first part is that some chapterlets are too brief. AD (65) manages only five illustrations, and "The Peacock Complaining to Juno" (76) only four. The second part lists seventy-three principal illustrated editions of fables of Aesop and La Fontaine, starting with Ysopets and Robert's Fables inédites and ending at the time of Félix Lorioux. New to me and interesting from the second part: Verdizotti 1577 (catalogue XVI), Monnier 1828 (XLII), and Gouget 1834 (XLVII). This part may help on some thorny bibliography problems of mine, e.g., concerning Jaoust editions. There are three alphabetical indices at the back: authors, artists, and fables. Do not miss the pretty paper inside-cover with its golden rendition of Barlow's frontispiece.

1923 Story Hour Readers Revised: Book One.  By Ida Coe and Alice Christie Dillon.  Hardbound.  NY: Story Hour Readers Revised:  American Book Company.  See 1913/23.

1923 Story Hour Readers Revised: Book Two. By Ida Coe and Alice Christie Dillon. Hardbound. Printed in USA. NY: American Book Company. See 1914/23.

1923 Story Hour Readers Revised: Book Three.  Ida Coe and Alice Christie Dillon.  Hardbound.  Chicago: American Book Company.  See 1914/23.

1923 Story Hour Readers Revised: Book Three. By Ida Coe and Alice Christie Dillon. NY: American Book Company. See 1914/15/23/28.

1923 The Bowers Movie Book: Book 2: Aesop's Fables. Canvas-bound. NY: Harcourt, Brace and Company; The W.F. Powers Company. $45 from George Robert Kane Fine Books, Santa Cruz, May, '04. Extra copy--the one I could not find while cataloguing the Kane copy--for $21.50 from Paul Lazarek, Cranberry Twp, PA., Nov., '02.

"Flip the Pages--The Pictures Live," the cover proclaims. I swear I had found a copy of this book before, but I cannot find it now. The inside back cover proclaims four books in the series; "Aesop's Fables" is the second of the four, the others being "Mother Goose," "The Circus," and "Once Upon a Time." The concept is simple. Each of the eight pages is really a double page, folded once. One of its quadrants has fables illustrated with small black and white illustrations. One of its quadrants is blank. The other two quadrants have similar colored illustrations. Because of the fold and the placement of the two colored quadrants, one can "make the pictures move" by raising and lowering the top colored page with a rolling motion. The characters seem to move between their two positions. The colored illustrations are exquisite! The colored fables are FG, "The Boy and the Filberts," "The Bald Man and the Fly," "The Hare and the Hound," "The Fisherman," "The Blackamoor," GA (alas, one picture is not aligned well), and "The Cocks and the Eagle" (less good than others because of a crease). The texts for these special fables are done in rhyming verse. The fable used for demonstrating the flip technique and for representing this second, fable, volume is "The Wolf and the Goat," but that fable does not appear here! It does appear, along with a second copy of FG, in the second copy from Paul Lazarek. For that reason, I will keep both in the collection. There happens to be an unusually good moral to "The Boy Bathing": "Give Assistance, not Advice, in a Crisis." Was it Mr. Kane himself who wrote at the top of the first page "Not in Carlson 1994"? This book was surely not in my 1994 catalogue! And I am delighted that it is in my catalogue now. What a lovely little treasure!

1923 The Boys' and Girls' Readers: First Reader. Emma Miller Bolenius. Illustrated by Mabel Betsy Hill. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. $7.50 from Florence Shay at Titles, Highland Park, August, '96. Extra copy in good condition for $8, about '99.

This volume contains four fables that are first told in narrative and then in dramatic form: DM (23), FG (44), DS (60), and " The Fox and the Lion " (103). The book also includes " The Fox and the Goat " (48), " The Rabbit Who Was Afraid " (105), and LM (114). Simple black-and-orange illustrations. Good condition. The Titles copy is from the Board of Education in Ashland, WI. Because there is smudging on various pages of both copies, I will keep both in the collection. They differ only in the code on the back of the title-page. Where the Titles copy has "SJ8," the extra has "RA8."

1923 The Grateful Elephant and Other Stories Translated from the Pali.  Eugene Watson Burlingame.  Illustrations by Dorothy Lathrop.  Hardbound.  New Haven: Yale University Press.  $45 from the Bay Area, July, '13.

1923 The Merrill Readers: Third Reader. By Franklin B. Dyer and Mary J. Brady. With illustrations by Rhoda Campbell Chase. NY: Charles E. Merrill Company. See 1915/23.

1923/24/26/31 The Child's Treasury. Editor May Hill. The Foundation Library. Chicago: Foundation Desk Company: W.F. Quarrie & Company. $17 at Blake, Aug., '93.

This book can be recognized by the two twitty kids whose cherubic faces appear on both the cover and the title page. The "Animal Stories" section contains seven fables called Aesop's and TMCM, described as adapted by May Hill. An earlier section featured the poorer version of WS (47). New to me, especially as Aesop's, is "The Camel and the Pig" (114) on differing gifts. The pleasant illustrations include some black-and-white, and many in various numbers of colors.

1923/71 The Ontario Readers: First Book. Authorized by the Minister of Education. Exact Facsimile. Toronto: T. Eaton Co., Ltd. $4, Summer, '92.

A clean facsimile of a typical reader. I find nine simple fables, all illustrated except the first: "The Boys and the Frogs" (7), SW (19), TH (35), "The Fox and the Cat" (39), "The Wolf and the Cat" (47, there is no one whom the wolf has not offended), DS (50), "The Honest Woodman" (66), TMCM (69), and "The Fox and the Hen" (94).

1923/73 The Ontario Readers: Second Book. Authorized by the Minister of Education. Exact Facsimile. Paperbound. Toronto: T. Eaton Co., Ltd. $2.40 at Village Book Store, Toronto, Dec., '93.

A facsimile of a typical reader in the same series as my First Book (1923/71). There are over a dozen fables from various sources, about six illustrated in black-and-white by C.W. Jefferys. The unusual presentations include a verse treatment of GA (142) and "The Hare with Many Friends" (58) presented as from Aesop. "The Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal" (128) is well told by Flora Anne Steel. A very nice book to find first on my first book hunt in Canada!

1923/89 Phèdre: Fables. Texte Établi et Traduit par Alice Brenot. Collection des Universités de France publiée sous le patronage de l' Association Guillaume Budé. Quatrième tirage. Paris: Societé d'édition "Les Belles Lettres." Gift of the publisher, June, '92.

A typical Budé edition with text and accompanying French translation. The texts and notes seem identical with those in the 1923 edition without translation. The APA representative two years earlier offered me this book. When I wrote, he gave no answer. I am glad that I wrote back again when Budé sent around some advertising this year.

1923? Chwedlau Aesop.  Adapted for children by Ceridwen Gruffydd.  H. Norman Humphreys.  Paperbound.  Wrexham: Hughes A'i Fab.  £8.50 from Cambridge Recycled Books, Cambridge, UK, Dec., '21.

1923? Fables. Édition illustré. Franc-Nohain (pseud. Maurice-Etienne Legrand). Hors-texte de Marie-Madeleine Franc-Nohain. Vignettes de Clot. Paris: La Renaissance du Livre. Gift of Viviane Pott-Rovera, Oct., '95.

A beautiful gift of a new friend from the Renard Society meeting in Düsseldorf. I had already noticed Franc-Nohain's work in Norman Shapiro's The Fabulists French, and this is a lovely edition of 57 of his fables. One of the more delightful fables here is included among the five offered by Shapiro as a sampling: "The Revolt of the Elevators" (156-8). The full-page illustrations by Franc-Nohain's wife and the designs by Clot add delightfully to the book. What a wonderful gift! I cannot find an indication of date but presume that this book is the one Shapiro identifies, in Footnote 8 on 190, as having been published in 1923. This copy is inscribed "20.2.32." T of C on 199-200. Thank you, Prof. Pott-Rovera!

To top

1924 A Hundred Fables of Aesop. From the English version of Sir Roger L'Estrange with pictures by Percy J. Billinghurst and an introduction by Kenneth Grahame. London: John Lane the Bodley Head. See 1898/1924.

1924 Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by Nora Fry. No editor acknowledged. London: George G. Harrap and Co. See 1921/24/27.

1924 Aesop's Fables in Rhyme for Little Philosophers. John Martin. Illustrated by George L. Carlson and Fletcher White. NY: John Martin's Book House. $14.25 from Meandaur, June, '93. Extra copy for $12.00 from Travellers' Tales Books at UWM Book Fair, April, '88.

I enjoy the illustration style here, and the fables are versified, with one or two (e.g. MM) even song-ified. Perhaps the best for use in a show would be LM. Interspersed poems often reinforce the morals of the fables. Repeaters from John Martin's Big Book include CP and "The Reed and the Oak." Now in 1996 I have done a thorough study of the book’s twenty-three fables. There are no surprises in the stories here. Rather the versions are quite faithful to the tradition, but they seem considerably padded and even wordy. They tend to be moralistic; the crow’s vanity over stealing cheese, e.g., "makes honest children wonder." Oh? "The Misguided Ass" may be Martin’s best text.

1924 Ancient Indian Fables and Stories, Being a Selection from the Panchatantra. Stanley Rice. Hardbound. Printed in Great Britain. NY: The Wisdom of the East Series: R.P. Dutton and Company. $12 from Titles & Tales, Littleton, NH, through Bibliofind, Sept., '98.

The first of the five tantras here covers about half of the book. It tells the story of Karataka and Damanaka. In this version, these two jackals work in unison and are thoroughly scoundrels! They have been thrown out of court in disgrace. The lion hears the bull and sends for them. They tell the lion king that the bull is the charger of Siva sent to devour every animal (40). They tell corresponding lies to the patient and personable bull. At the time of their final betrayal, however, they provoke only the lion. A violent rainstorm drives the bull to the lion's cave, where he is surprised by the lion's attack. There are plenty of sub-stories that are new to me. One of them is the early story of the pond with a hole (24). The frustrated king who had dug the pond listened to the advice given by an anchorite, namely, that an anchorite must be sacrificed. So he sacrificed the anchorite who had given him that advice! By luck, the anchorite's dead body sealed up the hole. Here it is a jackal that induces the lion to jump into the well to attack the supposed adversary that is really his own reflection (54). Damanaka, not the bull, tells the sad story of the camel betrayed by the lion's counselors (59). The story here does not include an offer of self-sacrifice from the camel; rather the three others mention him first and offer themselves as back-up. The lion cannot bear his hunger and so kills the camel and feeds on him, with the jackal, crow, and dog feasting on the dead camel later. TT here involves a tortoise and eagles, not geese (63). A jackal deliberately baits the tortoise into answering. But then he cannot eat the tortoise because of her hard shell. She suggests that he take her to a neighboring pond to soften her up. He holds on with one paw while she is in the water. She claims that she is now soft everywhere but where his paw is, and so he removes the paw, and the tortoise is immediately gone! The second tantra on friendship is told in cursory and unsatisfactory fashion. The third tantra on the war between the owls and the crows is more fully developed. In the fourth tantra, it is the monkey's liver, not heart, that the crocodile's wife demands. This version cleverly gets the monkey to suggest the trip to the crocodile's home, so that the crocodile can both enjoy his friend and attend to his wife. Otherwise the story does not hang together very well. After significant travel, the monkey asks to be let off on the shore. He never does use the "I left my liver at home" ploy--since he never hears that a monkey's liver is what is supposedly needed. The fifth tantra on rash action includes the funny story of the barber who watches a man--under divine inspiration--kill three beggars, whose bodies promptly turn into copper pots full of gold and jewels. The barber kills the first beggar he can find and chases after the next two, but there is no transformation, and the barber is executed (120). This version omits the many quoted verses one usually finds in the Panchatantra and so is, I believe, easier to read for many of us.

1924 Carl Fischer Film Themes: Aesop's Fables--Animated Cartoons--Fast Moving Comedy--Allegretto. Selected and Classified by Chas. J. Roberts. Paperbound. NY/Boston/Chicago: Carl Fischer, Inc. $0.99 from tokensgalore, Anderson, CA, through eBay, Feb., '06.

This portfolio offers sheet music, one sheet for each part in a small orchestra. The music in this instance is from Tschaikowsky's Symphony Number 4. The piano part takes up two pages; as a double-page, it serves as the folio to enclose the sheets for the other instruments, each of which is a single page written on just one side. The other instruments include the first and second violin, violoncello, flute, bass, viola, and first clarinet in A. Four other instruments receive pages that show "tacet": first and second cornet; trombone, and drums. Now I need to find a small orchestra to play this short piece for me!

1924 Choix de Fables de La Fontaine: Album pour les Enfants.  Avec de nombreuses illustrations par J.-J. Grandville et des chromotypographies de L. Nehlig.  Hardbound.  Paris:  Librairie Garnier Freres.  €20 from a buchinist, Paris, July, '22. 

1924 Die deutsche Fabel von ihren ersten Anfängen bis auf die Gegenwart. Hubert Badstüber. Paperbound. Vienna: Carl Gerold's Sohn. $40 from Alcuin Books, Phoenix, AZ, July, '99.

Here is an uncut exemplar of a piece of serious German research on the history of German fable. I am surprised by two things in Badstüber's opening remarks: first, that there had been no systematic history of the German genre of fable to his time and, secondly, that this was in his time an "almost forgotten form of poetry." He divides the history into three sections: the beginnings up to Alberus and Waldis; up to von Hagedorn; and since von Hagedorn. 48 pages. I look forward to reading this history! 

1924 Fabelreich: Menschentorheit und Menschentugend im Maskenkleid des Aussermenschlichen. Bildschmuck von Ernst Weber. Paperbound. Zweite, veränderte Auflage. Munich: Der deutsche Spielmann: Eine Auswahl aus dem Schatze deutscher Dichtung für Jugend und Volk: Georg D.W. Callwey: Verlag des deutschen Spielmanns. DM 35 from Antiquariat Hatry, Heidelberg, July, '01.

Here is an eighty-eight page paperbound book of fables. Was "Der Spielmann" perhaps a magazine? The T of C at the end gives titles and authors. There are fifty-eight fables by a variety of fabulists, all German--as is fitting for the series. The first fable comes from Abraham a Santa Clara. It tells in detail the old story of unthankfulness, but adds a new chapter. In this version, a farmer listens to the plea of a snake which a stone has confined in a hole. When the freed snake wants to kill the farmer, the man asks for opinions of others. They meet first a horse and then a dog, both of whom speak of human unthankfulness. Finally a fox does the usual trick of getting the snake back into his enclosed hole. The man gratefully invites the fox to a meal of chicken soup the next day, but his wife kills the fox as soon as the animal arrives. The further chapter adds something to the story, I would say! There are frequent black-and-white illustrations of varying size, many of which show more than usual wit. One of the best of these is TMCM on 32. There are also four full-page colored illustrations. These colored pages have two panels. Perhaps the most curious of these colored illustrations is for "Das Heupferd oder der Grashüpfer" (27). Lessing's fable tells of the grasshopper (das Heupferd) who congratulates himself on getting an overloaded wagon moving. In the panel below the farm scene is a human being holding up a Zeppelin! The book was originally sold in the "Treue" Buchhandling in Sollstedt bei Nordhausen. Is that the Spielmann himself pictured on the colored cover?

1924 Fablen (Yiddish).  Nahum Y(erusalemchick).  Illustrations by A. Abramovich.  Hardbound.  New York:  N(ahum) Yerusalemchick.  $25 from an unknown source, August, '18.

1924 Fables Mises en Vers par Jean de La Fontaine I. Jean de la Fontaine. Édition illustrée par Maurice de Becque. #255 of 1965. Paperbound. Les Maitres du Livre. Printed in Argenteuil. Paris: Les Éditions G. Crès et Companie. $24.16 from Alibris, July, '02.

Bodemann 410. Limited edition of 1965 copies. The woodcuts are done in tans, browns, and blacks (Bodemann here speaks of yellows). A great full-page frontispiece shows a monkey viewing his reflection in water. Good partial-page illustrations introduce each section and book; the best of these may be FS introducing Book I. A very small square acts as tailpiece to almost every section and book; the sole exception seems to occur at the end of Book V. Many pages are uncut. The last 1850 copies, including this one, are done on Papier de Rives. This volume also includes, between the life of Aesop and the dedication to the Dauphin, a portrait of La Fontaine after de Troy.

1924 Fables Mises en Vers par Jean de La Fontaine II. Jean de la Fontaine. Édition illustrée par Maurice de Becque. Paperbound. Printed in Argenteuil. Paris: Les Maitres du Livre: Les Éditions G. Crès et Companie. $24.16 from Alibris, July, '02.

Bodemann 410. Limited edition of 1965 copies. The woodcuts are done in tans, browns, and blacks (Bodemann here speaks of yellows). The full-page frontispiece in this second volume shows an assembly of monkeys. Good partial-page illustrations introduce each section and book; the best of these may be those showing the rat in the cheese on 7, TT on 181, and two goats on 271. Again a very small square acts as tailpiece to almost every section and book. Many pages are uncut. The last 1850 copies, including this one, are done on Papier de Rives. There is no indication in this second volume of the set's number among the 1965 copies; only Volume I is marked (as #255). At the end this volume has an AI for both volumes as well as a T of C for just this volume.

1924 Favole.  A. Murari.  Illustrazioni di Angoletta.  Hardbound.  Milan and Rome: Ed. A. Mondadori.  $20 from Moe's, Berkeley, August, '13.  

1924 Favorite Folk Tales. Julia Darrow Cowles and Ethelyn Abbott. Illustrated by Dorothy Dulin. Chicago: A. Flanagan Co. $5 at Aberdeen in DC, Feb., '89.

A nice little book. It is surprising that four fables are included, each with a picture. The tales are told differently here. In FK (with a strong picture) the request goes to the "Great Ruler"; the stork eats every one. FS is a dialogue with a lively picture. In a drama, the turtle is carried by geese, not ducks; they initiate the offer.

1924 Fifty Famous Stories Retold. By James Baldwin. Few illustrations; illustrators not acknowledged. NY: American Book Company. See 1896/1924.

1924 Forty-Two Fables of La Fontaine.  Edward Marsh.  1st edition, signed by Marsh; #113 of 165.  Hardbound.  London: William Heinemann, Ltd.  $9.99 from The Book Shop, Covina, CA, through eBay, May, '18.

1924 French Fables in Action.  Violet Partington.  Preface by Walter Ripman.  Hardbound.  London: Dent's Modern Language Series: J.M. Dent and Sons.  $8.95 from World of Books, Jan., '20.

1924 Insurance Fables for Life Underwriters. By William Alexander. With Illustrations by Alexander Williams. William Alexander's Educational Series for Life Underwriters. Stiff boards. Printed in Chicago: The Spectator Company. $23.49 from Peggy Randall, Amarillo, Texas, through Ebay, Oct., '00.

A clever little book combining original fables with adaptations of Aesopic models. Each fable then receives an insurance application. The illustrations of various sorts and sizes are enjoyable. Some of the better Aesopic adaptations include FWT at the beginning; the clever fox here would not go the same route that his Uncle Reynard had gone, namely advising other foxes to cut off their tails. Instead he bought a long-skirted coat and said he had just returned from London. "And the result was that from that day on frock coats became quite fashionable in Foxville." The application for banks and trust companies urges them not to conceal their surplus. The full-page illustration is spirited! "The Deluded Blackamoor" is told in standard fashion; the application is that "To the Life Underwriter truth is essential." A good fable that is new to me concerns the sheep dog bought by a farmer. A neighbor tells him that the dog is a well-known killer of sheep, and the farmer promptly kills the dog. The next day the neighbor says that he had made a mistake! The booklet tells "The Lap Dog and the Ass" as usual. Its application? "The life underwriter who lacks common sense is seriously handicapped." In a witty transformation of DS, a wolf gives the dog a tip that there is a large piece of meat floating in the water. That afternoon the wolf was seen with a large piece of meat in his paw. The application has to do with giving up a policy in a solvent company for a "better" policy in another company. FS is told in the opposite order from the usual.

1924 John Martin's Big Book for Young People. Volume 4 of a seven-volume set. NY: Collier and Son. See 1919/20/21/24/26/29.

1924 John Martin's Big Book for Young People. Volume 5 of a seven-volume set. NY: Collier and Son. See 1919/20/24/28.

1924 John Martin's Big Book for Young People. Volume 6 of a seven-volume set. NY: Collier and Son. See 1919/20/22/23/24/32.

1924 John Martin's Big Book for Young People. Volume 7 of a seven-volume set. NY: Collier and Son. See 1919/21/22/23/24/25/26.

1924 Knickers and Bobs: An Unusual Collection of Fables, Modern Stories and Old Time Tales for Young People. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Springfield, MA: McLoughlin Bros. $14.98 from Ronald Taxe, Beverly Hills, CA, through Ebay, April, '03.

This is one of the larger books in the collection, 8½" x 10½" x 1½". Of the forty-one stories here, only two are, despite the title, fables. "The Tailor and the Bear" on 221 has a clever tailor using fable-like means to overcome the bear and so to marry the princess. "Johnnie Jones" (250) is an updating of BW, in which Johnnie's mother eventually reads him the story of BW and explains to him that he has been such a cry-baby that people naturally did not think that he was hurt this time either. Most of the stories here are fairy tales heavy on magic. There is a fine colored picture of a dressed frog and a dressed mouse facing 60, but I can find no story that bears any relation to this picture!

1924 Knickers and Bobs: An Unusual Collection of Fables, Modern Stories and Old Time Tales for Young People.  Hardbound.  Springfield, MA:  McLoughllin Brothers.  $17.97 from Pink Garnet, Carlyle, IL, through Ebay, August, '18.

1924 Li Dos Saouço: Fable Patoise (Dialecte Nimois).  Leon Méjan en Collaboration avec M.E. Benoit-Germain.  Pamphlet.  Nimes: L'Imprimerie Nouvelle.  €5.60 from Librairie Gil-Artgil Sarl, Rodez, France, through ZVAB, March, '22.

1924 Listen to Mr. Aesop. After Jacobs. Drawings by Walt Huber. Pamphlet. Printed in USA. Harrisburg, PA: J.C. Funk. $2.95 from Robert Williams, New Concord, OH, through Ebay, Oct., '00.

This pamphlet is fascinating not only as a period piece that advertises the Oakland automobile and uses phone numbers that are anywhere between two and five digits long. It also is fascinating for the way it matches an individual business in Harrisburg, PA, with each of the twenty-four fables here. Each fable gets a page and a simple three-color illustration. The fables were selected from Jacobs' edition published by Macmillan. Some matches are natural, e.g. GGE (5) with the Mechanics Trust Company and CJ (6) with a jeweler. BS (8) underscores the strong stitching of a tailor. "The Traveler and Fortune" (14) promotes an insurance company. Many of the ads have to turn against the fable. Thus after the first fable, "The Fox and the Mask" (3), we read "While clothes do not make the man, they do help to make his reputation." The fable "Prometheus and the Making of Man" (12) has the moral "A Leopard Cannot Change His Spots," but the next sentence proclaims "Change, however, is one of nature's immutable and universal laws" on the way to offering Hoover & Sons as morticians. Right after the moral "Familiarity Breeds Contempt" (21), we are admonished "This is true in some instances, but in others quite the opposite." We are to get familiar with Walker's Ice Cream. Other matches may be somewhat forced. What does WC (4) really have to do with a haberdashery?! "The Man and the Trees" (11) somehow turns into an ad for a drug store. WSC (24) differs from the usual version; here the wolf leads a lamb away from the flock and devours it.

1924 Live Language Lessons: First Book. Howard R. Driggs. Lincoln: The University Publishing Company. See 1916/24.

1924 Phedre: Fables. Texte Établi et Traduit par Alice Brenot. Hardbound. Collection des Universités de France publiée sous le patronage de l' Association Guillaume Budé. Printed in Paris: Societé d'édition "Les Belles Lettres." $15 from William H. Allen, Bookseller, Philadelphia, Oct., '96.

Here, by contrast with the hardbound and softbound books that I had found earlier from 1923, is a more typical Budé edition with an accompanying French translation. The Latin texts and the notes seem to be identical with those in the all-Latin Brenot Budé edition of 1923. The hard-bound cover apparently stems from the publisher. Carnes #753.

1924 Phedre: Fables. Texte Établi et Traduit par Alice Brenot. Softbound. Collection des Universités de France publiée sous le patronage de l' Association Guillaume Budé. Printed in Paris: Societé d'édition "Les Belles Lettres." $20 from Mike's Library, Wilkes-Barre, PA, August, '98.

Here is the softbound version of Brenot's typical Budé edition with an accompanying French translation. As I mention about the hardbound version, the Latin texts and the notes seem to be identical with those in the all-Latin Brenot Budé edition of 1923. Carnes #753.

1924 Schimpf und Ernst, Vol. 1.  Johannes Pauli; edited by Johannes Bolte.  Hardbound.  Berlin: Alte erzähler, Vol. 1: Herbert Stubenrauch Verlagsbuchhandlung.  $19.20 from Calvello Books, through Biblio, May, '23.

1924 Schimpf und Ernst, Vol. 2.  Johannes Pauli; edited by Johannes Bolte.  Hardbound.  Berlin: Alte erzähler, Vol. 2:  Herbert Stubenrauch Verlagsbuchhandlung.  $19.20 from Calvello Books, through Biblio, May, '23.

1924 Still More Russian Picture Tales. By Valery Carrick. Translated by Nevill Forbes. NY: Frederick A. Stokes Company. See 1915/22/24.

1924 Studies in Reading: First Grade. J.W. Searson, George E. Martin, and Lucy Williams Tinley. Illustrated by Ruth Mary Hallock. Hardbound. Lincoln: Studies in Reading: University Publishing Company. $10 from Walnut Antique Mall, May, '12.

This schoolbook in poor condition joins copies I had already found of the second and third readers in the same series. This book is missing at least 41-46, but it still has three fables intact, two of them with nice three-color illustrations. DS on 80 has a good illustration; in it a large dog first steals a piece of meat from a smaller dog. "The Boys and the Frogs" (135) is on loose pages. "The Kite and the Butterfly" (138) is presented in the opening T of C as an "Old Russian Fable." I think that this book has been through many hands! 

1924 The Child's Treasury. Editor May Hill. The Foundation Library. Chicago: Foundation Desk Company: W.F. Quarrie & Company. See 1923/24/26/31.

1924 The Outline of Knowledge, Volume XIX: Fables and Fairy Tales. Edited by James A. Richards. Hardbound. Printed in USA. NY: The Outline of Knowledge: J.A. Richards.  From Alibris, May, '00.

This is a standard collection of fairy tales and fables. The surprise to me is that starting on 425 of a 500-page book, the volume can include so many fables. The fables are divided into eleven from Caxton and about 225 from James, followed by two English folk tales, two Welsh fables, and one Hitpadesa fable. The biggest surprise about the first Caxton fable, FG, is that it is not from Caxton! Somehow a James text is presented as Caxton's. James tells the fable with the fox leaping more than once and getting tired, while Caxton's fox does not leap at all and goes away pronounced to be wise. I checked the next three "Caxton" fables and they are faithful to Caxton's text. One of the Welsh "fables" is the good story of Howel of Glamorgan, who stirs the king's envy by his wisdom and virtue. The queen, eager to help the king, arranges with visiting lime-burners to kill the man coming to them with a glass of mead. Howel, sent to the lime-burners with a glass of mead, hears scripture being read and has promised never to pass up a reading of scripture. While he listens to it, the king is eager to reward the lime-burners and so goes himself to them with a glass of mead as reward…. The Hitopadesa fable is of an ass in a lion's skin who terrifies everyone until one field-owner covers himself with an ass-skin. Seeing the kindred skin prompts a bray from the "lion," and, as he approaches, the field-owner easily slays him with his bow and arrow.

1924 Tierfabeln und Schwänke. Ausgewählt von Bernard Lundius. Paperbound. Frankfurt am Main: Die Lateinischen Quellen des Deutschen Mittelalters: Verlag von Moritz Diesterweg. DM 10 from an unknown source, August, '95.

This is a 32-page pamphlet using Latin and teaching German cultural history in the upper levels of the schools. The seven fables on 2-17 are all in Latin verse and are identified on the inside of the back cover by their centuries, from ninth to twelfth. The fables include: "Fox and Bear"; "Calf and Stork"; "Sick Lion"; "The Fox's Cure"; "Fox and Rooster"; "Wolf Mocks Fox"; and "Fox Steals Farmer's Ham." This booklet is fragile! 

1924 Up-to-Date Animal and Other Fables. By Lincoln Sonntag. Hardbound. San Francisco: Lincoln Sonntag. $30 from Bibliomania, Oakland, CA, Nov., '06.

This 101-page privately published book seems a curiosity. It contains over two hundred paragraph-length fables without illustration. I have read the first eleven fables and find them quite unremarkable. At first I thought they might be humorous journalistic fables, perhaps similar to those of George Ade or even Ambrose Bierce. Now they seem to me to be utterly straightforward. If I can locate a problem with them, it is that they do not teem with analogies. They do not invite the reader to think immediately of five cases where the story fits perfectly. Perhaps my judgement is influenced by the fact that I have found four typos in these first eleven fables. This collection of fable books exists in part to find and preserve together little-known ephemeral treasures like this little book.

1924 With Aesop Along the Black Border. Ambrose E. Gonzales. First edition in book form. Columbia, S.C.: The State Company. $65 by mail from St. Nicholas Books, Toronto, March, '94.

An excellent, delightful, challenging presentation of some sixty Aesopic fables in strong Black dialect. The sampling I tried (five fables) took time but made wonderful reading, especially as one gets the hang of the pronunciation. These fables elaborate significantly. They may even lose some of the punch of surprise as they develop many of the story's details. So the grapes are very ripe in FG, the fox and stork do their thinking out loud before the guest appears, and the two women being considered for marriage want much different things from the man. That fable, 2W (149), seems to me to be typical. There is a long figure about how deep one has to plow with each woman. Taking two women was the man's first mistake; taking two of different ages was the second. One wants dancing and the other liniment! As the story moves along, the younger woman notices him going white fast. The introduction is curious, to say the least. For Gonzales, the Negro has a "racial contempt for the truth" (X). This seems to me a strange way to describe a gift for exaggeration. I think the racism grows stronger when he explains himself on XI. Against those who assume "that the Black saw in the Rabbit and the weaker creatures the poor slave forced to resort to cunning and lying to protect himself," Gonzales argues "But the slave brought these myths from Africa, whence, also he brought his race characteristics!" T of C on VII. These stories first appeared in The State.

1924/28 The Laidlaw Readers: Book Two. Herman Dressel, M. Madilene Veverka, and May Robbins. Illustrated by Mabel B. Hill and Betty Selover. Chicago: Laidlaw Brothers. $3, Spring, '93. Extra copy for $1 at Pageturners, Nov., '89.

A pleasing little reader with six fables and four good colored illustrations: "The Fox and the Crane" (24); "The Cat and the Birds" (95, the best here); "The Cat, the Monkey, and the Chestnuts" (116); and DW (141). The ant with the dove gets changed to a bee in "The Dove and the Bee" (170). Page 27 gives a description of fables just after the first one.

1924/36 Bobbs-Merrill Readers: The Third Reader. By Clara B. Baker and Edna B. Baker. Illustrated by Vera Stone. ©1924 by the Bobbs-Merrill Company. Topeka: The State of Kansas. Gift of Wendy Wright from "Once Again Antiques and Books," Atchison, KA, April, '93.

The section called "A Few Fables" on 16-22 includes GA; "The Jay and the Peacock"; FS; "The Little Fish"; MM; and MSA. The latter has a nice but not artistically resolved illustration on 22: the pole and the donkey's leg are competing for one space! AL appears on 154-7 with an illustration; it is labelled an "Italian fable." Pages 87-88 are missing.

1924/88 The Fable of the Bees. Or Private Vices, Publick Benefits. By Bernard Mandeville. With a Commentary Critical, Historical, and Explanatory by F.B. Kaye. Volume One. Paperbound. First edition? Indianapolis: Liberty Classics. Originally published at Oxford by the Clarendon Press. $6.50 at Second Story, Nov., '92.

I freely admit that I have not come close to reading this tome. The heart of this first volume was published by Mandeville in 1732. The problem of the text is discussed on ix-xii and xxxiii-xxxvii. The volume gives a great example of what I do not mean by "fable"!

1924/88 The Fable of the Bees. Or Private Vices, Publick Benefits. By Bernard Mandeville. With a Commentary Critical, Historical, and Explanatory by F.B. Kaye. Volume Two. Paperbound. First edition? Indianapolis: Liberty Classics. Originally published at Oxford by the Clarendon Press. $6.50 at Second Story, Nov., '92.

I freely admit that I have not come close to reading this tome. This work gives a great example of what I do not mean by "fable"!

1924? Aesop's Fables. Retold by Blanche Winder. With 48 Colour Plates by Harry Rountree. London: Ward, Lock and Co., Ltd. $35 at Old Children's Books in New Orleans, Oct., '86.

A real find. The retellings are a bit lengthy. The colored illustrations--in the tradition of Norman Rockwell--are delightful. There are great illustrations to show people and several for use in a lecture: FG on 144 and the cigar-smoking city mouse on 171. One of the features of his art here is a significant number of illustrations (like FG) without background: a foreground figure stands out against a sheer white page.Some of the fables seem quite "transformed" into modern settings. I have moved this book from its first place (1920?) because Ash and Higton list Rountree in 1934, but Gregory Gillert has graciously looked Rountree up and reports a 1924 work for Ward, Lock. This book seems to me to be the most comprehensive in a second group of Rountree work, distinct from the first group (1922?). There are very few repeaters from the first group for subject matter among the illustrations: TH, "The Committee of Mice," and FS. In fact, there are few fable repeaters! This book is about 8.5" x 7". It contains two good fable illustrations on each of its endpapers. It has no black-and-white illustrations at all. Had Rountree established himself by earlier, cheaper work, so that he had a chance to do extensive expensive work here that he wanted to do?

1924? Aesop's Fables. Retold by Blanche Winder. With 30 Colour Plates and 18 sepia Illustrations by Harry Rountree. Hardbound. Dust jacket. London: Ward, Lock and Co., Ltd. £38 from Stella Books, Monmouthshire, UK, Nov., '01.

This book sits precisely between two others I had already found. Both are listed under the same date. One has thirty illustrations and the other forty-eight. Let me mention then which of the two this book resembles on several points. It has the same cover as the less illustrated book: plain red cloth with gold lettering. It shares a similar advertisement with the lesser book, in that both speak of "Charming Colour Books for Children" whereas the more illustrated book speaks of "'Prince Charming' Colour Books for Children." This volume shares with the more illustrated version the frontispiece of the castle of King Eagle, an illustration for "The Little Partridge's Stolen Eggs" (299). It shares with the lesser version Whitefriars Press as its printer. It shares with the more illustrated version the T of C and its page numbers; here the sepia illustrations add an asterisk. All three have endpapers illustrating a variety of fables: two birds and LM at the front, and the fly-in-the-telescope and FS at the back. This copy adds a dust jacket mentioning the 30 colored plates and 18 sepia illustrations but then--just to confuse things--advertising the Prince Charming Colour Books for Children, all of which have the same "30 plus 18" format. The cover picture here has the tortoise at the finish line doffing his cap to the late-arriving hare. FG is on the spine, and DS on the back cover. Might this book put an end to my finding new editions of Rountree? See my comments on the 48 and 30 illustration versions in this series, on the three different versions in Ward and Lock's Sunshine Series ("1924?"), and on the three versions of Rountree work done by Collins and Children's Press. The latter are listed under "1922?"

1924? Aesop's Fables. Retold by Blanche Winder. With 30 Colour Plates by Harry Rountree. Hardbound. Printed in England. London: Ward, Lock & Co., Ltd. £18.50 from Rose's Books, Hay-on-Wye, June, '98.

I thought I had exhausted Ward and Lock's publications of Rountree's work with the editions that included forty-eight and sixteen illustrations, respectively. Wrong again! I have compared this work with the one containing forty-eight illustrations. See my comments there on Rountree's work. This volume is remarkably similar. The T of C is exactly the same, but the page numbers have changed, and the number of colored-plate indications in parentheses after the titles has dropped from forty-eight to thirty. Now the plates are listed as facing a given page and are not themselves paginated. The printer is now the Whitefriars Press. The frontispiece here is "The Traveler and the Ass," whereas it had been "The Castle of King Eagle" in the more heavily illustrated edition. That edition had the series name of "Prince Charming" on an advertisement on the back of the pre-title-page. At the same place now we have an advertisement for many books with thirty illustrations, labeled as a group "Charming Colour Books for Children." Now have I come to the end of Ward & Lock editions of Rountree?

1924? Aesop's Fables. Retold by Blanche Winder. With 24 colour plates by Harry Rountree. Hardbound. London: The Sunshine Series: Ward, Lock. £24 from Stella Books, Monmouthshire, UK, Nov., '01.

It is hard to believe, but this is the third distinct book I have found now in the "Sunshine Series" by Ward and Lock. The other two have, respectively, sixteen colored plates and sixteen colored plates plus eight sepia illustrations. This one is exactly identical with the latter with the following exceptions. First, it offers what were sepia illustrations at the same place but here in full color. Secondly, it has for its cover not FS but an enlargement of a detail from "The Wolf and the Fox" (112), showing the fox in a bucket in a well. Thirdly, its advertisement for "The Sunshine Series" on the verso of the pre-title page is identical with the advertisement at the same place in the other volume except that it offers fewer volumes and says of course "Each with 24 Colour Plates" and not "Each with 16 Colour Plates and 8 Sepia Illustrations." The ten volumes that it does offer are all among the fourteen in the other advertisement as well. Aesop's Fables does not appear in the advertisement here, as it does there. The printer here is not Whitefriars but Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London. This book may have the firmest binding of the three "Sunshine Series" books I have. Here the leaping fox of FG on 68 is a classic! There are some minor stains in this copy. See my comments on both of the other books in the Sunshine Series. Ward and Lock used the same illustrations in a second family of Rountree books with Winder texts, listed here under the same date. They are generally advertised as "Prince Charming" or "Charming Colour Books for Children," are smaller in page-format, and include more illustrations than these volumes in the Sunshine series. Rountree was also involved in another distinct venture, the publishers of which were Collins and the Children's Press. I have those grouped under "1922?"

1924? Aesop's Fables (with 24 colour plates).  Retold by Blanche Winder.  With 24 colour plates by Harry Rountree.  Hardbound.  London: The Sunshine Series:  Ward, Lock.  $10 from K. Morgansen, Millersville, Md, through eBay, Sept., '17.

1924? Aesop's Fables. Retold by Blanche Winder. With 16 Colour Plates and 8 Sepia Illustrations by Harry Rountree. Hardbound. London: The Sunshine Series: Ward, Lock. £30 from Stella Books, Monmouthshire, UK, August, '00. Extra copy, somewhat foxed but with dust jacket, for £15 from Minstergate Bookshop, Beverly, August, '01.

I happened to notice this book on an ABE listing and did not remember the sepia illustrations. So I checked my book and saw that it seemed otherwise identical to the one being offered but had no sepia illustrations. Now as I have the two books before me, there are only a few subtle differences. Please see my notes there, under the same year, publisher, and title. The cover of the other book has a yellow box highlighting "With 16 Colour Plates"; this cover prints in orange "16 colour Plates and 8 Sepia Illustrations." Strangely, the pre-frontispiece page of either advertises "The Sunshine Series," but one describes the series as "Each with 16 Colour Plates" while the other says "Each with 16 Colour Plates and 8 Sepia Illustrations." The title-pages are identical except for this mention of the illustrations. The T of C has changed in two ways. First, the sepia illustrations are added and asterisked. Secondly, the pagination begins here on 11, not 7, and the plates are now counted in the pagination. This book thus finishes on 176, not 128. The sepia illustrations include "The Donkey and the Lap-Dog" (45), FG (68: I have seen this illustration somewhere colored), BC (95), "The Boys and the Frogs" (106), "The Miser" (117), "The Widow and Her Little Maidens (128), "The Dragon in the Moon" (139), and "The Tiger's Golden Bracelet" (150). I like Rountree's colored work so much that I am less impressed by the sepia illustrations.

1924? Aesop's Fables. Retold by Blanche Winder. With 16 Colour Plates by Harry Rountree. The Sunshine Series. London: Ward, Lock and Co., Ltd. $24 at Arkadyan, San Francisco, Aug., '94.

Once again I thought I was buying an extra of a book I already had. This edition has fewer illustrations, in fact one-third of the number in the other edition from Ward and Lock. It is in excellent condition. The texts and illustrations are identical with their counterparts in the other 1924? edition. See my comments there. This book is done in a larger format and so adds several frames around each illustration (white/beige/white), whereas there is only white in the thicker but smaller edition just above.

1924?    Aesop's Fables.  Retold by Blanche Winder.  With 18 colour plates by Harry Rountree.  Hardbound.  Dust jacket.  London and Melbourne: Charming Colour Books for Children:  Ward, Lock, & Co.  €23.30 from World of Rare Books through ZVAB, July, '18.

1924?/87 Aesop's Fables. Translator (Blanche Winder) and illustrator (Harry Rountree) not acknowledged. Sixteen of the forty-eight illustrations of the original are included and perhaps three-fourths of the texts. Printed in Yugoslavia. NY: Exeter Books. $8 at Castalia Books in Berkeley, June, '89. Extra copy for $5.98 from CU bookstore, Nov., '89.

Surprisingly good runs of the reproductions of Rountree's work. This book is closest to the sixteen-illustration edition of 1924? As is typical of Exeter, there is no introductory or bibliographical material.

1924?/90 Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by Harry Rountree. After the version of Blanche Winder (unacknowledged). ©Ward Lock. Dust jacket. Printed and bound in Norway. NY: Gallery Books. Gift of Maryanne Rouse, Nov., '91. Extra copy for $7.95 at Booklegger's, Chicago, Sept., '90.

My original Winder/Rountree (1924?) has fifty-eight fables, forty-eight illustrated. This has fifty-six, thirty illustrated. What has been dropped?: "The Blackamoor," "The Ass in the Tiger's Skin," and "The Boy and the Nettle." GA (175) has been added. The Winder text is altered here: note the loss of "gay colors" in FG. The plates are enjoyable, but not up to the quality of the originals. They are printed back-to-back on special paper, with sayings facing. Compare also with the smaller 1987 Ward Lock reprint from Exeter (forty-eight fables, sixteen illustrations).

1925 Aesopi Fabulae, Pars Prior. Recensuit Aemilius Chambry. Paperbound. Nouvelle Collection de Textes et Documents publiée sous le patronage de l'Association Guillaume Budé. Paris: Societé d' Édition "Les Belles Lettres." $20 from Serendipity Books, Berkeley, June, '01.

With the second volume (1926), this standard-setting work is the lovely Budé text of 359 Greek fables. Many of them include one or more variants. This first volume contains 144 Greek texts. Compare the two volumes of this work with Chambry's bilingual one-volume edition of 1927 by seeing my notes there. This volume does indeed have "The Oak and the Reed" as #101. (It will become "The Reed and the Olive" and occupy #143 in the 1927 work.) And the last of the fables in this volume is "The Horse and the Wild Boar," which will be dropped in favor of its doublet, #329, in the later work. I have been on the hunt for this work since I learned ten years ago of the two different Budé versions. Hooray for finding it now! Notice that this book is in a different series ("Nouvelle Collection de Textes et Documents publiée sous le patronage de l' Association Guillaume Budé") from that one ("Collection des Universités de France publiée sous le patronage de l' Association Guillaume Budé").

1925 Aesop's Fables. With designs by Phyllis A. Trery. Printed in England. NY: Boni and Liveright. $50 from Cynthia Fowler, Oct., '91.

A beautiful book. Each of twenty-four fables gets a title page with a clever design, a text page, and a five-color full-page illustration (yellow, green, grey, pink, black). No pagination or T of C. The best of the excellent illustrations are DS, "The Fox and the Mask," "The Man and the Satyr," "The Black Slave," "The Lioness and the Cub," FC, and MM. Included in Ash/Higton but not mentioned in Hobbs or Quinnam.

1925 Aesop's Fables. Chosen and Retold in Easy Words by A.P. Williams. Pamphlet. "Books for Young Readers" Series. London: G. Bell and Sons. £7.50 from Quinto, Charing Cross Road, London, June, '02.

This is a slightly changed reprinting of the original from 1913. Like it, it is a clean copy with good illustrations. The changes come in two areas. I will describe them and then include the pertinent remarks from that comment. That pamphlet has four pages of advertising at its beginning, including an advertisement for the work itself that mentions a frontispiece; the irony is that the frontispiece is not there. This work lacks the advertisements but has the frontispiece, "The Dog and the Sheep." Like the earlier printing, this is a sturdy little pamphlet with canvas wrapping. Twenty fables, each marked as a lesson, and a farewell. The sentences are numbered and indented. The illustrations are quite clear and in good condition. I recognize but cannot place them; they are not from Tenniel or Weir. Check "The Goat in the Well" (#3) and DM (#8) as typical illustrations. SW (#1) lacks the element of a bet and tells the story in the poorer fashion besides. New to me is the fox in the well being lectured by the wolf (#5). The morals are curious in this book. Almost all are negative. Typical are #10, "Do not be vain like the crow," and #15, "Do not be vain like the ass or you may suffer for it." The cat playing dead (#4) shows that you may not get rid of a bad name. #16 and #17 are one fable ("The Lark and Her Young").

1925 Aldine First Language Book: Part Two for Grade Four. Catherine T. Bryce and Frank E. Spaulding. NY: Newson and Co. $1 at Silver Spring Thrift Shop, Oct., '91.

This book apparently represents a revision of the 1913 edition; the earlier edition may also have been broken up into several parts. Fable remains a part of the content and method of teaching (especially in 186-91 and 257-61) but is reduced in extent from the earlier edition. "The Man and the Satyr" from the earlier edition has become "The Wanderer and the Woodman" (202). Several fables are well told, with a number of others named from earlier study or common usage.

1925 Buch und Leben des hochberühmten Fabeldichters Aesopi. Mit einer Einführung von W. Worringer und in sprachlicher Erneuerung von R. Benz. Mit 36 Abbildungen. Hardbound.  Dust jacket.  Hauptwerke des Holzschnitts.  München: R. Piper & Co.  DM 75 at Antiquariat J.F. Steinkopf, Stuttgart, July, '01.  Extra copy without dust jacket a gift of William Jenkins, July, '91.

A real prize! These woodcuts of Steinhöwel's Ulm edition are beautifully reproduced: a title piece of Aesop, ten from the vita, and twenty-four with fables. I had heard of this book but figured I would never find it.

1925 Buch und Leben des hochberühmten Fabeldichters Aesopi. R. Benz. Ulm. Hardbound. Muenchen: Hauptwerke des Holzschnitts: Piper. $35 from R&D Emerson, Falls Village, CT, Jan., '02.

Here is a simpler version of a book I have already listed with the same bibliographical information. Here there are no cloth covers or dust jacket but rather simple boards. The Ulm "Esopus" picture adorns the front-cover board. The lower right corner is seriously bumped. The book is still a real prize! These woodcuts of Steinhöwel's Ulm edition are beautifully reproduced: a title piece of Aesop, ten from the vita, and twenty-four with fables. I had heard of this book but figured I would never find it.

1925 Buch und Leben des hochberühmten Fabeldichters Aesopi.  Mit einer Einführung von W. Worringer und in sprachlicher Erneuerung von R. Benz. Mit 36 Abbildungen. Hardbound.  Hauptwerke des Holzschnitts.  München: R. Piper & Co.  €8 from Germany, August, '17.

1925 Busy Folk. Mary E. Laing and Andrew W. Edson. With illustrations by Clara Atwood Fitts and Katharine Bird Eckert. Hardbound. Chicago: The Edson-Laing Series: Benj. H. Sanborn & Co. See 1913/25.

1925 Das neunzehnte Jahrhundert in der Karikatur. Friedrich Wendel. Hardbound. Berlin: J.H.W. Dietz Nachfolger. €18 from Antiquariat Niedersätz, Berlin, July, '07.

Here is a heavily illustrated presentation of nineteenth century caricatures out of contemporary journals. There are some 136 black-and-white illustrations on 188 pages. I find two that make their statements by appealing to fables. Illustration #58 on 69 from Punch in 1860 presents a fine wolf in sheep's clothing sending a letter to England. This wolf -- Napoleon III? -- has little sheep labeled "Savoy" and "Nice" already in his pockets. As a good caricature, it has human hands and a human face visible underneath the lamb's head. The lower body -- back legs and tail -- are those of a wolf. The book's identifier underneath this illustration speaks of "Die verdächtigen Anbiederungsversuche Napoleons III. England gegenüber." Illustration #61 on 73 presents an 1865 Kladderadatsch caricature on Napoleon III's aims on the Rhein. Apparently a French Renard looks up at the flowing Rhine -- and especially the flowing Rhinewein -- and remarks "Die Trauben sind sauer." This French Renard carries palm branches declaring "The empire is the peace." This book seems to have been a special publication for the Dietz "Bucherkreis." Several colored illustrations occur in the course of the book. 

1925 Everyday Classics Third Reader. With exercises in silent reading. By Franklin T. Baker and Ashley H. Thorndike. Illustrated by Willy Pogany. Fifteenth reprinting. NY: The MacMillan Company. See 1917/25.

1925 Fables by Rishon Bardiov (Rabbi Berachya Hanakdan). Pamphlet. Bardiov, Slovakia: Druck und Verlag von M. Ch. Horovitz. $24 from C. Karlinsky, Jerusalem, through eBay, Oct., '02. 

As much as any book I have catalogued in this collection, this book is beyond me. The eBay seller advertised it as a book of rhymed fables by Rabbi Berachya Hanakdan, one of the great Rishonim. It has 67 pages. Though fragile, it is intact. That may be a T of C on 3-7. I wish I could say more! This collection is one place where this fragile pamphlet can find a happy home.

1925 Fables de La Fontaine: Cent Fables Choisies. Henri Laurens, Éditeur. Illustrations de Henry Morin. Paperbound. Paris: Librairie Renouard. $75 Canadian from David Mason Books, Toronto, Nov., '03.

This is the third distinct copy I have of this work, 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. My other two copies are hardbound, one with a gray background on its cloth cover and no date on its title page and the other dated 1932 with a dark green background on its cloth cover. 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.

1925 Fables de Lokman. M. Cherbonneau. Paperbound. Paris: Librairie Orientaliste: Paul Geuthner. $45 from Serendipity, Berkeley, 8/06. 

Here are forty-one fables on 79 pages. The rest of the title proceeds "Expliquées d'après une Méthode Nouvelle par deux Traductions Françaises." One translation right underneath the Arabic is a standard prose paragraph in French. On the page facing, there is a two-column presentation of the fable, phrase by phrase, in Arabic and French, respectively. The book has three further elements. First comes a long analytic dictionary of words with difficult forms. Then there is a helpful T of C that lists other fabulists who treat the same fable or theme. Finally there is an Arabic AI of fables. Lokman is mentioned in the thirty-first sourate of the Koran. Cherbonneau starts his preface by writing that Lokman's fables are much more modern than had been thought; Lokman is commonly dated to 1100 BC. The numbering and understanding of these fables seems consistent with what I have described from the Dutch edition of Lokman by Leo Ross in 1964, though that edition presents only thirty-seven fables. Thus the moral of Fable 3 about a sick gazelle is again that when a family grows, so do concerns grow. In this fable and generally, this edition substitutes "gazelle" for deer or stag. In Fable 9, a fox tells a gazelle who has fallen into a well that she made a mistake by not thinking ahead to the way to get out. In Fable 11, it is a rabbit that claims to the lion to produce a number of offspring. Fable 12 is also consistent with Ross' edition and with his numbering: the woman who overfeeds her productive hen wanting more has been getting silver eggs from this hen. I have for Fable 19 the same question that I had about this fable in Volume III of "The Classic and the Beautiful from the Literature of Three Thousand Years" from 1895. This story tells of the lamenting pig who is travelling with the lamb and goat. There is again a strange moral, namely that criminals should know the dire fate that awaits them in the next life. But what crime did this pig commit? As in Ross' edition, Fable 22 tells of the bramble bush that takes over the garden. In Fable 29, it is a cat and not a snake that licks a file. As against Ross, Fable 34, SW, is told in the better version. I noted in Ross that Fable 37 on the goose and the swallow seems new. When this pair encounter a trap, the swallow can fly up and away, but the goose is caught. Fable 40 is new to me. Two snakes are fighting, and a third comes up to reconcile them. A human observer addresses the third snake: "If you were not worse than both of them, you would not try to mediate." In Fable 41, DS, the piece of meat dropped into the river is picked up by a bird.

1925 Fábulas de Esopo.  Ilustrada con 133 grabados.  Hardbound.  Barcelona: Bibllioteca para Niños:  Casa Editorial Ramon Sopena.  $45 from Christian Tottino, Buenos Aires, through eBay, June, '15.

1925 Forty-Two Fables of La Fontaine. Translated by Edward Marsh. First U.S. edition. NY: Harper and Brothers. $13.50 at Q-Rosity Shop, Santa Fe, May, '93. Extras for $2.50 from Constant Reader, Fall, '86, and for $7.50 from David Morrison, Portland, March, '96.

Witty rhyming texts. The tales may get a bit long in the telling. Many witty classical allusions are made and played with. Good stuff for the scholars and pundits around!

1925 Forty-Two Fables of La Fontaine. Edward Marsh. First U.S. edition. Hardbound. NY: Harper and Brothers. $2.50 from Constant Reader, Milwaukee, Sept., '86.

This book is interiorly identical with another, bought in Santa Fe. It has a slightly smaller format, no label on its front cover, and lighter green cloth for its covers. As I mention of that other first U.S. edition, the book has witty rhyming texts. The tales may get a bit long in the telling. Many witty classical allusions are made and played with. Good stuff for the scholars and pundits around! 

1925 Gold's Gloom: Tales from the Panchatantra.  Translated by Arthur W. Ryder.  First impression.  One of 2000.  Hardbound.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press.  $5 from Second Story Books Warehouse, Rockville, MD, August, '18.

1925 Gold's Gloom: Tales from the Panchatantra. Translated by Arthur W. Ryder. First impression. One of 2000. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. $15 from an unknown source, March, '98.

I listed earlier a copy of the second impression of August, 1926. Now I have found a first impression, according to the note at the end saying that 2000 copies were made in September, 1925. This copy is in better condition than the copy I have of the second impression. There is a design of one larger and several smaller birds on the title-page and a repeated pattern that appears in a band above titles and in a smaller section at the end of each story. There are stains on the verso of the title-page and on the T of C's first page. The book is inscribed on January 29, 1926, and heavy initials "V.B.S" are pasted onto the front end-paper. I can only guess at when and where I found this book.

1925 Hundertundeine Fabel. Alois Wohlmuth. Mit Umschlag und 23 Federzeichnungen von Olaf Gulbransson. Hardbound. Munich: Verlag Parcus & Co.. €18 from Antiquariat Ihring, Berlin, August, '07.

I had known a little bit about Wohlmuth's work from encountering it in the 1961 Vogel und Fisch: Ein Buch Fabeln. Bodemann seems to have only one work of Wohlmuth's, Vierundsiebzig Fabeln 1917 with art by Olaf Gulbransson, as here. Might this be a later and fuller rendition of that work? Bodemann's comment there mentions an "aesopähnliche Dichterfigur in humoristisch-antikisierender Aufmachung mit erhobenem Zeigefinger in Kornfeld." Exactly that picture is on the cover of this book. The dust-jacket promised on the title-page is not with this copy. I enjoy these poems and sketches. These poems are more than fable-like. The first is "Hilferuf" (3). Frogs are aware of the approaching snakes and make a big noise. Stork hears the frogs' cries, comes down, eats the snakes and then eats the frogs too! "Pfeffer" (71) relates the difficulty Ebrahim has getting his ass to continue traveling. He gets the advice: "Put pepper in his buttocks." He dismounts and does that. The ass then runs so fast that Ebrahim cannot catch him. So he tries the same on himself and it works! His wife wonders what is up, but Ebrahim cannot stop. He recommends that she too pepper her buttocks and she will follow them "like lightning." Gulbransson's two sketches for this fable are particularly good. "Vom Hamster" (107) relates the death of a hamster who had saved up food that he never enjoyed. "Verschwender ist, wer nicht geniesst!" He is a waster who does not enjoy! The last fable, "Hund und Hase" (126), tells of a rabbit upon whom a chasing dog is closing. In desperation the rabbit stops fast and lets the dog fly over and past him. "When the great man overshoots his goal, the little man can make use of that with pleasure." T of C at the end. 

1925 John Martin's Big Book for Young People. Volume 7 of a seven-volume set. NY: Collier and Son. See 1919/21/22/23/24/25/26.

1925 Isoho Monogatori, I. Paperbound. Tokyo: Kisho Fukuseikai Sosho, Ser. 4, No. 3: Beizando, Taisho 14. $38.95 from Shingo Ueda, Tokyo, through eBay, June, '05.

The three volumes of this set are a facsimile reingraving of the 1659 Haseda Daigaku Toshokan copy of Aesop's fables. The imprint reads "Ito San'emon, Manji 2." It is done in Oriental style on double leaves in a heavier paper casing bound by thread. I count some 23 double pages in this volume, which seems to me to present the life of Aesop. There are five illustrations in this volume. The first is easily recognizable as the story of Aesop voluntarily throwing up to prove that he did not eat stolen figs. After second and third illustrations that remain uncertain for me, there is a fourth in which Aesop seems to cover horses' heads. In a fifth, he is pursued by soldiers. Could this be the Delphi episode which saw him killed? Lovely work, and I am delighted to include it in the collection! There is a loose insert at the beginning of the volume, perhaps an advertisement. 

1925 Isoho Monogatori, II. Paperbound. Tokyo: Kisho Fukuseikai Sosho, Ser. 4, No. 3: Beizando, Taisho 14. $38.95 from Shingo Ueda, Tokyo, through eBay, June, '05.

The three volumes of this set are a facsimile reingraving of the 1659 Haseda Daigaku Toshokan copy of Aesop's fables. The imprint reads "Ito San'emon, Manji 2." It is done in Oriental style on double leaves in a heavier paper casing bound by thread. I count some 30 double pages in this volume, including five illustrations. At least the first two seem to deal with the life of Aesop. The first has Aesop looking at people inside cages, upon which birds stand; this was his supposed bright idea for waging war, according to the life. The second has a lower panel in which Aesop seems to have been thrown down a cliff. The third again presents two scenes, I believe. Is the boar kicking the old bull in the face in the upper panel? And might the lower scene show the crow waiting for the eagle to drop the snail, so that he can eat it first? The fourth seems to show BF in its upper panel. In the lower, has the horse just kicked Dr. Wolf? The upper part of the fifth seems to be UP. Are those two men visiting the land of the monkeys in the lower portion? Is the first being rewarded for his flattering lies? There is a loose insert at the beginning of the volume, perhaps an advertisement. 

1925 Isoho Monogatori, III. Paperbound. Tokyo: Kisho Fukuseikai Sosho, Ser. 4, No. 3: Beizando, Taisho 14. $38.95 from Shingo Ueda, Tokyo, through eBay, June, '05.

The three volumes of this set are a facsimile reingraving of the 1659 Haseda Daigaku Toshokan copy of Aesop's fables. The imprint reads "Ito San'emon, Manji 2." It is done in Oriental style on double leaves in a heavier paper casing bound by thread. I count some 31 double pages in this volume, including five illustrations. The upper panel of the first presents "The Ant and the Fly." The lower panel seems to present a demon on horseback with a human walking alongside. The second may have the fox betraying the wolf in the upper panel, but the presence of both waves and a basket with the latter animal make me wonder. The lower panel here is AD. The upper panel of the third illustration has perhaps one animal (a wolf?) seizing the prey (a fox?) from another animal which is hard for me to identify. The lower panel has a cat outside a house and a mouse or rat inside. Might the upper portion of the fourth panel be the story of the wife visiting her drunken husband in his tomb? The lower portion seems to show a raging storm god causing wind and rain. The fifth illustration seems to have a bird on a tree branch relating to a man with a long pole. Below one human being may hold a rope over another human being on the ground. I look forward to working with the person who can clarify the association of these fascinating illustrations! There is a loose insert at the beginning of the volume, perhaps an advertisement. 

1925 Isoppu Monogatari (Aesop's Fables) [in Japanese].  Masao Kusuyama.  Artist: Takeo Takei.  Hardbound.  Fuzanbo.  $275 from Onourshelves through ABE, Jan., '19.

1925 Kalender für das Jahr 1925 (Cover: Klingspor Kalender 1925). Gedruckt und herausgegeben von Gebr. Klingspor. Holzstiche von Willi Harwerth. Hardbound. Offenbach am Main: Gedruckt und herausgegeben von Gebr. Klingspor. €12 from Antiquariaat Engel, Stuttgart, August, '09.

This book represents one of the best finds of an extended stay in Europe. During a one-day trip to Stuttgart, Ursula Kuhn and I headed for the bookshops on Alexanderstrasse. I soon recognized the territory and remembered Antiquariaat Engel and its place above a store for new books. No one was there to help. I found little, and checked "Neue Eingänge" before I left, knowing that chances of finding something were very small. Out popped this Klingspor Kalender. I recognized it immediately because of the 1933 calendar featured in Anne Hobbs' Fables, a calendar I found by luck on eBay five years ago. This hardbound book is slightly larger than the 1933 edition, about 5½" x7¾." It begins with poems on the four seasons and then offers a page for each month. Each month has an astronomical sign at the top. Each month features four or five small figures representing saints or feasts. Do not miss Salome on October 24th! The Sundays are printed in red, and phases of the moon noted. There follow then two pages of fables: Lessing's "Der Besitzer des Bogens," Ernst's "Eine harmlose Geschichte," and Luther's "Gewalt" or LS. Then come seven verse selections, all either fables or very close to fables. The first is Pfeffel's good story of the grainfield where only one stalk raises its head. That is the stalk without fruit; all the others are bowed down by their good fruit. One of the seven, of anonymous authorship, is even titled "Eine Fabel." When King Lion locks up the bear who had censored people's writing, he found that making everyone into writers only produced confusion. "Let the bear go free!" The images are exquisite. Here they are all colored, by contrast with the copy I have from 1933. What a find! Formerly in the possession of Joachim Butterling.

1925 Märchen, Schwänke und Fabeln.  Ernst Tegethoff.  Hardbound.  Munich: Bucher des Mittelalters: F. Bruckmann.  €7.20 from Antiquariat Locker, Vienna, through ABE, May, '20.

1925 More Fables of La Fontaine. Translated by Edward Marsh. Signed first edition, #88 of 165. Hardbound. London: William Heinemann Ltd. NZ$ 40 from John & Carole Ansley, Titles Bookshop, Manukau, New Zealand, Dec., '98. Extra signed and numbered (#5) copy for £3.20 from J. Carson, England, through eBay, Jan., '04.

Marsh had just published "Forty-Two Fables of La Fontaine" in the same year with (Heinemann in England and?) Harper in the US. In the preface to the 1931 complete translation of La Fontaine in two volumes for Heinemann, he writes that he revised both of these earlier works for this more stringent task. That revision is clear in the very first ten lines of GA. It is of course a part of the treasure of this little 1925 book that it is a numbered copy of a limited first edition, signed by Marsh himself. The book joins others by Marsh in my collection besides the monumental 1931 work: a 1933 Heinemann reprinting of the two-volume 1931 work, now in one volume; Everyman's edition in 1952; and Marie Angel's lovely edition of some of the fables in 1979/81.

1925 More Fables of La Fontaine. Translated by Edward Marsh. Hardbound. London: William Heinemann Ltd. $10 from Midway Books, St. Paul, June, '03.

This is a less expensive version of the signed, numbered first edition I found from John & Carole Ansley in New Zealand. This book has smaller margins and is thus perhaps ¼" smaller in each dimension. It has a blue cloth cover with a title pasted in paper on the front cover and on the spine. Inside, it appears to be identical, with exception of the missing page number (88) on the final page. Here is what I wrote about the signed, numbered edition: "Marsh had just published Forty-Two Fables of La Fontaine in the same year with (Heinemann in England and?) Harper in the US. In the preface to the 1931 complete translation of La Fontaine in two volumes for Heinemann, he writes that he revised both of these earlier works for this more stringent task. That revision is clear in the very first ten lines of GA. It is of course a part of the treasure of this little 1925 book that it is a numbered copy of a limited first edition, signed by Marsh himself. The book joins others by Marsh in my collection besides the monumental 1931 work: a 1933 Heinemann reprinting of the two-volume 1931 work, now in one volume; Everyman's edition in 1952; and Marie Angel's lovely edition of some of the fables in 1979/81."

1925 Never-Grow-Old-Stories Retold from Aesop's Fables. By Edwin Osgood Grover. With Illustrations by Percy J. Billinghurst. Hardbound. Chicago: Lyons & Carnahan. $16 from Alibris, Dec., '98. Extra copy with blue, red, and black cover for $31 from Alibris, May, '00.

"This book contains thirty-eight of the best stories told for very little boys and girls who like cats and dogs, and lions and bears (at a proper distance), and who never tire of watching them or reading about their wise and otherwise actions" (Introduction by Grover, 7). There is a T of C at the beginning. These are pleasant tellings for little children. At the end of their story "the fox and stork shook hands and parted as good friends as ever" (25). Grover starts DM with a long examination of the dog's envy over the horses' living conditions (39). The fox actually enters the door after the "doorman" dog opens it for him (45)! There is a tendency here to lighten the impact of a fable. Thus the crow outwitted by another into dropping his mussel onto rocks only for the other crow to eat it consoles himself that the eater will not "enjoy eating when he remembers what a mean trick he played on me to get it" (61). And the fox without a tail "was a brave Fox to try to make the best of his misfortune" (17). The fox and goat jump into the well together for a drink (73). The talkative approach to stories may backfire slightly when we read that the frogs asked for a king because "they did not like so much liberty and freedom" (81). In the next paragraph they are talking of the court balls, parties, and good times they could have with a king. Mercury actually cuts the camel's ears off--or at least down to small size (101). FG is told as an aetiological tale (105). The fox takes over the wolf's den with impunity after the farmer does away with the wolf (113). Both copies have a misprint "Boer" on 131. The contrast between "room" and "company" in "The Sow and the Wolf" (137) is in Croxall and thus in many others. The very last fable, "The Cat and the Mice" (141), is new to me. The cat seems to sleep and so catches a newly arrived mouse. The extra copy shows more signs of age and has different colors on its covers and endpapers and in its good Billinghurst illustrations. These seem to have two or three colors (brown, tan, and orange) besides black and white. I recognize them as standard Billinghurst; at least here he is acknowledged!

1925 Required Stories for Reading in the New York City Public Schools: Grade 4A.  James J. Reynolds and Mary A Horn.  Illustrations by Mable Betsy Hill.  Paperbound.  NY: Noble and Noble, Publishers.  $8 from Boston flea market, July, '16.

1925 Reynard the Fox and Other Fables. Adapted from the French of La Fontaine. Written by W.T. Larned. Illustrated by John Rae. Chicago: P.F. Volland Co. $36 by mail from Dorothy Meyer, Dec., '95.

This book uses the illustrations of the Volland 1918 Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks (see my listing for 1918/24?) and puts them now with prose stories rather than the verse used there. Most fables also get new titles. In addition, the order is changed, so that now the ass from MSA is holding a (miswritten Latin?) "farewell" sign four fables before the book ends! Though some illustrations come out clear, I am still disappointed at how frequently the Volland illustrations end up lacking definition. The end-paper illustration here is dramatically clear!

1925 Stone's Silent Reading: Book Three. Clarence R. Stone. Illustrated by Ruth Sutherland. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. $1 at Omaha Flea Market, March, '90. Extra copy for $3 from 5^th Avenue Antiques, Milwaukee, August, '96.

Pages 147-53 present six fables with multiple choices for morals. Then there is a page of nice small colored pictures. "The Geese and the Crane" becomes "The Crows and the Dove." Page xviii complains that pupils often get the story without getting the moral! "The real content value of the fable lies in the moral lesson taught." The Omaha copy is slashed on 237, and the Milwaukee copy is missing 239-40, which was torn out.

1925 The Fables of Aesop. (Cover and spine: Aesop's Fables.) Text Based upon LaFontaine and Croxall. Illustrated by Joseph Eugene Dash. Hardbound. Published in the USA. Chicago: Albert Whitman. $9.95 from Jim Pierce, Willow Street, PA, through Ebay, Nov., '00. Extra copies: of the third printing ('29, tan cover), a gift of Linda Schlafer from Dorothy Meyer, Chicago, at the DePaul Book Fair, March, '93; and of the fourth printing ('36, red cover) for $20 from Bookman's Alley, August, '96.

Here is a singular find. I had never seen this book before, and I cannot find it mentioned in Hobbs, Quinnam, or my favorite private collector. I checked for a formulaic text adapted from LaFontaine and Croxall identified as this book's subtitle identifies it; I found no comparison from my holdings. (The closest is the "JBR" version that includes Croxall, LaFontaine, and L'Estrange in, for example, Aesop's Fables of 1893/1893?). A quick check finds that this text does follow Croxall, with updatings. Both follow the version in which a company of mice run over the lion. I find thirty-seven colored (orange, brown, and tan with black) and fifty-two black-and-white illustrations; the page after the title claims "over seventy" colored illustrations. The book has a curious way of using partial phrases under its illustrations, right from the frontispiece on: "Illness of the Lion was only a sham." Why not "The Illness"? Some good illustrations feature 2P (23), WS (79), "The Frogs and the Stork" (113), and "The Grasshopper and the Owl" (217). Juno is one-third the size of the peacock (129)! Good work on donkeys and asses (49, 133, and 181). About 115 fables. The fourth printing adds colored background to the black-and-white illustrations. How lucky to find a first edition on Ebay! Its outer spine is torn, and the cloth of its cover is blue. The "Special Note" between the title-page and the T of C speaks of "Le Fontaine."

1925 Two Fables. Translated by Christopher Morley. Borders and Etchings by Cameron Wright. First edition. Signed by Christopher Morley. Garden City: Doubleday, Page and Company. Gift of Linda Schlafer from Canterbury Books, Arlington Heights, IL, at DePaul Book Fair, March, '93. Extra copy of the first edition for $12.50 from Second Story Books, Portland, July, '93.

A delightful introduction engagingly brings the reader to the points in Morley's life at which he met each of these two fairy tales. Morley seems to use that expression interchangeably with "fables." De Musset's "Histoire d'un Merle Blanc" (1-55) is a delightful satiric autobiography of a white blackbird. It touches humanly on questions of identity, art, fame, and love. Hauff's short story "The Young Foreigner" (59-95) is fun. One dare not say much; take Morley's own word that he spent an evening in a German inn laughing outrageously over it. The book's pages are bordered in engaging fashion. The design for de Musset includes quills and a candle, black and white birds, leaves and flowers. That for Hauff includes the sun and feathers, a stein and pipes, and a vine and grapes. Each story begins with a full-page engraving. In summer of '97, Kelmscott is offering a dust-jacketed first edition for $65.

1925 Up One Pair of Stairs of My Book House. Volume 3 of twelve. Edited by Olive Beaupré Miller. Various illustrators. Chicago: The Book House for Children. See 1920/25/28/37.

1925/26 Gold's Gloom: Tales from the Panchatantra. Translated by Arthur W. Ryder. Second Impression. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. $14.40 from Starbooks, Valatie, NY, March, '01.

Here are selections from Ryder's translation of the larger work. A note at the end declares that 2000 copies were made in September, 1925. "This is a copy of the second impression, published in August, 1926." The outside layer of the spine is starting to separate. There is a design of one larger and several smaller birds on the title-page and a repeated pattern that appears in a band above titles and in a smaller section at the end of each story. The translator's introduction is reduced from eight to five pages.

1925/26 The Panchatantra. Translated from the Sanskrit by Arthur W. Ryder. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. $5 from Klaus Grunewald, Kansas City, May, '93.

Five books, with, at the front, a convenient T of C according to fables. Maddening jingles versify every thought. This work practices retardation with a vengeance! A coming story is announced in a verse or tag-line followed by "How is that?" The fable comes as the answer, concluded by "And that is why I said . . . and the rest of it." Frequent parentheses say "Fate had decreed it," especially for escapes from death. Frequent catalogues, used then to structure what follows. The plot framework is that a king wants to educate his three sons who are hostile to education. Counselors tell him it will take years, but one recommends the Brahmin Vishnusharman. The latter offers to do it in six months or the king can show him the "Majestic bare bottom." Vishnusharman makes the boys learn these five books by heart. Book I, "The Loss of Friends," is the "Kalila and Dimna" story with lots of new twists, generally told in more rudimentary fashion than in Ramsay Wood's Kalila and Dimna (1982). In II, "The Winning of Friends," the friendship of "Swift" and "Gold" is simply that. In fact, all four friends in II are male. "The Crows and the Owls" in III makes for very good intrigue. The frame of IV, "The Loss of Gains," comes from "The Monkey and the Crocodile," with its "Let us go back and get my heart" trick. In V, "Ill-Considered Action," after "The Barber Who Killed the Monk" and "The Mongoose Son," the frame story is "Four Treasure Seekers." Though this is not a first edition, I am very happy to get an early copy of this important book.

1925/29 The Fables of Aesop (Cover and spine: Aesop's Fables).  Text Based upon LaFontaine and Croxall.  Illustrated by Joseph Eugene Dash.  Third printing.  Hardbound.  Chicago: Albert Whitman.  Gift of Linda Schlafer from Dorothy Meyer, Chicago, at the DePaul Book Fair, March, '93.

This book represents a very lucky find. I no longer expect to find as-yet-undiscovered fable books in rural antique stores. Here I found two from the same series! The fables included here are: "Hercules and the Wagoner" (37); "The Boys and the Frogs" (39); "The Hare and the Hound" (39); "The Banyan Deer" (115, identified as a Jataka Tale); BC (206); WL (207). Only "The Banyan Deer" gets an illustration. The book is in good condition, especially for its age.

1925/36 The Fables of Aesop (Cover and spine: Aesop's Fables).  Text Based upon LaFontaine and Croxall.  Illustrated by Joseph Eugene Dash.  Fourth printing.  Hardbound.  Chicago: Albert Whitman.  $20 from Bookman's Alley, August., '96.

1925/53/56/64 The Panchatantra. Translated from the Sanskrit by Arthur W. Ryder. Paperback. Phoenix. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. $15 from Sackler Galleries, DC, May, '92. Extra copy from same source and one extra with gold cover (original price $5.95) for $3.60 at Logos, Santa Cruz, July, '92.

This paperbound edition seems identical with the 1925 hardbound edition. See my comments under 1925/26. Originally lent to me by Jim Reddington, this book was my companion during some hard times with stomach problems in Georgetown in Spring, 1992.

1925? A Primary Reader. (?) Title pages missing. Stamp on 35 declaring the book property of New York City Board of Education is dated 1928. $10 at Yesterday's Books, DC, Sept., '91.

This book is a re-covered reader for the fourth through sixth grades by a feminine author who refers to Riverside reader volumes (168). "From Foreign Lands" (165-203) includes "The Lark and Its Young," MM, and "The Cat and the Monkey" from Aesop; "The Fox, the Hen, and the Drum" and "Three Fish" from Bidpai; "The Brahmin, the Tiger, and the Six Judges" from Hindu; and "The Oyster and the Two Claimants" nicely rhymed from LaFontaine. Several simple illustrations.

1925? Aesop's Fables. Retold by Enid Blyton. Hardbound. Great Britain: Reading Practice #1: Thomas Nelson and Sons. $3.03 from Lorna Horlock, Swansea, UK, through eBay, August, '02. 

I have been looking for this book for a long time. It is the background for the one other fable book I have found by Blyton, published by Element in 1999. There are twenty-two fables on 64 pages, with a T of C at the front and discussion questions at the back. I find the stories well told. SW, for example, is told in an appropriate form (10). At the end of MSA, the miller's wife scolds the miller for losing the ass (23). The whole ass along with his load is loaded onto the horse in "The Horse and the Loaded Ass" on 62. There is about one black-and-white illustration for each fable. I think this may be the first time that I have found the tortoise in TH mopping his sweaty brow (34). Blue cloth covers. Fair condition.

1925? Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by Edwin Noble. No editor acknowledged. Second Edition. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell Company. See 1921?/25?

1925? Aesop's Fables. With designs by Phyllis A. Trery. London: Humphrey Milford/ Oxford University Press. $25 from Walk A Crooked Mile Books, Philadelphia, Jan., '92.

Apparently the (original?) British version of the book I have in the American edition from Boni and Liveright (1925). Some pages are slightly soiled. This has a cheaper cardboard cover with Trery designs. See my comments there on the lovely five-color illustrations. How strange it is never to have heard of a book and then to find it in two different editions within a few months!

1925? Aesop's Fables. Edited with Notes by Joe Yoshida. Paperbound. Tokyo: The Ai-iku-sha English Library #14: Ai-iku-sha. $8 from Clare Leeper, July, '96.

This paperback book presents fifty-three fables on 84 pages. Each has a simple design derived from standard English-language sources like Weir or Tenniel. On 85-112 there are vocabulary notes on each of the fables. There is a T of C at the beginning. I have just discovered that Ai-iku-sha is still very much in business.

1925? Aesop's Fables. Pamphlet. Printed in England. A Tuck Book: Raphael Tuck & Sons, Ltd. £9 from Skoob Two, London, June, '98. Extra copy in more used condition for £15 from Marchpane, London, June, '98.

Here is a thirty-two page pamphlet that I had not found for years and then found twice within one week. It features twelve full-page colored illustrations signed something like "Abbé" or "Alli." It also includes frequent black-and-white images integrated with the text. Between the two forms of illustration, almost all of the thirty-three fables are illustrated somehow. The Skoob copy is in better condition but looks suspiciously recent, and so I will keep both copies in the collection. The colored illustration for TH here has the fox at the finish line brandishing a written slip of some sort (7). The owner of the goose with golden eggs (28) has a great gesture with extended arms.

1925? Aesop's Fables and Other Stories. Appropriately Illustrated. No author or illustrator mentioned. Inscribed in 1927. Chicago/NY: M.A. Donohue and Co. $2 from Holmes Book Co., Oakland, Dec., '86.

I am going crazy because I recognize both the drawings (Weir?) and the page tops of the fables on the first forty pages of this book. Then it moves off to various other children's literature. The illustrations are rather cheaply done.

1925? Aesop's Fables in Words of One Syllable. By Mary Godolphin. The illustrations are after Harrison Weir and Ernest Griset (NA). Hardbound. NY: Saalfield. $3.75 from Gary Hood, Winterset, Iowa, through Ebay, March, '99.

This book reproduces the one I have listed under "1905?" from the same publisher with the same title. Thus it has 92 pages and includes four illustrations after Griset as well as many done after Weir. The cover here is red cloth stamped with a blurred black image of two children on a window seat. See my comments for that edition and for the very similar edition listed under "1904?"

1925? Aesop's Fables in Words of One Syllable. By Mary Godolphin. Illustrations after Harrison Weir and Ernest Griset, not acknowledged. Dust jacket. Hardbound. NY: Saalfield. $5 from Rev. Irwin Page, Kane, PA, through eBay, Nov., '02. 

This book reproduces the one I have listed under "1925?" from the same publisher with the same title. Thus it has 92 pages and includes four illustrations after Griset as well as many done after Weir. The cover here is not red but tan cloth stamped with a black image of two children on a window seat. This copy has a dust jacket. See my comments on the red cloth copy and the very similar editions listed under "1904?" and "1905?"

1925? Animals Talking: A Book of Fables. René Bull (NA), F.C.P. (NA). Pamphlet. Printed in Great Britain. Read and Remember--Teaching Unit I-A. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd. $0.46 from Renaissance Bookstore, Palo Alto, March, '96.

Twenty-eight fables after a surprising appearance of frontispiece portrait of Aesop from way back in the tradition (Gheeraerts perhaps?). The first fable, "The Panther and the Kid" seems a strange redoing of WL (5). New to me and good is "How the Monkey Found Trouble" (7). Moozimoo the Wise One gave him a bag to open in a clearing, and inside the bag was a vicious dog. "The Lark and Her Nest" (16) has a twist that is new to me. When the children hear the farmer say that he will hire men to help cut the field,, the mother lark knows that he is serious. The talkative tortoise does not get to say any word because her travels had already come to an end when she opened her mouth to speak (19). There is here a new version of DW (20), in which the dog wants to know from the wolf why he would attack defenseless sheep. The wolf explains that the shepherd will kill the whole flock, while the wolf takes just one sheep now and then. "The Hare and the Baboon" (36) tells of a Tom-Sawyer-like scheme by the hare to get the baboon to help pick his monkey-nuts. If the baboon can pick a bag's worth before the hare, he can have the nuts. The hare cheats and wins by stealing from the baboon's bag and thus filling his own bag first, but then he cannot carry the overly full bag back home. So the baboon finishes filling his bag, carries it off, and enjoys it! New finally is "The Monkey and the Hippo" (40). The monkey learns to swim because he must to save his life. There are simple small illustrations every few fables. OF (25) has the tombstone illustration that Nelson used in other versions as well. On it is written "Here lies the frog who would be as big as an ox." In fact, several illustrations of this book are shared with Nelson's Fables de la Fontaine, also dated to "1925?" There are extensive questions on each fable at the back of the pamphlet. The spine has been crudely repaired.

1925? Chodowiecki - Lessing - Aus Lessings Fabeln.  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.  Mit 12 Kupfern von Daniel Chodowiecki.  #941 of 1000.  Hardbound.  Berlin: Eigenbrödler-Verlag.  €75 from Peter Everaers, Hulst, Netherlands, Dec., '21.

1925? Das Fabelbuch: Eine Auswahl von Aesop's Fabeln.  Stora Max (NA).  Mit vielen Scharz-Weiß-Zeichnungen von Arthur Rackham.  Stora Max.  Hardbound.  Munich: Georg W. Dietrich.  €50 from Antiquariat Franziska Bierl, Munich, July, '19.

1925? Fables by G. Washington Aesop. Cover expands "G." to "George." Writer not acknowledged: George T. Lanigan of The World of NY. Illustrated by F.S. Church. London: W. Mack. See 1878/1925?.

1925? Fables de La Fontaine. No editor or artist acknowledged. Paris: Nelson, Éditeurs. $3 at The Antique Society, Sebastopol, June, '97.

This book and the circumstances around my getting it are strange. I was wandering through this antiques mall, having found nothing, and found this away from the usual book sources for this incredible price! I would never have expected to find a book like this in a place like that. The book itself is also strange. It was published by an English publisher in Paris and sold in Geneva. It contains 43 fables, with two colored illustrations ("The Shepherd and the Sea" as frontispiece and TB on 60). Along the way most fables have simple but playful illustrations. Among the best are the smiling hanging cat on 16, the bird dying in three stages on 19, the frog weeping at his burst mate's tombstone on 20, and the helmeted rats on 59. The book has weak cardboard covers that have managed to bring it this far!

1925? Harum-Scarum: The Tale of a Hare and a Tortoise. By May Byron. Frontispiece by E.J. Detmold; Line Illustrations by Day Hodgetts. Hardbound. London: Old Friends in New Frocks: Hodder & Stoughton. £ 15.50 from M. & D. Reeve, Oxford, UK, Sept. '02. 

Two things are coming clear to me as I get into further stories in this series. First, the cover picture is the same on each book. No wonder I noticed that it has nothing to do with the book's particular story! Secondly, I think that the Detmold tipped-in illustration serving as frontispiece for each volume is a reprint of his Aesop's Fables illustrations from his 1909 Hodder edition. How convenient for this publisher to bring the illustrations over from one book to another! Harum-Scarum is a hyperactive young bunny who frightens his mother and the neighbors with his energy. The race is cleverly introduced here. Neighbors are complaining about Harum-Scarum, and Mrs. Tortoise says that anyone with legs as long as his could run. She goes on to say that she thinks her husband could beat Harum-Scarum. These two tortoises are over a hundred years old! The match and its outcome is related in loving and lingering detail. William Weasel makes a surprise second appearance very near the end of this little book.

1925? Jack-a-Dandy: The Tale of the Vain Jackdaw. By May Byron. Frontispiece by E.J. Detmold; Line Illustrations by Day Hodgetts. Hardbound. London: Old Friends in New Frocks: Hodder & Stoughton. $11.99 from Diane Mosbacher Books, Bainbridge, OH, through abe, August, '04. 

I now have five books in this series. Again, the cover is the same as for the others in the series. Again the Detmold tipped-in illustration serving as frontispiece is a reprint from his 1909 Hodder edition of Aesop's Fables. Byron here adds a character, "Pucklet," a tiny sprite that knows how Jack Daw is hankering after various birds' feathers. Pucklet offers to help Jack get all the feathers he wants. Pucklet rides Jack as they collect the feathers. Jack Daw becomes "rather like a rainbow turned into a bird" (27). At first, the new "Jack-a-Dandy" makes a great impression on the other birds. He becomes the talk of the town. The sparrow has been spurned by Jack and Pucklet, and he notices that Jack has no two feathers alike. He sees Pucklet and Jack fall out, so that the former leaves. In the end, Mrs. Daw is able to convince Jack that he is better as a plain Jack Daw. Again, this series provides a fresh and reflective version of a traditional fable.

1925? La Fontaine: Fables. Herausgegeben von G. Schmidt. Illustriert von Gertrud Stamm-Hagemann. Hardbound. Heidelberg: Fremdsprachliche, Illustrierte Jugendlesebücher: Carl Winter's Universitätsbuchhandlung. Gift of Otto and Ulrike Knupfer, August, '06.

A lovely little volume containing sixty fables, all but one (the first: GA) with a very engaging black-and-white silhouette. Some of my favorite little silhouettes include the cover/frontispiece illustration of Aesop speaking to a group, "Death and the Woodman" (12), LM (28), AD (30), FK (46), GGE (70), and "The Rat and the Elephant" (104). I first found this book at my favorite Bücherwurm in Heidelberg in 1998. Now Ulrike has brought me her father's signed, stamped, dated (1926) copy. My earlier guess for the book's date was 1935. I have changed that to "1925?" and will make a separate listing for the other copy with a darker cover differently executed.

1925? La Fontaine: Fables. Herausgegeben von G. Schmidt. Illustriert von Gertrud Stamm-Hagemann. Hardbound. Heidelberg: Fremdsprachliche, Illustrierte Jugendlesebücher: Carl Winter's Universitätsbuchhandlung. DEM 16 from Bücherwurm, Heidelberg, July, '98.

This is the edition I had first of this lovely little volume containing sixty fables, all but one (the first: GA) with a very engaging black-and-white silhouette. Some of my favorite little silhouettes include the cover/frontispiece illustration of Aesop speaking to a group, "Death and the Woodman" (12), LM (28), AD (30), FK (46), GGE (70), and "The Rat and the Elephant" (104). I found this copy at my favorite Bücherwurm in Heidelberg in 1998. Then Ulrike Knüpfer brought me her father's signed, stamped, dated (1926) copy. My earlier guess for the book's date was 1935. I have changed that to "1925?" and have made separate listings for the two copies. This Bücherwurm copy has a darker cover. On the cloth cover and the spine are inlaid paper elements with the title, silhouette, and publisher's insignia. The Knüpfer copy has a paper cover and spine, and those elements may be printed right onto them.

1925? La Fontaine: Fables.  G. Schmidt.  Illustrated by Gertrud Stamm-Hagemann.  Hardbound.  Heidelberg: Fremdsprachliche, Illustrierte Jugendlesebücher: Carl Winter's Universitätsbuchhandlung.  €5 from Wortfreunde, Mannheim, August, '17.

1925? Little Jumping Joan: The Tale of the Ants and the Grasshopper. By May Byron. Frontispiece by E.J. Detmold; Line Illustrations by Gordon Robinson. Hardbound. London: Old Friends in New Frocks: Hodder & Stoughton. £13.50 from M. & D. Reeve, Oxford, UK, Sept., '02. 

This is an unusually reflective approach to the story of GA. Great-Grandfather Ant harrumphs against Jumping Joan, the singing grasshopper, during the summer, promising that a day for regret will come. Joan consults with her friends about whether they work: Running Water, Sun, Wind, birds, and others give the same answer. They do not work or raise children; they do their special thing. She is reassured but still bothered by the question. But then her friends go away or get sick. Joan turns to the ants for help. Great-Grandfather Ant is lecturing her and turning her away when one of the queen-mother ants asks if she could teach her children to dance and sing. In a way that is appropriate to children, this book probes the issues of the story.

1925? Mother Goose's Book of Nursery Stories, Rhymes, & Fables. Illustrations by Charles Robinson, Frank Adams, and Hassatt. Hardbound. London and Glasgow: Blackie & Son Limited. £1.20 from John Hayward, Wakefield, England, through eBay, Nov., '10.

This book is heavy on the nursery stories and rhymes mentioned first in the title. At the book's end come six stories including three fables and "The Three Bears," "Red Riding Hood," and "Cinderella." The first of the fables is "The Heron and the Fish." The heron was "rather a faddy bird." This fable features a lovely colored illustration by Charles Robinson. There is also a line drawing after the fable of the heron having captured a snail. LM has a nice rhyming moral: "Never despise a humble friend;/Perhaps he'll save you in the end." TH is presented in rhyming couplets. The book is well scribbled, well used, and sometimes not so well colored! There is no pagination. There are colored illustrations by Frank Adams and "Hassatt" (?) as well as Robinson. Hassatt's colored cover-picture of Mother Goose makes the old girl look quite masculine. This work represents one of those cases where shipping costs are more than six times the price of the book!

1925? Mouseling and Missykin: The Tale of the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse. By May Byron. Frontispiece by E.J. Detmold; Line Illustrations by Day Hodgetts. Hardbound. London: Old Friends in New Frocks: Hodder & Stoughton. £15.50 from M. & D. Reeve, Oxford, UK, Sept., '02.

This is a loving, expansive telling of TMCM, interspersed with pleasing, lightly imprinted designs. Maybe the key comes on 18: "Now it has been often said that everything in this world depends on how you look at it. And this was quite true, for Mouseling and Missykin saw two quite different places, though they both were looking at the same place." After Missykin is thoroughly disappointed in the country, Mouseling is enraptured by the city. Then four dogs come crashing into the London dining room at once, soon followed by three cats. When the cats and dogs fight, a human being comes in with a big stick and drives them all out. When she is safe and comfortable back in the country (46), Mouseling declares " What a splendid place one's home is!" The tipped-in Detmold frontispiece is fine, and the colored cover illustration of many animals at night, though unrelated to this story, is very nicely done.

1925? Picture Comprehension. Reading with Understanding: Selected Pictures and Passages with Comprehension Tests and Exercises. Introductory Book. By A.E. Smith. Some illustrations signed by Rene Cloke. Edinburgh: McDougall's Educational Co. $5 at Wm Burgett, San Diego, Aug., '93.

Two fables are among the thirty offerings here. "The Cunning Jackdaw" (14) features a picture, story, test, and things to discuss and do. This bird painted himself white to join the pigeons, revealed himself with a spontaneous caw, and was thrown out by both them and his own. TB (36) has the same features except for the illustration. Use the fire-brigade and airport illustrations to date this book.

1925? Poems by John Gay.  Ornamented by Martin Travers.  Introduction by Francis Bickley. Dust jacket.  Hardbound.  London: The Abbey Classics XVI: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd.  $14 from Ariel Books, Auckland, New Zealand, through Biblio.com, Dec., '19.

1925? Quinze Fables de Jean de La Fontaine.  Woodcuts designed and engraved by Lise Felseneld.  #210 of 300.  Paperbound.  Paris: Marcel Seheur.  $35 from Design Books, NY, through AbeBooks, July, '22.

1925? Reineke Fuchs: Der Alten Sage Nacherzählt. Von Helene Fuchs. Mit Illustrationen in Farbendruck. Hardbound. Berlin: Globus Verlag. DM 40 from Dresdener Antiquariat, July, '01.

Several particular qualities attracted me to this book. First, it is in excellent condition. Secondly, it is a prose edition of Reineke. Thirdly, it has six excellent full-color plates. "Fox and Hare" is pasted onto the cover. The frontispiece features the fox throwing fish off of the wagon to the waiting wolf. Facing 32 is a picture of the bear with his paws caught in the woodchopper's wedged log. Facing 80 is the lion and his court reacting to Reineke's betrayal. The next image shows Isengrim's tail stuck in the ice, while Reineke looks on (128). At 176, the miller and his dogs encounter Reineke out in the woods. There is a T of C at the beginning. After the seventeen chapters of Reineke on some 124 pages there is a fourfold appendix through 224: "Tiersagen aus verschiedenen Ländern." The first of these sections covers stories of the fox and wolf from Siebenbürgen. There follow, respectively, animal Märchen from Greece, Finland, and Germany.

1925? Reynard Russet's Party: The Tale of the Fox and the Crane. By May Byron. Frontispiece by E.J. Detmold; Line Illustrations by Day Hodgetts. Hardbound. London: Old Friends in New Frocks: Hodder & Stoughton. £ 15.50 from M. & D. Reeve, Oxford, UK, Sept., '02. 

This book takes the FS story to unusual places. Reynard has no wife and no family. Mrs. Vixen, an elderly widowed cousin, keeps house for him. He comes home regretful after a delightful party with his nieces and nephews. He invites to supper a group of old friends. In the meantime, a Wood Goblin named Gobble-O has been pestering Reynard for an invitation. Reynard says he will think it over but forgets completely about it. Mrs. Vixen prepares a feast, complete with four soups. Everything is served in Reynard's broad, shallow china dishes. Corney Crane cannot eat anything from dishes like these. Reynard is at first distressed by Corney's misfortunes, but soon he, like the others at table, finds it funny. The group is just getting rowdy in their fun, when they hear Gobble-O making some lovely music. At this point Corney makes a stately, polite departure, inviting just Reynard to his home for supper the following evening. Corney takes Gobble-O with him. At his cook's suggestion, he invites three of his cousins. The whole group except Reynard has a good time. The others take no notice of Reynard in his frustration and inability to eat from the tall vases. Reynard reflects on his bad behavior of the evening before. Gobble-O sings a song about the blessings of kindness as opposed to "tit for tat." We should tit-for-tat kindnesses rather than insults. Reynard apologizes to Corney. In the meantime, the cook has borrowed some dishes out of which Reynard can eat. The additions to the usual story include the motivating experience of being sociable, the addition of table-mates and of the Wood Goblin, and the closing reconciliation. This is perhaps the first time that I have seen the feeding of the stork--and then of the fox--go on in a social situation involving other people. Gobble-O, it turns out, is added to the story to compound Reynard's guilt and Corney's revenge. The story often ends with insight, but I do not remember it ending elsewhere with an apology and a reconciliation.

1925? The Big Book of Fables.  Walter Jerrold.  Charles Robinson. Hardbound.  NY: Dodge Publishing Company.  $45 from R. & A. Petrilla, Roosevelt, NJ, July, '18.

1925? The Fables of Aesop. Based, according to the introduction, on the texts of L'Estrange and Croxall. The World's Popular Classics. Art-Type Edition. No editor named. No illustrations. Dust jacket. NY: Books, Inc. $2 from Victoria, NY, Jan., '90. Extra copy with different binding for $3.50 at Avenue Victor Hugo, Boston, June, '91.

Printed from the same plates as my 1930? edition. See the description there. Their differences touch the cute dust-jacket (Aesop's Fables), the pre-title page ("Aesop's Fables 251 Series"), the title page (publisher is only in NY), and the binding. The first two of these differences apply only to my Victoria book, while the last two apply to both the Victoria and the Avenue Victor Hugo books. Poorly printed. Heavy foxing. The writer of the introduction, "J.W.M.," says that Herodotus speaks of Jesus!

1925? The Fables of Aesop.  Hand-written.  Hardbound.  $29.86 from C. Parritt through AbeUK, Nov., '24.

1925? The Lion and the Mouse and other Aesop's Fables. No editor named. Pictures are signed by Ethel L. Tanner. The G and P Series. London: Gale and Polden. £10 at G. Heywood Hill in London, Aug., '88.

A nicely preserved children's book with two good full-color pictures (one very good of the LM) and lots of simple drawings, including the good endpapers. Some stories are told differently here: the frog is only told that she would burst, and mother crab tries to walk forward! "The Walnut Tree" is new to me. Ten pounds may be too much for a simple book, but I had bothered them a lot!

1925? Young Folk's Mammoth Story Book. Inscribed in 1926. Cleveland: Goldsmith Publishing Company. $2 at Rummage-o-rama, Dec., '87.

A fascinating book, sold in Indianapolis and given as a gift. There is a list of contents at the front but no page numbers. There are no Aesop illustrations, but the morals of the ten stories are fascinating, especially those of "The Fox and the Lion" ("Acquaintance softens prejudices") and FG ("Out of reach is not worth having").

end

To top

1926 A Certain of Aesop's Fables Drawn into English Verse. By the Reverend G.R. Woodward, M.A., Mus. Doc. Three woodcuts from the Ulm Aesop. Printed at 48 West Hill, Highgate Village. $19 somewhere in the British Isles, July, '92?

Now here is an anomaly of a book. I cannot remember where I got it or when, but I find that its price was £10. What kind of publisher is an address? The book must be very rare if it comes from a press so private! I think Woodward is the first person I remember in 1550 fable books who has boasted of a degree in music. His 194 fables, including a few repeaters, are well done. The lines are short and, like the rhymes, strong. I think a proverb may apply here: the shorter the line, the stronger the poem. Many seem to follow song rhythms, including refrain-like repetitions (for example, "The Ass and the Wolf" on 3-4). Some shorter translations resemble limericks (DM, 8; "The Woman and the Hen," 27). There are some differences from the usual handling of fables: the ant is female (2-3). The frogs get three kings: a log, an eel, and a hydra (7-8). The men in 2W laugh at the bald man because they know the reason for his baldness (17). Good: GB (27) and "The Murderer" (49). AI at the back; no T of C.

1926 Aesop in Verse. By J.E. Wetherell. Drawings by E.L. Thomson. Hardbound. Printed in Canada. Toronto: The MacMillan Company of Canada Limited, at St. Martin's House. $20 Canadian from Contact Editions, Toronto, June, '03. Extra copy for $3.99 from Gabriel Ivan, Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada, through Ebay, Jan., '02.

The introduction finds verse appealing for children and even adults and offers the combined authority of Socrates, Phaedrus, and La Fontaine in favor of fables in poetry. "At any rate, among the countless current editions of the Fables one edition in verse will not be regarded as quite out of place" (ix). The morals are given in pentameter couplets, while the stories themselves are in couplets apparently of four feet and then three. The T of C on xiii-xvi numbers the one hundred fables here, and there is an AI at the back. A fable and its illustration take up either one or two pages. I read the first ten fables and enjoyed them and their illustrations. Wetherell is faithful to the tradition. The wolf's final retort to the lamb is nicely done: "All your excuses but vex me the more,/And there's yet one way to treat you:/If I'm always wrong and you're always right,/I still can manage to eat you" (3). Does it help MM to have the maid walking home rather than to market (4)? Poetry is a cruel mistress, and WC may show the compromises Wetherell needs to make to keep his rhyme and rhythm going (7). I am surprised that I have never heard or read of this book. May it not have been distributed outside Canada? Not in Bodemann. Page 105 of the extra copy is damaged, and its front cover is growing loose.

1926 Aesopi Fabulae, Pars Altera. Recensuit Aemilius Chambry. Paperbound. Nouvelle Collection de Textes et Documents publiée sous le patronage de l' Association Guillaume Budé. Paris: Societé d' Édition "Les Belles Lettres." $20 from Serendipity Books, Berkeley, June, '01.

With the first volume (1925), this standard-setting work is the lovely Budé text of 359 Greek fables. Many of them include one or more variants. This second volume contains the Greek texts for fables 145-359. At the back one finds an appendix of three more texts, errata, and an index of fables by Greek titles. Compare the two volumes of this work with Chambry's bilingual one-volume edition of 1927 by seeing my notes there. I have been on the hunt for this work since I learned ten years ago of the two different Budé versions. Hooray for finding it now! Notice that this book is in a different series ("Nouvelle Collection de Textes et Documents publiée sous le patronage de l' Association Guillaume Budé") from that one ("Collection des Universités de France publiée sous le patronage de l' Association Guillaume Budé").

1926 Aesop's Fables Profusely Illustrated: Second Series: Stead's Books for the Bairns: Ernest Benn's Edition. Sketches by Brinsley le Fanu, not acknowledged. Pamphlet. Printed in Great Britain. London: Stead's Books for the Bairns.-26: Ernest Benn, Ltd. £8 from Plurabelle Books, Cambridge, UK, through the Advanced Book Exchange, Oct., '00.

This blue booklet is a reissue of the earlier (1899?) "New Series" now as a "Second Series." The publisher has changed to Ernest Benn, and Brinsley le Fanu is no longer acknowledged. Page numbers have been dropped. The 56 pages of fables and their illustrations remain the same. See my comments on the booklet there. This booklet is in good condition.

1926 Alte deutsche Tierfabeln. Ausgewählt und übertragen von Wolfgang und Hildegard Stammler. Hardbound. First edition. Jena: Deutsche Volkheit #20: Eugen Diederichs. DM 18 from Antiquariat am Dom, Trier, July, '01. Extra copy of the first edition for DM 45 from Dresdener Antiquariat, July, '01.

This is a curious old German book with a bright orange-and-blue cover. Its five illustrations include photographs of an altar-cloth from Lübeck, a relief from the Münster in Freiburg, a page of the Ademar Aesop-manuscript from Leiden, and two woodcuts from Zainer's Augsburg edition of 1475. The book is strong on very early materials. Almost half of the book is taken up with materials before Hans Sachs. There is an especially large number of fables from Waldis, who is the last author represented here. I am surprised to find nothing from Steinhöwel. There is a T of C at the back. It appears that I bought this book twice in one summer!

1926 American Aesop: Negro and Other Humor. William Pickens. Signed by the author. Boston: The Jordan and More Press. $10 at Amaranth Books, Evanston, Sept., '92.

Not even close as a book of Aesopic material! The introduction does not seem to mention either Aesop or fable. What is the connection with Aesop? Perhaps just witty (?) stories? As it is, what we have here is a collection of rather dim-witted Black, Irish, and Jewish stories. Three surprises near the end are salvageable. The first is a story (140) of a Sunday school answer to the question "Who was Esau?"--"The guy who wuz the author of a book of fables, but went an' sold his copyright fer a bottle o' potash!" The second is a delightful exchange of Thomas More and Erasmus in Latin on 147-8. The last is Aesop's "lion subdued by man in art" story done in a contemporary conversation between a mother and son (181-2). The things I find!

1926 Bidpai: Das Buch der Beispiele alter Weisen. Hardbound. Berlin: Volksverband der Buecherfreunde, Wegweiser-Verlag. DEM 65 from Dresdener Antiquariat, Dresden, July, '01. Extra copy with canvas binding for DEM 120 from Antiquariat Ahrens & Hamacher, Düsseldorf, July, '95.

Here is a beautiful book, of which I now have two copies. It takes apparently both the text and the handcolored illustrations of a Heidelberg manuscript (pal. Germ. 84) of about 1480. In its afterword, it comments on the poor fit between this much-read world classic and the late medieval German culture into which it came: "Out of the connection and juxtaposition of these contraries came a work, that was hard and sharp like a woodcut but strong, powerful, and lapidary in its simplicity" (152). The special quality of this edition lies, I believe, in its thirty colored illustrations. These are engaging, sometimes for their wonderfully detailed presentation and sometimes rather for their naïve presentation of figures. Among the former I would count the illustrations on 7 of the man loading treasure on servants who will steal it, on 89 of the cat who gave the rat three days to leave and then caught it, and on 114 of the goldsmith who was hanged for his treachery. Among the latter I would count the illustrations on 26 of the snake serving the frog-king, on 87 of the cats overwhelming the wolf after one has scratched out his eyes, on 94 of the man who broke the honey-pot that would bring him riches, and on 133 of the monkey and turtle eating figs. The latter do not look like either a monkey or a turtle! Kalila and Dimna on 73 look more like camels than jackals. Though the format is probably true to the manuscript presentation of the work, I find it difficult to work through the stories when there are no breaks, like titles or page-breaks, to help separate one story from another. Several stories are new to me. I recount here three examples. First, a man and an associate each had a pile of grain. The evil one covered his partner's and planned with a thief to steal from it at night. The good one came before and appreciated the solicitude of his partner in protecting his pile, but took the mantel and put it on his evil partner's pile. The latter thus ended up stealing from himself! Secondly, the devil and a thief came after the same man one evening, the first to frighten and the second to steal. Neither would give precedence to the other Finally, the thief cried out to warn people of the devil's presence. Thirdly, a merchant's servant who unsuccessfully tried to seduce his master's wife tried to get his revenge this way. He trained three parrots to speak in Edomite the following sentences "I saw the doorman lying with my mistress," "How scandalous that is!" and "I will speak no further." The servant gave the birds to his master, who gave them to his wife. One day pilgrims from Edom came, and the merchant invited them as his guests. After dinner the birds were brought in as the entertainment. The guests were astonished at what the parrots said and told the merchant, who was ready to kill his wife. She was clever enough to show that the birds could say nothing else. New also to me is the king's dream, pictured on 96. The two copies are externally different in their spines--leather from Dresden and canvas from Düsseldorf--and so I will keep both in the collection.

1926 Children's Literature. A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes. Edited, with introductions, notes, and bibliographies by Charles Madison Curry and Erle Elsworth Clippinger. Chicago: Rand McNally. See 1920/26.

1926 Choix de Fables de La Fontaine: Album pour les Enfants. Avec de nombreuses illustrations par J.-J. Grandville; colored illustrations by Jules David. Oversized. Cloth spine with pictorial boards. Chromotypogravure de Brun et Cie. Printed in Clichy, France. Paris: Librairie Garnier Freres. $31 from Buchanan's Book Shop, York, PA, through Ebay, May, '00. Extra copy for NLG 65 ($39) from Antiquariaat Jos Wijnhoven, Diemen, Netherlands, Oct., '98.

A lovely large-format book in paperboard covers. There are thirty fables of La Fontaine, each introduced with a good Grandville engraving. There are also six full-paged color illustrations by Jules David. If he is the same "J. David" who did the outstanding edition for Armand Aubree which I have, these editors took different illustrations of his for this book. In fact, the color work is not superior. The six are facing 10 (FC), 20 (FG), 30 ("The Wolf Become a Shepherd"), 40 (WL), 48 ("The Oyster and the Litigants"), and 60 (MM). There is a T of C at the front, in fact even before the title-page. I of course had known nothing of this book; now I have found it twice on the Internet! This is not the first time that I have found the better copy for less money than the more worn copy. The Winjhoven copy shows heavy wear on the cover. The title-page gives credit to the chromolithographers de Brun et Cie.

1926 Die Fabeln des Kuhbuches in Übertragung. Übertragung von Dr. R. Beatus. Holzschnitte von Moshe Wallich?. Vorwort von Prof. Dr. Aron Freimann. Hardbound. Berlin: Soncino-Gesellschaft der Freunde des jüdischen Buches. $111 from Dr. Baruch Falach, Netanya, Israel, through eBay, May, '12.

I am gathering a nice little circle of books on the work of Moshe Wallich that appeared in 1697 in Frankfurt. Here, if I understand correctly, we have two parallel works running in opposite directions. Starting from the modern western place, the book contains German translations of thirty-four fables in some XVI and 98 pages. The source of these translations is then given in the facsimile portion of the book that starts from its other cover. This portion includes the small but fetching illustrations of the 1697 edition. They remind one of Ulrich Boner's Edelstein, but are not quite so craftily done. The language throughout this section is Hebrew. I feel very lucky to have found this book! One shudders to think about what the people who produced it experienced in succeeding years of their lives. I am surprised at the number of simple themes repeated from Aesop. See my 1994 edition from Wayne State for more information on the sources Wallich used in putting together his Kuhbuch. Apparently not in Bodemann. 

1926 Fables de la Fontaine. Illustrées par R. de la Nézière. Tours: Maison Alfred Mame et Fils. $75 at Westport Bookstore, Kansas City, May, '93.

An instant favorite! I had never known of this book, which is not in Bassy. It is in good condition except for a weakening spine and some damage to the cover. Sixty fables with a T of C at the end. Sixteen full-page brightly-colored illustrations on different paper with very lively movement; these are particularly well preserved. There are two black-and-white illustrations per fable except for "La Latière" (129), which has only one. The match between colored and black-and-white illustrations is extraordinarily good. Nice front and back covers present the cast of characters and the poet himself. Trees are frequently personalized; the frogs romp on a "bear" of a log (64). Humans often become monkeys. The funniest black-and-white illustration (96) has a horse pulling a rolling scaffold of thirteen people, four children in a coaster cart, an alligator, and a further cast. The secret to the humor of this funny book lies in the use of updated technology. On 11-12, the frog uses a bicycle pump to inflate himself. There is a good splat here! The wolf has a musket against the lamb (21), the mosquito a bow and arrow against the lion (46), the spider--with dead flies pinned to his hat--a butterfly net (49). The pigeon flies an airplane (53), while frogs have umbrellas and bath houses (55). The racing turtle has a cart and a turtle-jockey, while the hare has a bike (117). The tortoise in mid-air is carried between two biplanes (149). A great imaginative lark!

1926 Fables de La Fontaine.  Illustrations de Pierre Noury.  Hardbound.  Paris: Ernest Flammarion.  €15 in Paris, August, '17.

1926 Fables of Aesop. Illustrated by M. Maitland Howard. London: John Lane The Bodley Head. $30 from Yoffees, Jan., '92.

A curious book in very good condition. Seven nice duochrome illustrations join excellent engravings that, like the print, are deeply impressed into the paper. The language is often archaic. The fables chosen and versions presented are unusual; I would not be surprised if a number of the latter come from Babrius or the Augustana. For surprises, check these fables: the shepherd's boy (26) plays his trick many times; LM (28) presents its second episode first; the "authors are divided" on the second king sent to the frogs (33); the kite seizes the duelling champions frog and mouse (35); the horse kicks the lion, not the wolf (52); and the nightingale offers the hawk a song (107). New to me: "The Cat and the Mice" (95) and "The Bear and the Bee-Hives" (112). First prize for a fable beginning goes to 55: "In the days of old, when horses spoke Greek and Latin, and asses made syllogisms, there happened...." Second prize: "There was a time, when a fox would have ventured as far for a bunch of grapes, as for a shoulder of mutton...." (126).

1926 Francesco del Tuppo e il suo "Esopo". Alfredo Mauro. Paperbound. Citta di Castello: Biblioteca di Coltura Letteraria: Il Solco Casa Editrice. Gift of Giuliano Gasca, S.J. in Turin, Sept., '97.

I am sorry that my Italian could not reach further into this book. Chapters here handle Tuppo's biography, culture and literature (of the times?), the work itself, editions that followed and used it, and two conclusions. There is a T of C at the back. This book is falling apart. I never expected to encounter a book on Francesco del Tuppo!

1926 Gold's Gloom: Tales from the Panchatantra. Translated by Arthur W. Ryder. Second Impression. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. See 1925/26.

1926 Ironical Tales. Laurence Housman. Hardbound. London: Jonathan Cape. $5.99 from Kitty Moritz, San Juan Capistrano, CA, through eBay, Oct., '10.

I bought this book on eBay since -- as I recall -- it was advertised as containing fables. Though it contains no fables, it does have some lovely short "Philosophical Romances," several of which I read. They are short and pointed narratives, fable-like in their pointedness. I can highly recommend "The Rose and the Thorn" (68); ""The Prince and His Two Mistresses" (77); "Two Kings and Their Queens" (79); and "The Mirror and the Mistress" (85). The stories turn frequently on the surprising and complex character of the human heart. 

1926 John Martin's Big Book for Young People. Volume 4 of a seven-volume set. NY: Collier and Son. See 1919/20/21/24/26/29.

1926 John Martin's Big Book for Young People. Volume 7 of a seven-volume set. NY: Collier and Son. See 1919/21/22/23/24/25/26.

1926 Le lièvre et La tortue: Choeur à 2 voix: fable de La Fontaine.  Musique de Frère A.A., Mariste.  Paperbound.  Montreal: J.E. Turcot.  $9.99 from libro17 on eBay, Jan., '15.

1926 Legolibreto. J. Borel. Paperbound. Berlin & Dresden: Esperanta Biblioteko Internacia, N-o 1: Esperanto-Verlag Ellersiek & Borel. $15 from Momtchil K. Marinov, Federal Way, WA, August, '10.

Here is the first in an Esperanto publisher's thirty-three pamphlets, listed on the back cover. Its 48 pages have a T of C at the end. Pages 5-7 are taken up with six fables from Lessing. Enjoy these titles! "Kaprido kaj lupo"; Leono kaj tigro"; Grilo kai najtingalo"; "Leono, bovo, kaprino kai safo"; "La bronza statuo"; and "Herkulesco." My! This copy is in good condition. A copy, I notice, is selling on eBay right now for over $30. I got this copy at the right time! 

1926 Les Subtiles Fables D'Esope, Lyon Mathieu Husz, 1486. Julien Macho. Notice par J. Bastin. Unstitched. Livres a Gravures Imprimés a Lyon au XVe Siècle, ed. Claude Dalbanne. Association Guillaume le Roy, Lyon/Charles Eggimann, Paris. $65 from by mail from The Owl at the Bridge, Cranston, RI, Nov., '97.

Here is an unusual piece of work. It is unstitched as issued and mostly unopened. Its paper covers are torn at the spine. After the colored frontispiece (from a 13th-century Lyon Isopet manuscript), there are 208 black-and-white woodcut illustrations, very much in the tradition of Steinhöwel. The introduction identifies the focus of this work as the reception of the work of Julien Macho, who first translated Steinhöwel's work into French in 1480 in Lyon. After the introduction there is a very useful list of all the illustrations of fables in the work, starting with those in the life of Aesop. For the "extravagantes" and other later sections of Macho's work, this list also gives the story for less well known fables. After 48, there are four inserted plates, each containing one or more manuscript illustrations for Aesop and/or the fables. There follow--as I understand--the 1486 Husz edition's 192 woodcuts, two to a page, without the texts of the fables. Many have a number and/or a title over the woodcut. There is a tear on 95-96. These are all in the full uncut sheets, four pages (and thus eight woodcuts, since there is one on each side of the page) to a sheet. Dalbanne and E. Droz offer a study of the woodcuts, including sixteen further illustrations for comparison. There follows a very handy contrast of various woodcuts from Lyon with those in Steinhöwel's edition. At the very back is a list of fables and illustrations, comparing Husz's 1486 edition with Phillippe and Reinhard's 1480 and Husz et Schabeler's 1484 editions. Do I read this work correctly to indicate that the original Macho edition in 1480 had no illustrations for the life of Aesop?

1926 Reineke Fuchs von Goethe. Wolfgang von Goethe. Zeichnungen von Wilhelm von Kaulbach. Hardbound. Leipzig: F.W. Hendel Verlag. Gift of Martin and Ulrike Koelle, August, '01.

This is a lovely, dramatic, imposing reproduction of Kaulbach and Goethe's work! I am so happy to have a good representation of Kaulbach's work in the collection. On this viewing, I watched particularly for illustrations bearing on fables. They include depictions of an eagle stealing a lamb (58); the fox playing possum (128); the horse kicking the wolf (144); WS (196); the sick lion needing the right cure (198); and the mother dog and her litter confronting the home's generous former owner (226). Watch out: 67-70 have become detached. What a treasure!

1926 Story-Book Tales. By Mina Pearl Ashton. Introduction by E.W. Howey. Illustrated by Ludwig and Regina. Chicago: Beckley-Cardy Company. $10 from Bibelots & Books, Seattle, July, '00. Extra copy in poorer condition for $8.10 at Sebastopol Antiques, Sept., ’96.

A much-marked beginning reader that includes six fables, each with an orange-brown-and-black illustration. Many of them also contain a curious feature, silhouettes as "Something to Cut and Paste." I have seldom seen this sort of invitation to take a scissors to a schoolbook! "The Hares and the Frogs" (22) is not about suicide and so ends up illogical. Does the fact that some animals fear hares mean that hares should go back to living with animals that they fear? LM (34) is told and illustrated in standard fashion. "The Camel and the Pig" (41) is new to me. The two learn that each has a gift, shown in their respective abilities to get over and under the wall to a nearby garden. "The Bear and the Fox" (61) is the fishing-on-ice story that explains the bear’s short tail. "The Farmer and the Stork" (70) has crows as the companion birds. "The Whale and the Elephant" (84) features the land-sea tug-of-war.

1926 Studies in Reading: Second Grade. J.W. Searson, George E. Martin, and Lucy Williams Tinley. Illustrated by Ruth Mary Hallock. Lincoln: University Publishing Company. See 1918/20/26.

1926 Tales of Laughter. Edited by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith. Decorated by Elizabeth MacKinstry. NY: Garden City Publishing Co. See 1908/26/38.

1926 The Bolenius Readers: Fourth Reader. By Emma Miller Bolenius. Illustrated by Mabel B. Hill and Edith F. Butler. Revised edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. See 1919/26/29.

1926 The Book of the Bear: Being Twenty-one Tales newly translated from the Russian.  Jane Harrison and Hope Mirrlees.  Illustrated by Ray Garnett.  Hardbound.  London: The Nonesuch Press.  $25 from Dog Eared Bookshop, Valencia St., San Francisco, July, '18.

1926 The Canadian Readers: Book II. Hardbound. Toronto: T. Nelson & Sons/W.J. Gage & Co. $8 from Walnut Antiques Store, May, '12.

"Authorized for Use in the Public Schools of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia." This second-grade reader includes a surprising number of fables, perhaps more surprising because only one of them -- the first -- is listed as such. These include GGE (8); "The Water and the Pitcher" (16); "The Jackal and the Alligator" (34); "Why the Bear's Tale is short" (52); LM (58); SW (79); BW (106); and TMCM (120). In BW, the wolf notices that the shepherd boy is fat and decides to eat him first! The book is in fair condition plus, I would say. 

1926 The Child's Treasury. Editor May Hill. The Foundation Library. Chicago: Foundation Desk Company: W.F. Quarrie & Company. See 1923/24/26/31.

1926 The Fables of Aesop. Translated by Sir Roger L'Estrange, Kt. Wood-engravings by Celia M. Fiennes. #83 of 350 copies. Waltham Saint Lawrence, Berkshire: Golden Cocker Press. $272 by mail from Old Friends Antiques and Collectables, Portland, OR, July, '96.

The text is taken from L'Estrange's 1692 edition. The book presents 201 fables, with twelve of Fiennes' wood engravings plus a cockerel on the colophon page (after 94). The wood-engravings are: CJ (1), FK (11, one of the liveliest), "A Horse and an Asse" (20), "A Cat and Venus (31, another of the best), "A Fox and a Goat" (40), "A Man and a Wooden God" (51, one of the most dramatic), "Two Cocks Fighting" (60), 2W (67, well done), "The Washing of a Blackmore" (76), "A Raven and a Snake" (85), and "A Gnat Challenges a Lyon" (94). The wood-engravings give the impression of being silhouettes with very fine white lines defining their areas. I like them; in fact, I regret that there are only twelve! I had received this book just before going off on sabbatical, and had not yet accessioned it or removed it from my "want list." What a pleasure it is now (August, '97) to find it as I return! A slim book, beautifully made.

1926 The Nightingale from Far-a-way China.  Illustrations by Ray Gleason.  Hand lettered by Earnest Vetsch.  Hardbound.  Printed in USA.  Racine: Whitman Ppublishing Co.  $15 from University Used & Rare Books, Seattle, June, '03.  

Here is a little square 44 page book about 6½" on a side.  In the forest near the emperor of China's palace there was an especially gifted nightingale that became famous throughout the world, but was unknown to him and his court.  A poor kitchen maid was found who knew the nightingale well, and the nightingale agreed to the invitation to sing at the court.  Everyone raved about his performance, and he was feted--but constrained--at court.  Soon the emperor received the gift of a mechanical nightingale; it turned out, however, that the artificial nightingale could sing only one waltz.  He was, however, much more colorful than the original, living bird.  Soon the real nightingale left, and then was banished.  One evening, a spring burst in the mechanical nightingale.  Repaired, it was now allowed to sing only once a year.  After some years, the emperor lay on his deathbed.  The nightingale appeared and charmed away Death.  Simple, pleasant two-color illustrations in blue and orange decorate the work along the way.  

1926 The Panchatantra. Translated from the Sanskrit by Arthur W. Ryder. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. See 1925/26.

1926 The Pathway to Reading: Fifth Reader. By Bessie Blackstone Coleman, Willis L. Uhl, and James Fleming Hosic. Illustrated by Eleanor Howard. NY: Silver, Burdett and Company. $3 at Hamburg Antique Mall, May, '94.

A well used reader. The fifth grade seems to have been a relatively late period for reading fables in the classroom. There are three fables here in a section labelled "Fable and Fancy," introduced by a pair of black-and-white medallions, the first of them illustrating the first fable, "The Fox, the Cock, and the Dog" (130). The other two are MM (136) and "The Man and the Lion" (176).

1926 Trilussa: Le Favole Fasciste. Pamphlet. Rome: I Romaneschi: Istituto Editoriale. 5000 Lire from Porta Portese Flea Market, July, '97.

This pamphlet presents twenty-four fables on 31 pages, with a T of C at the end. There are a few designs of various styles along the way. Blossom Kirschenbaum, a translator of Trilussa's fables, writes in an article in "Fables from Trastevere," an article in Italian Journal in 1994: "From sonnets he passed on to fables and satire, and to indirect but sharp criticisms of the foibles and brutalities of Fascism. Yet in a sense he was non-partisan, and it was said that both the Pope and Mussolini laughed at his verses" (33). This booklet is in very good condition for being eighty years old.

1926/26? Krylov's Fables. Translated into English Verse with a preface by Bernard Pares. NY: Harcourt, Brace and Company. $3 from Pageturners, Aug., '91.

Apparently originally published by Jonathan Cape in London; there is no such indication here (and no date whatsoever). Though Harcourt, Brace is listed as in New York, the book is made and printed in London. A charming translation of Krylov, perhaps the only complete Krylov's fables in English. A quick scan puts him squarely in the tradition of LaFontaine. I found this book shortly after I ordered Hyperion's reprint (1926/77/87) at seven times the cost!

1926/27 My Story Book. Nila Banton Smith under the direction of Stuart A. Courtis. Drawings by Elizabeth Tyler Wolcott. NY: World Book Co. $.95 at Constant Reader, March, '88.

FG, CP, LM, BC, FC, and TH are among the thirty stories. Wolcott's multi-colored illustrations are nice and in good shape. Maybe the best picture is the first, that of FG.

1926/28 The Open Door Language Series: First Book. Language Games and Stories. Zenos E. Scott, Randolph T. Congdon, Harriet E. Peet, and Laura Frazee. No illustrator acknowledged. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. $3 at Renaissance Airport, Jan., '90.

This book combines the third and fourth grade books published in the same years, following even the same pagination as they. It thus contains five fables: FG (53), which is promptly transformed into "The Boy and the Butterfly" with other titles suggesting further variations; "The Fox and the Lion" (55); GA (225) as a springboard to constructing other stories; BW (232) redone promptly as a drama; and "The Crab and His Mother" (249) as an exercise in punctuation.

1926/28 The Open Door Language Series: Fourth Grade. Louisiana Edition. Zenos E. Scott, Randolph T. Congdon, Harriet E. Peet, and Laura Frazee. No illustrator acknowledged. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. $.50 at Biermaier's Books, Minneapolis, July, '89.

Excellent condition. Orange illustrations as we knew them when we were kids. Contains three fables: GA (225) as a springboard to constructing other stories; BW (232) redone promptly as a drama; and "The Crab and His Mother" (249) as an exercise in punctuation.

1926/28 The Open Door Language Series: Third Grade. Louisiana Edition. Zenos E. Scott, Randolph T. Congdon, Harriet E. Peet, and Laura Frazee. No illustrator acknowledged. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. $1.50 at Dinkytown Antiquarian Bookstore, Minneapolis, March, '90.

Good condition. Orange illustrations as we knew them when we were kids. The book contains two fables: FG (53), which is promptly transformed into "The Boy and the Butterfly" with other titles suggesting further variations, and "The Fox and the Lion" (55).

1926/28/30 The Open Door Language Series: Fourth Grade. Zenos E. Scott, Randolph T. Congdon, Harriet E. Peet, and Laura Frazee. No illustrator acknowledged. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. $2.40 at Georgetown Books in Bethesda, April, '97.

Good condition. Curious redoing of the 1926/28 edition. See my comments there. The book has been rewritten. Thus iii-vi of the introductory section in the earlier edition are gone. The "Foreword to Boys and Girls" drops its first paragraph and rewrites the second. This book is paginated from 1, not 133. The two fables—GA and BW--thus are now found on 93 and 100. "The Crab and His Mother" has been dropped.

1926/30 Fables de la Fontaine. R. de la Nézière. Hardbound. Tours: Maison Alfred Mame et Fils. $10.50 from Debbie Bailey, Ansonia, CT, through eBay, Nov., '10.

Here is a copy of one of my favorite fable books, alas in wretched condition. It is a second (?) printing of Nézière's glorious book. His illustrations are intact, but the covers of the work are deteriorating. I include the book partially to give representation to the "corrupting" book in this collection, though I would rather keep it in my room and use it for presentations! Let me include remarks on the 1926 original. An instant favorite! Sixty fables with a T of C at the end. Sixteen full-page brightly-colored illustrations on different paper with very lively movement. There are two black-and-white illustrations per fable except for " La Latière " (129), which has only one. The match between colored and black-and-white illustrations is extraordinarily good. Nice front and back covers present the cast of characters and the poet himself. Trees are frequently personalized; the frogs romp on a "bear" of a log (64). Humans often become monkeys. The funniest black-and-white illustration (96) has a horse pulling a rolling scaffold of thirteen people, four children in a coaster cart, an alligator, and a further cast. The secret to the humor of this funny book lies in the use of updated technology. On 11-12, the frog uses a bicycle pump to inflate himself. There is a good splat here! The wolf has a musket against the lamb (21), the mosquito a bow and arrow against the lion (46), the spider--with dead flies pinned to his hat--a butterfly net (49). The pigeon flies an airplane (53), while frogs have umbrellas and bath houses (55). The racing turtle has a cart and a turtle-jockey, while the hare has a bike (117). The tortoise in mid-air is carried between two biplanes (149). A great imaginative lark! 

1926/30 Folk Tales from Many Lands. Kinscella Readers. By Hazel Gertrude Kinscella. Illustrated by Ruth Mary Hallock. Stories in Music Appreciation--Book Three. Lincoln: University Publishing Company. $2 at Logos in Santa Cruz, Aug., '89.

This book carries out an unusual project. All its selections are related to music, with reference to particular musical pieces that can accompany each selection. Aesop's "The Boy and the Nightingale" is included (25) in the form of a short narration with a following dialogue. Might "The Sly Fox" (15) also be Aesopic? Simple art. Very good condition.

1926/32 The Pathway to Reading: Fourth Reader. Bessie Blackstone Coleman, Willis L. Uhl, and James Fleming Hosic. Illustrated by Eleanor Howard and Eunice Stephenson. Hardbound. NY: Silver, Burdett. $12.60 from Corn Country Antiques, Walnut, Iowa, Oct., '08.

This book represents a very lucky find. I no longer expect to find as-yet-undiscovered fable books in rural antique stores. Here I found two from the same series! The fables included here are: "The Cat, the Monkey and the Chestnuts" (111); "The Quails" (156, identified as an "Eastern Fable"); and "The Bundle of Sticks" (157). Only the first of these has an illustration. "The Quails" is about cooperating against a common enemy. The quails are able to fly away with a fowler's net -- as long as they work together. Once they start quarreling, their common enterprise is lost.

1926/77/87 Krylov's Fables. Translated into English Verse with a preface by Bernard Pares. Westport, CT: Hyperion Press. $21 from the publisher, July, '91.

A facsimile of the book originally published by Jonathan Cape of London. See my copy of the edition by Harcourt, Brace (1926/26?), which seems identical.

1926? Aesop's Fables with Compliments of Chelmsford Ginger Ale. Paperbound. St. Paul: Chelmsford Ginger Ale; Brown & Bigelow. $4 from Marle G. Smith, Scottsbluff, NE, through eBay, April, '09.

This little booklet of sixteen pages answers some questions and raises others. It offers seven spreads of a full-page picture on the left and a text on the right. Before that, there is a cover showing a fox dressed as a hunter with a rifle and ducks on his back. After that, there is a back cover advertising Chelmsford soft drinks. The answers come for a different set of items using these pictures, namely Bloom Calendar Blotters. I had asked of the pictures there: Are these all fables? Here we get texts to go along with some of those questionable pictures. LM alone is told and illustrated in standard fashion. Then come stories that are new to me. A rooster is bragging to a carpenter hare that he is of more use to the master; the master then kills the rooster and says that he is good only for Sunday dinner. The next fable has a little bear named Johnny lying to Papa Bear about a "monstrous fish that was on his hook." A monkey praying for bananas is told to swing his tail up to the top of a tree, and heaven rewards him for helping himself. A black child named Sambo in the "deepest jungles of dark Africa" checks out a new hole before he dives in; there is a crocodile there "all ready to swallow him up." Papa Bear catches a fox who is stealing a hen and gives him a caning not for the stealing but for lying about it. This booklet is a good example of the way in which proverbs, all quoted in their pictures, can shape stories. Some questions have to do with the location of Brown and Bigelow, here located in St. Paul and there in Boston.

1927 Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by Nora Fry. No editor acknowledged. London: J. Coker and Co. See 1921/27/30.

1927 Aesop's Fables. Illustrated by Nora Fry. No editor acknowledged. London: George G. Harrap and Co. See 1921/24/27.

1927 Aesop's Fables. George Fyler Townsend, NA. With over one hundred drawings in line and colors by Louis Rhead (and Frank E. Schoonover, not acknowledged).  Hardbound.  First edition with Rhead's pictures.  NY: Harper & Brothers. $15 Canadian from Ten Editions Bookstore, Toronto, Feb., '04. 

I had found what I thought to be a first edition of this book earlier from Greg Williams. This copy is, like that, a pictorial black cloth octavo with a colored frontispiece and three other full-page colored illustrations. This copy states, however, as that one does not, "First Edition with Louis Rhead's Pictures." Otherwise the two books seem identical. I comment at more length there. Here I will repeat that the book contains engravings of all sizes and shapes, including one (TH on 9) repeating a colored illustration (facing 6). The other colored illustrations besides GA on the cover and frontispiece are of BF facing 41 and FG 118. "The Vain Jackdaw" text (39) does not match in sense the colored illustration of the story facing 41. Typical of Rhead's work are the illustrations on 20 and 87. Note the mother with bandaged ear on 55. There is an AI at the front, followed by a list of illustrations.

1927 Aesop's Fables. George Fyler Townsend, NA. With over one hundred drawings in line and colors by Louis Rhead (and Frank E. Schoonover, not acknowledged). Hardbound. First edition with Rhead's Pictures. NY: Harper & Brothers. $10 from Brattle Books, Boston, Nov., '03.

This book is very similar to two others in the collection. All show a publication date of 1927. Like the Ten Editions book, this edition states "First Edition with Louis Rhead's Pictures." Unlike either of those books, this has a cover material, behind the applied picture of GA, of plain green cloth. Unlike those books, the spine of this book contains only the title and publisher; there is no mention of Rhead on the spine. Like those books, this copy has a colored frontispiece and three other full-page colored illustrations. There is an AI at the front, followed by a list of illustrations. See the other two copies for more extensive comments on the texts and illustrations.

1927 Aesop's Fables. George Fyler Townsend, NA. With over one hundred drawings in line and colors by Louis Rhead (and Frank E. Schoonover, not acknowledged). NY: Harper & Brothers. $21 from Starlight Books, Parma, OH, via Greg Williams, March, '96.

Here is a very curious book. I had not known of it until I saw a copy advertised through Old Friends in Portland for $130. At almost the same time, Greg mentioned it to me from a computer listing of his. Pictorial black cloth octavo with a colored frontispiece and three other full-page colored illustrations. The bottom of its spine is skinned. Finding the Blue Ribbon Books edition of this same book helped me to identify the painter of the cover/frontispiece illustration of GA, namely Schoonover. One would not learn in either edition that the text and preface are taken from (I believe) George Fyler Townsend. His justification is that his first association lay in being asked to provide new morals and applications, while in this text he is concerned with "a purer translation, and more literal rendering of the fables" (xix). The latest thing he cites in his bibliography is from 1857. The text seems to be identical with the Townsend text in the Parents' Magazine edition of 1964. I do notice now for the first time Townsend's creative approach--a thorn-tree stick--to the fable about the child prophesied to be killed by a lion (190). The engravings are of all sizes and shapes, including one (TH on 9) repeating a colored illustration (facing 6). The other colored illustrations are of BF facing 41 and FG 118. "The Vain Jackdaw" text (39) does not match in sense the colored illustration of the story facing 41. Typical of Rhead's work are the illustrations on 20 and 87. Note the mother with bandaged ear on 55. There is an AI at the front, followed by a list of illustrations. I can find no mention of this book in any of my resources.

1927 Aesop's Fables. With over one hundred drawings in line and colors by Louis Rhead and Frank E. Schoonover. NY: Blue Ribbon Books. Inscribed in 1934. $7 through Interloc from Debue's Book Shop, Lima, NY, August, '97.

I presume this is the "knock-off" version of my adjacent copy of the Harper first edition. This edition has GA on its yellow cover. The only substantial difference here seems to be that the book's spine (but not its title-page) acknowledges Schoonover. See my comments there. This book, like the other, has an AI at the front, followed by a list of illustrations.

1927 Bajky.  V. Riha.  Illustrated by Prokop Laichter.  Pamphlet.  Prague: Zen Z Literatur, 9:  Vydal Jan Laichter V Praze.  270 Korunas in Prague, August, '17.

1927 Bajky.  V. Riha.  Illustrated by Prokop Laichter.  Hardbound.  Prague: Zen Z Literatur, 9:  Vydal Jan Laichter V Praze.  200 Korunas in Prague, August, '17.

1927 Die babylonische Fabel und ihre Bedeutung für die Literaturgeschichte. Erich Ebeling. Paperbound. Leipzig: Verlag von Eduard Pfeiffer. $20 from Turtle Island Booksellers, Berkeley, July, '97.

Here is a offprint of an article from this journal: Mitteilungen der Altorientalischen Gesellschaft, II. Band - Heft 3. Ebeling here confirms the Babylonian background of the Greek fable first recommended by Diels around 1910. Ebeling offers three sorts of fables that show both formal correspondence and some identity in detail. First is a set of arguments about greatness between various kinds of trees. The second and third types concern animals. The second set includes "epic" fables, which I take to indicate stories, particularly stories again of arguments between two kinds of animals. The third type is close to the joke. Here my favorite gets repeated. "Allen meinen Lesern dürfte die Fabel von der Mücke und dem Stier bekannt sein.." (49). He presents the Babylonian fable of the elephant and the gnat. Here is a bit of good old German Wissenschaft at work! 

1927 Ésope: Fables. Texte établi et traduit par Émile Chambry. Collection des Universités de France publiée sous le patronage de l' Association Guillaume Budé. #67 of 200 numbered copies. Paris: Societé d' Édition "Les Belles Lettres." $25 from Laurie in St. Paul, July, '89.

Lovely Budé text of 358 fables. No notes. Index at the back. Chambry explains on v-vi the numbering changes from his standard-setting two-volume work: "The Horse and the Boar" was a doublet in the earlier work (#144 and 329). #144 is dropped in this work. Also "The Oak and the Reed" had appeared as #101. Now Chambry has chosen the variant "The Reed and the Olive," and it takes its new alphabetical place at #143. The other items seem to match up consistently, but note that he has taken just one text in each case from the many he presented earlier.

1927 Ésope: Fables. Texte établi et traduit par Émile Chambry. Hardbound. Paris: Collection des Universités de France publiée sous le patronage de l' Association Guillaume Budé: Societé d' Édition "Les Belles Lettres.". €20 from Librairie Epsilon, Paris, Jan., '05. 

Now I have a hardbound version of this important first edition, distinct from the two-volume work of 1925 and 1926. I doubt that the binding of this book was done by the publisher himself. Thus it is practically equivalent with the paperback copy I have already listed (ID #687). However, that other copy of this book is a numbered edition. So this book stands as a simple copy in contrast to that special one. I repeat what I said there. It is a lovely Budé text of 358 fables. No notes. Index at the back. Chambry explains on v-vi the numbering changes from his standard-setting two-volume work: "The Horse and the Boar" was a doublet in the earlier work (#144 and 329). #144 is dropped in this work. Also "The Oak and the Reed" had appeared as #101. Now Chambry has chosen the variant "The Reed and the Olive," and it takes its new alphabetical place at #143. The other items seem to match up consistently, but note that he has taken just one text in each case from the many he presented earlier.

1927 Ésope: Fables. Texte traduit par Émile Chambry. Paperbound. Paris: Collection des Universités de France publiée sous le patronage de l' Association Guillaume Budé: Societé d' Édition "Les Belles Lettres." €8 from Librairie de l'Avenue, Saint-Ouen, July, '12.

I have a number of Chambry editions, but until now I had not found this simple book of translations. I am delighted to add another lovely Budé text. After 54 pages of introductory material paginated with Roman numerals, the book consists simply of 358 numbered translations, with a French AI at the back. Chambry explains on v-vi the numbering changes from his standard-setting two-volume work: "The Horse and the Boar" was a doublet in the earlier work (#144 and 329). That fable at #144 is dropped in this work, the new #144 is the old #145, and all succeeding fables are one number lower than their earlier number. Also "The Oak and the Reed" had appeared as #101. Now Chambry has chosen the variant "The Reed and the Olive," and it takes its new alphabetical place at #143. 

1927 Everyday Classics Third Reader.  Franklin T. Baker and Ashley H. Thorndike.  Illustrated by Willy Pogany.  Hardbound.  NY: MacMillan.  See 1917/27.

1927 Fabeln von Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.  Käthe Olshausen-Schönberger.  Prof. Dr. J. Petersen.  Hardbound.  Berlin: Volksverband der Bücherfreunde: Wegweiser-Verlag.  €20 from Lehndorfer Versandantiquariat, Braunschweig, through zvab, Jan., '16.

1927 Folk Tales from the Far East. By Charles H. Meeker. Illustrated by Frederick Richardson. Hardbound. Chicago: The John C. Winston Company. $19.5 from Packet Books, Raleigh, NC, June, '97.

My, I have waited seven years to catalogue this book! There are thirty-four stories, with twelve full-page illustrations (including a colored frontispiece) by Richardson, listed just after the opening T of C. There is also a printer's design, sometimes repeated from elsewhere in the book. at the start of each story. I have sampled the stories here and find that several of them are short, pointed, and unmagical enough to be fables. Many of them feature "Mr. Monk," the wise monkey. For example, a cat with six kittens wanting to travel over the mountain asks the monkey how long it will take (9). He gives three estimates, the longest of them if the cat family goes the fastest. The mother dismisses his view and moves fast. She leaves her kittens behind without knowing it and has to go back and get them and then care for them in their exhaustion. Going slowest would have got them there the fastest! Again, the monkey wants to buy the terrapin's bananas and finally agrees to pay for one banana by teaching him to climb a tree (40). Once he has the terrapin at the top of the tree, he leaves him there, climbs down, takes all the bananas, and says he never promised to teach him how to climb down!

1927 Fünfzig Fabeln von Lafontaine. In deutschen Versen von Kurt Koch. Mit 63 Scherenschnitten von Alfred Thon. Hardbound. Halle: Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses. €20 from Antiquariat Haufe & Lutz, Karlsruhe, March, '13.

The Scherenschnitte are particularly appealing in this book, generally small and simple but finely done. Good examples include FC (6); "Horse and Wolf" (10); "Wolf and Fox" (49); and "The Heron" (62). There is a fine series of five illustrations for MSA, but they follow La Fontaine's version (72-76). My prize for the best of all goes to WL on 18, which has the lamb and river in white with the wolf strong in black against the horizon. One finds a "Nachwort," T of C, and advertisements at the end of the book.

1927 Ironical Tales. Laurence Housman. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Printed in USA. New York: George H. Doran Company. $35 from Early Jackets, Plant City, FL, June, '98.

Irony is the central concept here. Just when a reader thinks that she or he has found the right vantage point, there can be an ironic shift. This book starts with seven short stories and ends with ten similar pieces. In between there are thirteen "Philosophical Romances" that sometimes come close to fables. Of the early short stories, I recommend most highly "The Real Temptation of St. Anthony" and "The Turn of the Worm." I find in Housman's work a steady clash of body and soul, of belief and unbelief. The latter of these two pieces is about getting the head and body of a missionary together in a literal way. It is typical of Housman's satire that the head ends up being made into a god and leading local Christians into many battles against other tribes, "including many that were Christian" (58). The shorter pieces at the center sometimes approach Bierce for their sardonic quick shifts. Try the first, "The Merchant and the Robber" (59) for a taste of human ingratitude and ingenuity. "The Poet and his Mistress" (74) shifts perspective several times--deftly and pointedly. Among the best for humor is "The Prince and His Two Mistresses" (92).

1927 Jataka Tales out of Old India. Retold by Marguerite Aspinwall. With illustrations by Arnold Hall. First edition? Dust jacket. NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons. $9 at Left Bank, Oak Park, June, '93. Extra copy for $15 from Midway, St. Paul, June, '03.

Twenty-nine tales with eight striking silhouette illustrations (the best on 35 and 73). The book is in good condition. The tales have a standard beginning: "Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was King in Benares...." I took detailed notes on these stories. New and good: "The Rash Magician" (25), "The Stupid Monkeys" (70), "The Foolhardy Jackal" (110), "The Monkey's Heroic Self-Sacrifice" (182), and "The Lost Charm" (192). I miss here the snap of ingenuity, surprise, or congruence between conflict and resolution that characterizes fables--and Jatakas?--at their best.

1927 La Fontaine: Fables, Tome 1.  Gustave Michaut.  Frontispiece FG by Cosyns.  #1459 of 2000.  Paperbound.  Paris: Éditions Bossard.  $28.14 from A Tout Livre, Le Verguier, France, through ABE, Jan., '23.

1927 La Fontaine: Fables, Tome II.  Gustave Michaut.  Frontispiece FG by Cosyns.  Paperbound.  Paris: Éditions Bossard.  $28.14 from A Tout Livre, Le Verguier, France, through ABE, Jan., '23.

1927 La Fontaine: Selected Fables.  Edited with Introduction, Notes, and a Vocabulary by Cécile Hugon.  Hardbound.  Oxford: Clarendon Press.  See 1918/27.

1927 More Eton Fables. By Cyril Alington. Hardbound. Printed in Great Britain. London: Longmans, Green and Co. £3 from Eastgate Bookshop, Beverly, Yorkshire, England, August, '01.

See my comments on Eton Fables in 1921, bought at the same time and in the same bookstore. The common factor in these homilies is the movement from something concrete and particular, whether it is a tree or a story or an experience. Even though they do not contain fables in the sense in which I am collecting, I have put this book, the original, and the new impression of the original (192Jan., '34) into the collection because they come up so frequently when one searches for "fables." Inscribed at Christmas, 1927.

1927 My Story Book. Nila Banton Smith under the direction of Stuart A. Courtis. Drawings by Elizabeth Tyler Wolcott. NY: World Book Co. See 1926/27.

1927 Old Fables for You And Pictures too. Told by Elsie-Jean. Pictured by Estelle Duval. Lettered by Erik Franz. NY: Nelson and Sons. $10 at Goodspeed's, Jan., '89.

A precious find! This good old rebus does violence to some stories by having to fit them into its two-page poetic format, but I love the pictures it uses and the approach it takes.

1927 Quelques Fables de La Fontaine.  Jules Chadel.  Preface by Albert Thibaudet.  #10 of 121, boxed.  Hardbound.  Paris: Les cent Bibliphiles.  $700 from Magnasco, Buenos Aires, Argentina, through ABE, July, ‘21.  

1927 Studies in Reading: Third Grade.  By J.W. Searson and George E. Martin.  Illustrated by Ruth Mary Hallock.  Hardbound.  Lincoln and Chicago: University Publishing Company.  See 1918/27.

1927 The Home University Bookshelf. Volume III: Folk-Lore, Fables, and Fairy Tales. Editorial board of the University Society. NY: University Society. $3 from Tom Joyce at Dearborn Street Fair, June, '88.

Fables of Aesop are on 364-88. Some curious tellings: the monkey seizes the cat's paws and makes her grab the hot nuts, and the moral of FG is "Disappointment may be lightened by philosophy, even if the latter is wrong." A curious melange of illustrations: four nice colored illustrations to a page by Bess Bruce Cleveland in addition to the black-and-whites on the pages themselves (which look copied). Aesop is followed by fables of India, Gay, La Fontaine, and others. Also check 257-74: this "Japanese and Other Oriental Tales" section includes "The Story of Zirac" and other fable material. See the nearly identical edition of 1945.

1927 The Open Door: Newson Readers, Book Two. Catherine T. Bryce and Rose Lees Hardy. Illustrations by C.T. Nightingale and others. NY: Newson and Co. $2 at Pageturners, Omaha, Oct., '89.

A standard kids' reader in very good condition. Three fables: TH (60), AD (112), and DM (114). Edna Potter is the illustrator for TH.

1927 The Volume Library. A Concise, Graded Repository of Practical and Cultural Knowledge Designed for both Instruction and Reference. Advisory editor Abram Royer Brubacher. NY: Educators Association. $6 at 5^th Avenue Antiques, Milwaukee, August, ’96.

Of the 1139 pages in this massive book, two are given to fables: 48-9. Curiously, the two pages are formatted differently, and the fables on the right all have italicized morals. I had not seen "Horns" before: a city boy on the farm for the first time thinks that mooing cows are blowing their horns. This compendium of knowledge includes references to La Fontaine and Ade’s Fables in Slang as well as Lowell’s A Fable for Critics. This book shows what fables people might have thought of first early in the century (the first copyright is 1911) and also what place in life they might give them. Note that the fables are placed just after the fairy tales in the "Kindergarten" section of the book. There is a simple illustration of FC.

1927 The Winston Readers: Second Reader. By Sidney G. Firman and Ethel H. Maltby. Illustrated by Frederick Richardson. Hardbound. Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company. See 1918/27.

1927 Trilussa: Le Favole Fasciste: con Introduzione ed Illustrazioni. Illustrazioni di Valente. Pamphlet. Rome: Libro e Moschetto, Biblioteca del Giovane Fascista #3: Istituto Editoriale Giovanile. 10000 Lire from Centro Bibliografico M. Pucci, Rome, July, '97.

This pamphlet is similar to another I have recorded one year earlier with the same title, but there from "Istituto Editoriale" rather than "Istituto Editoriale Giovanile." The series is not "I Romaneschi," as there, but rather "Libro e Moschetto, Biblioteca del Giovane Fascista." This edition, one year later, is rougher in execution but adds three stronger illustrations. Note the strong feminine figure for "La libbertà" on 28. The pamphlet presents the same twenty-four fables, now on 36 pages with no T of C at the end. Blossom Kirschenbaum, a translator of Trilussa's fables, writes in an article in "Fables from Trastevere," an article in Italian Journal in 1994: "From sonnets he passed on to fables and satire, and to indirect but sharp criticisms of the foibles and brutalities of Fascism. Yet in a sense he was non-partisan, and it was said that both the Pope and Mussolini laughed at his verses" (33).

1927 Wildwood Fables. Arthur Guiterman. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. NY: E.P. Dutton. $20 from Walk a Crooked Mile Books, Philadelphia, Nov., '95.

There are here twenty-eight verse fables on 3-73, as the opening T of C shows, followed by "Tales and Songs." Several of the fables formed part of a Phi Beta Kappa poem entitled "The New Aesop," read at the triennial convention of Phi Beta Kappa in New York in 1925. The several of these fables that I have read are good for performing aloud. They carry a fable's lesson in enjoyable rhythm and rhyme. "The Chant of Mikinak" (5) tells of a soft-shelled turtle who finds himself everyone's victim and plaything. He toughens up by bathing in limestone and comes back. When he does not mind getting kicked around, people stop kicking him around. "'Where the sticks will fly and the stones will hurtle,/You mustn't be too sensitive,' says Mikinak the Turtle" (7). In "The Professional," the writer, an amateur fisherman, admires the Kingfisher as a professional who is glad for anything he can get and does not have time for talking or wishing. "A Rabbit Parable" (23) tells of a rabbit who had to yield the nice hole he found to a larger groundhog. The groundhog was killed by a badger. A fox challenged the badger, and they ended up killing the other. The meek rabbit inherited the earth! This sounds like the kind of poetry that would be fun after-banquet reciting. 

1927 Work That Is Play. By Mary Gardner. Illustrated by Helen Hodge. Hardbound. Chicago: A. Flanagan. $7 from an unknown source, July, '98.

This book reprints in slightly different format an original publication from 1908 from the same company. The format is slightly larger; the plates seem the same, but the margins have increased in size. The cloth cover has changed its background color from tan to yellow. The lovely monochrome endpapers of MM and "The Wolf and the Goat" have become plain paper. Let me repeat some of my comments from that edition. This book is a favorite of mine. It begins with an impassioned plea for play for little folks. It presents a narrative and then the same story in dramatic form. 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. This copy is in good condition.

1927 20 Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrées par Jehan Sennep. #493 of 960 on vellum (after 40 on other paper). Hardbound. Paris: Librairie de France. €200 from Paris International Book Fair, July, '09.

Here is a serious addition to the collection. In each of the twenty instances, La Fontaine's text is matched with a contemporary full-page colored political cartoon by Jehan Sennep. These full-page cartoons are exquisitely colored and printed. There is no printing on their obverse. Among my nominees for the best of the multi-colored illustrations are FC (the German helmet is a great clue!); "Le Renard et le Bouc"; "L'Ane Portant des Reliques"; MM; "Le Lion Devenu Vieux"; GGE; TB; "Le Coche et la Mouche"; 2P (featuring an American safe!); "Le Loup Devenu Berger"; and TT. One can see, I am impressed by the whole book! Though pages are not numbered, the fables are introduced with a numbered title-page for each. The closing "Table des Fables" fortunately identifies the specific figures pictured in each cartoon. I do not know French history of the twenties well enough to identify the individuals involved, but I can certainly understand "le Boche" in FC! Clemenceau appears in "Le Lion Devenu Vieux." After each text, there is also a tail-piece, often showing the outcome of the fable. The design showing Herriot exploding at the end of OF is delightful! Not in Bodemann.

1927/29 Inductive Readings in German: Book 1. By Peter Hagboldt and F.W. Kaufmann. Hardbound. Fifth Impression. Chicago: The University of Chicago Junior College Series: The University of Chicago Press. $5 from an unknown source, perhaps in June, '97.

Hadboldt's work here is different from his work for the "Heath-Chicago German Series" in 1933. This book contains twenty-seven items or groups of items with which students can start reading German. Perhaps half of them are or contain fables. The fables are ""Der Löwe und der Wolf" (2); "Ich bin gross, und du bist klein" (2); "Wer alles will, bekommt nichts" (3); "Der Esel und der Wolf" (4); "Der Frosch und die Maus" (4); "Der Hofhund und der Wolf" (5); "Das Kalb und der Storch" (6); "Der Löwe teilt" (6); "Rechts oder links" (8); "Das Geld im Garten" (9); "Die Milchfrau" (14); "Der Wolf und das Lamm (Nach Luther)" (17); "Der Rabe und der Fuchs (Nach Lessing)" (31); and "Der junge Löwe und der Mensch" (38). "Der Esel und der Wolf" is told in a straightforward way; surprisingly, the ass does not outwit and strike the wolf. Lessing's FC is clever: the cheese is poisoned and kills the fox. There are questions and exercises and a vocabulary at the end. This study-booklet is unusually tall (8¼") and thin (4¾").

1927/48 The Bookshelf for Boys and Girls. Volume I: Fun and Thought for Little Folk. NY: Editorial Board of the University Society. $4 from Renaissance Airport Shop, Jan., '90.

Same organization and print style as in The Home University Bookshelf (1927), from which I have Volume III. There is one fable here, TT (353), with a nice colored illustration by Hugh Spencer.

1927/48 The Bookshelf for Boys and Girls. Volume II: Golden Stories and Fables. NY: Editorial Board of the University Society. $6.50 from Avenue Victor Hugo, Boston, June, '91.

This book follows upon Volume I of the same year, but seems in cover and format to belong to an earlier generation of the book. Its fable section takes over the section in Volume III of The Home University Bookshelf (1927, see comments there) with a few curious changes: e.g., "Fables" becomes "Aesop's Fables," the colored pictures--several clearer here--are now printed back to back, and the "Modern Fables" section has become the "More Fables" section. Good condition.

1927/60 Ésope: Fables. Texte établi et traduit par Émile Chambry. Deuxième Edition. Paperbound. Collection des Universités de France publiée sous le patronage de l' Association Guillaume Budé. Paris: Societé d' Édition "Les Belles Lettres." $3 from Victoria, NY, Jan., '90.

Uncut pages. See my comment on the first edition in 1927. This is a helpful bilingual edition. And I remember fondly Victoria and its owner.

1927/85 Ésope: Fables. Texte établi et traduit par Émile Chambry. Collection des Universités de France publiée sous le patronage de l' Association Guillaume Budé. Hardbound. Fourth impression. Paris: Societé d' Édition "Les Belles Lettres." $14 from the publisher, Feb., '90.

Lovely Budé text of 358 fables. No notes. Index at the back. Apparently no changes from the 1927 first edition.

1927? Aesop's Fables. Pictures by Jack Orr. Hardbound. Printed in Great Britain. London: Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd. £18.5 from Rose's Books, Hay-on-Wye, June, '98.

For a long time, I had thought this would be a book that would take hours to read because it is so thick. It turns out that it is only 96 pages long, with very thick paper. Orr's art work is very nice. I find three of the four color plates outstanding! They are "The Eagle and the Crow" (24), TB (torn, 48), "The Thieves and the Cock" (becoming loose, 72). There are many black-and-white illustrations, both full and part page. Among the best of them are: DM (15), "The Miser" (41), "The Ass and the Little Dog" (57), "The Astrologer" (59, dressed like Noel Coward), "The Rat and the Frog" (77), and "The Ass and His Driver" (78). Many especially of the full-page black-and-white illustrations make great use of the open undefined space around the figures; in this respect Orr may be only one step away from Calder. The five or six texts I have checked have all come verbatim from either Dalkeith or James. Note the additions to and variations from traditional stories: The hare lies down and says "If that slow-coach passes, I shall see him and easily catch him up again" before she falls asleep (18). A doe (not a fox or a group) argues with the lioness about children and says that she bears only one or two in a lifetime (38). The shepherd boy cries "Wolf!" "from time to time" (42). Orr's work is presented at five places in Ash and Higton, but he is not mentioned at all in Bodemann or Hobbs.

1927? Aesop's Fables. Pictures by Jack Orr. First edition? Hardbound. London: Nelson's Standard Bumper Books: Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd. £1.99 from A.J. La-Vine, Dorset, UK, through eBay, April, '04. 

At first, I thought this book would be identical with another edition I have listed under the same date and publisher. A chance to inspect the two together shows a number of differences, starting from a cover illustration here of MSA, whereas there Aesop was at the center of the cover, crowned with laurel and writing with a feather. This copy lacks the patterned end-paper on the inside of both front and back covers. It also lacks any declaration on the verso of the title-page about where the book was printed. The last page here claims the series, "Nelson's Standard Bumper Books," and lists nine books in the series. The other copy lists six titles "in the same series" but does not mention the series and does not include "Aesop's Fables." I will reproduce here my comments on that copy. For a long time, I had thought this would be a book that would take hours to read because it is so thick. It turns out that it is only 96 pages long, with very thick paper. Orr's art work is very nice. I find three of the four color plates outstanding! They are "The Eagle and the Crow" (24), TB (torn, 48), "The Thieves and the Cock" (72). There are many black-and-white illustrations, both full and part page. Among the best of them are: DM (15), "The Miser" (41), "The Ass and the Little Dog" (57), "The Astrologer" (59, dressed like Noel Coward), "The Rat and the Frog" (77), and "The Ass and His Driver" (78). Many especially of the full-page black-and-white illustrations make great use of the open undefined space around the figures; in this respect Orr may be only one step away from Calder. The five or six texts I have checked have all come verbatim from either Dalkeith or James. Note the additions to and variations from traditional stories: The hare lies down and says "If that slow-coach passes, I shall see him and easily catch him up again" before she falls asleep (18). A doe (not a fox or a group) argues with the lioness about children and says that she bears only one or two in a lifetime (38). The shepherd boy cries "Wolf!" "from time to time" (42). Orr's work is presented at five places in Ash and Higton, but he is not mentioned at all in Bodemann or Hobbs.

1927? Juvenile Mammoth Story Book. 695 Series. No editor or illustrator named. Cleveland: Goldsmith Publishing Co. $8.98 at Cheever Books, San Antonio, August, '96. Extra copies for $2, perhaps at Rummage-o-rama, Jan., '88, and, without covers, a gift of Greg Williams, Sept., '94.

The section on Aesop's Fables is one of twelve. No T of C, index, or page numbers. Twelve fables, most with coarse illustrations. The last ("The Greedy Fox") is a play for one person on getting into and out of the field with the grapes; it moves strangely into territory associated with FG to tell a fable usually associated with a weasel in a granary. New to me is "The Fly and the Moth." In the Rummage-o-rama copy, some of the heavily inked illustrations are colored in with crayons by a previous reader. The Greg Williams copy is missing one page at the front and nine at the back besides its covers and spine. None of the copies is in very good condition.

1927? Pour faire Chanter nos Petits: Chants avec jeux, évolutions et travaux manuels: Premier et deuxieme fascicule.  Mademoiselle S. Brés and Lud. Blareau.  Hardbound.  Paris: Libraire Classique Bernand Nathan.  $25 from Robin Bledsoe, Boston, July, '16.

end

To top

1928 Aesop's Fables. Edited by Catherine T. Bryce and Edna Turpin. With Illustrations by Walter Crane and other artists (Tenniel, Weir, Herbert Deland Williams, Bewick). Pamphlet. Printed in USA. Little Folk's Library: Second Series. NY/Chicago: Newson & Company. $2 from an unknown source, July, '98.

This pamphlet measures almost 6" x 4½" and has 48 pages. BF is on its front cover and FG on the back. Inside there are nine fables, two reflections, and one bit of biography. The illustrations are classic. The illustrators include Tenniel, Weir, Herbert Deland Williams, Bewick, and Crane. All of the illustrations are colored. The fables include FG, LM, DS, "The Cats and the Monkey" (with two illustrations), CP, FS, "One Good Trick" (the fox and the cat, without illustration), BF and GGE. The first reflection, after LM, is "Doing Something for Others." The second, "Just Like--What?" offers good short applications and asks which fable each is like. The pamphlet has seen significant wear. Its staples are gone, and all of its pages are loose. Such ephemera as this I am especially happy to see preserved in this collection.

1928 Aesop's Fables. Arranged with an introduction by Blanche E. Weekes. Illustrated by John Fitz, Jr. Hardbound. Printed in the USA. The Child's Garden of Charming Books. Philadelphia: John C. Winston. $5.95 from Brattle Books, April, '89.

A pretty standard small book in good shape. There are nice copies of the black-and-white illustrations on the end papers. Two colored illustrations (of CJ and WC) and maybe a dozen black-and-whites, of which the best might be of the vain jackdaw on 24. T of C on v. Very good condition. Compare with another book, identical except for its series marker on the back of the title-page. This book shows "The Child's Garden of Charming Books," while the other shows "The Winston Large-Type Classics For Little Folks."

1928 Aesop's Fables. Arranged with an introduction by Blanche E. Weekes. Illustrated by John Fitz, Jr. Hardbound. Printed in USA. The Winston Large-Type Classics For Little Folks. Philadelphia: John C. Winston. $5 from an unknown source, June, '87. Extra copy a gift of Alexandra Varga, Catskill, NY, Oct., '00.

This book is almost exactly identical with another found at Brattle Books. The only difference between the two copies is the "series" listing on the back of the title page: that book shows "The Child's Garden of Charming Books," while this one shows "The Winston Large-Type Classics For Little Folks." See my comments there. The good copy of this version lacks one endpaper. The extra copy of this version, a gift from Alexandra Varga, is in relatively poor condition. It has a plain green cover and plain endpapers. I will keep it in the collection.

1928 Bajky LaFontaineovy S Obrazky Doreovymi. Cenek Semerad. Various illustrators. Paperbound. Kvety Mladez, Svazek III. Printed in Bratislava? Prague: Kral. Vinohrady. $6 from Zachary Cohn, Prague, Dec., '01.

Seventy-two fables on 72 pages, with a T of C at the end. This paperbound volume has a nice oval portait of La Fontaine on its cover. It is in only fair condition, and its binding is deteriorating.

1928 De La Salle Readers: Book IV. Brothers of the Christian Schools. St. Joseph's Normal Institute, Pocantico Hills, NY. First printing. Saint Louis: Woodward & Tiernan Printing Company. $1 at Mrs. Clemens Antique Mall, Hannibal, Oct., '94.

This book is in very poor condition. It is very Catholic! There are four fables here: AL (29), "The Monkey and the Cats" (33), FC (verse by Jane Taylor, 35), and "The Masked Monkeys" (188). There is a short biography for Aesop on 227, but where has he been mentioned? ("Fables" are referred to in the preface.) Pages 109-10 and 207-8 are missing. Compare this book with the second De La Salle Reader of 1913: St. Joseph's has become an institute, and now the book has a regular publisher.

1928 Fables Choisies. Jean de la Fontaine. Privately printed for William Andrews Clark, Jr. by Chester Troan. Los Angeles. #43 of 100 copies printed for private distribution. Text from a scarce edition printed in Bouillon, Belgium, in 1776, with plates by Bertin and Savart. Purchased by Camilla Nilles for $6 at a Chicago used bookstore, Summer, '85.

A real treasure. I do not know if any of the plates speak quickly enough to appeal to a viewing audience. Seven fables: GA, FC, OF, DW, TMCM (clearly after Oudry -- or vice versa?), "Death and the Woodman," and "The Reed and the Oak."

1928 Fables Comiques. Benjamin Rabier. Paris: Librairie Garnier Frères. $25 at Booksmith, Oak Park, Sept., '91.

A treasure in very good condition. Twenty-two fables preceded by a photo of Rabier. The colored pictures are particularly funny, e.g., of the dead dog with paddles and wings (7), the masked rabbit (52-3), or the drunken revolutionary animals (80-1). Rabier's fables argue strongly for status quo thinking. Dreams of greatness, ease, and universal kindness lead to ruin. "Too much kindness hurts." "Revolutions give birth to profit-makers." Animals staging a revolution finally ask the humans if they may return to their former life--while the fox has profited immensely from the whole revolutionary silliness. Rabier cuts deep like LaFontaine even in "comic" fables like that of the gossiper dog Faraud (67-8) who surrounds himself with an artificial audience. A real delight!

1928 Fables de Phedre. Traduit du Latin par E. Panckoucke. Illustré par Geneviève Rostan. #986 of 2500 on Tsahet paper. Paperbound. Paris: Collection Antiqua #4: A l'Enseigne du Pot Cassé. $32.33 from Librairie Hatchuel, Paris, through abe, March, '03. 

Here is one of those French books that is still in "paperback" form. Unfortunately, it is splitting into two or three parts. It seems a rather straightforward presentation in French of Phaedrus' five books. Its best claim to fame may be the woodcut illustrations for each fable. These are small and simple. Each book gets a larger woodcut besides at its start. Among those worth a second look, I think, are FS (48), "The Man with Two Wives" (67), and "The Man Who Threw a Rock at Aesop" (96).

1928 Fifty Fables from La Fontaine. Cover and spine: La Fontaine's Fables. Radcliffe Carter. No illustrations. NY: Oxford University Press: American Branch. $4 from Imagination Books, Silver Spring, Feb., '92. Extra copy for $10 from Titles in Highland Park, May, '89.

The rhymes are fun for the few I have checked so far. A pleasant little book. Use the beginning T of C: the fables are not in LaFontaine's order.

1928 Fifty Fables from La Fontaine. Radcliffe Carter. No illustrations. London: Humphrey Milford: Oxford University Press. $6.75 from Ralph Casperson, Niles, May, '95.

This book has a different cover and different plates from its mate done in the United States. Because the plates are different, the pagination turns out to be different too.

1928 For the Children's Hour. Caroly S. Bailey and Clara M. Lewis. Illustrated by Rhoda Chase. Hardbound. Springfield, MA: Milton Bradley Company. $4 from The Lantern Bryn Mawr Bookshop, Washington, D.C., Oct., '12.

The categories of an early story book like this tell a great deal. Here the sections are titled "Stories of the Home Relationship," "The Home," "Nature Stories," "Holiday Stories," and "Fairy Tales and Fables." In this last section there are six fables (328-33). None of the six nicely colored illustrations relate to the fables. Five of the six fables seem to me to be predictably good traditional choices for children to learn from: GA, AD, CP, FC, and DS. "The Gourd and the Pine Tree" (330) is new to me: a gourd grows upon the pine and grows up to its top in a year and is proud of that fact. Winter storms and frost come and the gourd soon falls into a heap, while the pine continues to stand strong and tall. The end of the book is separating from its spine. 

1928 Hitopadesa: The Book of Wholesome Counsel: A Translation from the Original Sanskrit.  Francis Johnson; revised and in part re-written with an introduction by Lionel D. Barnett.  Frontispiece by Cynthia Kent.  Hardbound.  London: The Treasure House of Eastern Story:  Chapman and Hall.  £27 from Rooke Books, Bath, UK, July, '18.

1928 Hoot-Owl Classics, Being a Selection of Bed-Time Stories, Volume One. By Dean Collins. Pamphlet. Printed in Portland. Portland, OR: The Rainbow Division. $15 from The Great Northwest Bookstore, Portland, OR, March, '96.

We read on the title-page: "First Read Over the Radio from the Home Roost of the H G W Keep-Growing-Wiser Order of Hoot Owls in the Oregonian Tower at Portland, Oregon." This 54-page pamphlet features twelve delightful live radio scripts, up-to-date slang parodies of known stories given plenty of local color from the Portland, Oregon area. There are three fables among its twelve offerings. These are LM (13), GGE (27), and TH (41). Collins transforms LM quite thoroughly. The lion, looking for lunch, comes upon the mouse while the latter is working on his income tax. In fact, that is also what the lion is doing a year later when he walks into the net. Here the mouse comes upon him by chance, and the lion suggests that the mouse "gnaw a few of these strings." The mouse makes sure that he is well tied up and then kicks him in the pants and walks away. "And the moral of this story, dear children, is: The important thing is to know when you can get away with it" (15). GGE concerns a financial scheme dreamed up by a son to save his parents' bankrupt farm. The race in TH is from Portland to NY. The tortoise gets himself picked up by a traveler. There is in this longish story, as in the other stories, some delightful play on words. Other offerings include songs, a history of Oregon, "Pandora," "Baucis and Philemon," "Jonah," "Goldilocks," and "The Little Red Hen Re-Read."

1928 John Martin's Big Book for Young People. Volume 5 of a seven-volume set. NY: Collier and Son. See 1919/20/24/28.

1928 La Fontaine pour Rire: 18 Fables de Dominique Bonnaud.  Illustrées par O'Galop.  Hardbound.  Paris: Librairie Delagrave.  €39.80 from Librairie Le-livre, Baron, France, through abe, Nov., '13.  

1928 Le Roman de Renard. Version moderne pour la jeunesse et 71 dessins. Léopold Chauveau. Paris: Éditions Victor Attinger. $4.08 at the Book Forum, Colorado, March, '94.

A straightforward prose version for young people. The book is done on cheap paper, and the illustrations, silhouettes with extensive captions, are viewed from the side rather than the bottom of the book. One can follow a great deal of the story with just the illustrations. Among the best of these is that of Renard dunging from a tree onto the sleeping watchman (141). New to me: Hermeline ransoms Reynard at the point of death by hanging in the lion's court (203). The last note on the illustration on 273 is delightful: "It would have been necessary to make many designs to illustrate this story." (And so we get one.) Facing the title page is a notice of another edition of Renard by Chauveau, "ou sont contées les aventures de Renard que la révérence due à la jeunesse n'a pas permis de rapporter en celle-ci."

1928 Polichinelle: Old Nursery Songs of France. Translated, Set, and Illustrated by J.R. Monsell. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Printed in England. London: Humphrey Milford: Oxford University Press. £35 from Ripping Yarns, London, June, '02.

I had thought that this book was a knock-off of Boutet de Monvel's Chansons de France (1870?), but it turns out that only about seven of the thirty-one songs here are also there. The one fable that is in this book is TMCM on 18-19. Whereas it was titled "Le Rat de Ville et le Rat des Champs" there, here it is more simply "Les Deux Rats." As with the other pieces offered here, the book is bilingual. In this case, as frequently, the left-hand page gives the musical score, the first verse in French, and the first verse in English. The right-hand page continues with more illustration and separate columns for the further verses in either language. The art is not up to Monvel's high level, but it does play nicely with the rats' tails. On the left, city rat has his tail hooked around a wine glass as he leans over the edge to invite the country rat up. In a second phase, the latter has hold of the city rat's tail as they march across the top of the table. In the fourth of five phases, the city rat's tail is pulling a glass over the right edge as the two escape. Most of the book's art seems to be restricted to two colors beyond black. Here the emphasis is on yellow. The dust jacket is in only fair condition, but the book itself is in good to very good condition.

1928 R.L. Stevenson: Ten Fables with Twenty One Illustrations by Rachel Russell. Robert Louis Stevenson. #165 of 250. Hardbound. London: The Swan Press. $115 from Acquitania Gallery, San Francisco, at the San Francisco Antiquarian Book Print, & Paper Fair, Jan., '04. 

Here are ten of Stevenson's twenty fables with small illustrations. Several of the texts take my breath away. One of these is the first, "The Sick Man and the Fireman." Others are just fun. Among these, I would say, is "The Devil and the Innkeeper." Again I find "Something in It" engaging. The images, about 1½" x 3¼", are nicely done.

1928  Sancho Panza: Compendio de Refranes y Fábulas.  Ilustraciones de J. Serra Masana.  Hardbound.  Barcelona: I.G. Seix & Barral Hermes., S.A.  $25 from Christian Tottino, Buenos Aires, through eBay, Dec., '13.  

1928 Some Little Plays and How to Act Them. By Mary Ellen Whitney. Illustrated by Dorothy Saunders. Educational Play-book Series. Chicago: Beckley-Cardy Company. $8 at Arkadyan, Aug., '94.

Seven fables are presented here in short, one- or two-page play form, with discussion questions following each. WS is presented in the poorer version. There is a simple illustration for "The Boy and the Nuts" (20) depicting the boys at about ages 12 and 18. There is also an illustration for WS. Formerly owned by Grandview School and the school board of Hutchinson, Kansas.

1928 Story Hour Readers Revised: Book Three. By Ida Coe and Alice Christie Dillon. NY: American Book Company. See 1914/15/23/28.

1928 The Children's Big Story Book. (Cover: The Story Book for Young Folks.) No author or illustrator acknowledged. Racine: Whitman. $7.50 at Renaissance, Mitchell Field, Jan., '89.

A fascinating book in poor condition. It shows how a catch-all story-book uses Aesop for short filler: five fables appear on heavy inserted pages and the inside back cover. TMCM appears late as a story. The paper is brown, and a previous owner has added some crayonings. One picture page and one story precede the title page.

1928 The Great Fables of All Nations. Selected by Manuel Komroff. Illustrated by Louise Thoron. The Library of Living Classics. First edition? NY: Lincoln MacVeagh/The Dial Press. $7 from Klaus Grunewald, Kansas City, May, '93.

Thinking I was picking up a working copy for travelling, I may have found the original edition on which all of my Tudor editions (listed under 1928 and 1928/33) are based. See my comments there. Good condition.

1928 The Great Fables of All Nations. Selected by Manuel Komroff. Illustrated by Louise Thoron. Dust jacket. NY: Dial Press: Tudor Publishing Co. $10 at Selected Works in Chicago, May, '89. Extra copy without dust jacket inscribed in 1947 for $7.50 from Oregon Coast, Aug., '87.

This edition marks the second of five different books all using the same plates. It looks as though Tudor picked up sole rights to the plates just after the book was jointly published with Lincoln MacVeagh in 1928. See further printings by Tudor under 1928/33. This book changes the cover design and color (to gray) and adds the bright yellow, orange, and black dust jacket.

1928 The Laidlaw Readers: Book Two. Herman Dressel, M. Madilene Veverka, and May Robbins. Illustrated by Mabel B. Hill and Betty Selover. Chicago: Laidlaw Brothers. See 1924/28.

1928 The Magic Garden of My Book House. Volume 7 of twelve. Edited by Olive Beaupré Miller. Various illustrators. Chicago: The Book House for Children. See 1920/28/36/37.

1928 The New Winston Primer/The New Winston First Reader. By Sidney G. Firman and Ethel Maltby Gehres. Illustrated by Frederick Richardson. Inscribed in 1941 and 42. Chicago: The John C. Winston Company. $10 at Laurie, March, '94.

Comparing these bound-together books with their apparent predecessors from 1918 and 1922 yields surprises. Ethel Maltby has married and has given Sidney Firman top billing. Though "The Dog and the Rooster" with slightly changed vocabulary has remained in the first reader (102-7 here), most of the text of both books has changed. Might there be two different series involved here? Check the price on the back cover: $.50! Excellent condition. Perhaps a later printing?

1928 The Open Door Language Series: First Book. Language Games and Stories. Zenos E. Scott, Randolph T. Congdon, Harriet E. Peet, and Laura Frazee. No illustrator acknowledged. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. See 1926/28.

1928 The Open Door Language Series: Third Grade. Louisiana Edition. Zenos E. Scott, Randolph T. Congdon, Harriet E. Peet, and Laura Frazee. No illustrator acknowledged. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. See 1926/28.

1928 The Open Door Language Series: Fourth Grade. Louisiana Edition. Zenos E. Scott, Randolph T. Congdon, Harriet E. Peet, and Laura Frazee. No illustrator acknowledged. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. See 1926/28.

1928 The Prince of the Land of the Rose Apple & Other Stories. Adaptations from Buddhist Folklore. By Ada Marie Kelly. #4 of 17 copies. Inscribed by author and publisher. San Diego: Tom Givens Dawson. $7.50 at Adams Avenue Book Store, San Diego, Aug., '93.

A beautifully executed slim book. Talk about a limited edition! I am certainly lucky to have found this book. Several of the fifteen freely adapted Buddhist (I presume Jatakas) tales here are quite familiar, like "The Smallest Rabbit" (19) about the bunny who thinks the world is ending and TT (29). The tales in the first half of the book strike me as simplistic. The second half is far more interesting. Page 20 shows two different spellings of coconut.

1928 The Talking Beasts. Edited by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith. Illustrations by Harold Nelson. Dust jacket. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, and Company. See 1911/28.

1928 Three Hundred Five-Minute Sermons for Children. Compiled and Edited by Rev. G.B.F. Hallock. Stated first edition. Hardbound. Garden City/NY: Doubleday, Doran & Company. $8 from Palmerton Mountain Books, Fort Ann, NY, through abe, Nov., '02. 

This is a thick 362-page book delivering just what the title says. There is a subject index at the front. Checking under "Fables, Legends, Folk-Lore, etc." reveals at least thirty fables included here. Each is introduced to the young listeners with a homey introduction, including references to "Mr. Aesop." The spine of this book is starting to give way. Here is one more tribute to the presence of Aesop in American culture.

1928 Through Fairy Halls of My Book House. Volume 6 of twelve. Edited by Olive Beaupré Miller. Various illustrators. Chicago: The Book House for Children. See 1920/28/37.

1928 Treize Fables.  (René Georges) Hermann Paul.  #15 of 63.  Paperbound.  Liège: Les Éditions du Balancier.  $750 from Cole & Contreras, Sitges, Spain, through ABE, June, ‘21.  

1928 Twenty Four Fables of Aesop and other Eminent Mythologists. Roger l'Estrange. Illustrations after etchings of Marcus Gheeraerts the elder. Dust jacket. London: Ernest Benn. $15 in Chicago, Dec., '91. Extra copy without dust jacket for $20 from Wordsmith, Lincoln, May, '95.

Identical after the title page with the Dutton edition printed in England (1928?). Most of the illustrations are taken from Gheeraerts' edition from Bruges of 1567 (the three others are from Gheeraerts' work published in another edition of 1617). The high-quality etchings are unfortunately a bit light here. A note on the illustrations (48-49) is written by A.E. Popham. The cover is slightly different from that on the Dutton edition. The Chicago copy has a weakened binding, and so I will keep the Wordsmith edition (which shows some foxing) in the collection.

1928 Up One Pair of Stairs of My Book House. Volume 3 of twelve. Edited by Olive Beaupré Miller. Various illustrators. Chicago: The Book House for Children. See 1920/25/28/37.

1928 Vergnügte Tiere. Hans Ostwald. Various artists. Hardbound. Berlin: Paul Franke Verlag. €18 from Antiquariat Niedersatz, Berlin, July, '07.

This is a curious book. If one is to judge from the bibliography facing the title-page, Ostwald, the editor of Der Neue Eulenspiegel, wrote humorous books. This book is no exception. Some 367 pages are chock full of animal stories. The T of C at the back may not help a great deal to understand their organization. And so I am not surprised when the last chapter is titled "Allerlei Durcheinander," roughly "All sorts of stuff mixed up together." There are several fables in the first section, "Mensch und Tierwelt." Notice TB on 14, DW on 15, and a lovely rhymed verse version of MSA on 16-17 from Eucharius Eyring (1520-1597). Most of the material here seems to me to be chreiai, humorous incidents. I am happy to encounter the item on 30, titled "Warum die Ochsen gegen den Fortschritt sind." When Pythagoras came up with his "Eureka!" he sacrificed one hundred bulls. Since then bulls get nervous whenever a new truth comes to light! I trust that there are more fables scattered in this long book. Seek and you shall find! 

1928/33 The Great Fables of All Nations. Selected by Manuel Komroff. Illustrated by Louise Thoron. Dust jacket. NY: Dial Press: Tudor Publishing Co. $7.50 at the Antiquarium, July, '89.

A wonderful find! The first hundred pages or so go to Aesop in a fine collection from all sorts of fabulists, including Pilpay, Gay, Dodsley, Kriloff, Tolstoi, and Bierce. No author credited for Aesop. Only the combination of illustrations on 67 rises above decoration. The first copy here has the spine design of the original 1928 MacVeagh/Tudor edition, but the color is now purple and there is a cameo portrait marked "Tudor" impressed on the front cover; 1933 is listed on the title page in Roman numerals; there is a new blue and red dust jacket.

1928/36 The Great Fables of All Nations. Selected by Manuel Komroff. Illustrated by Louise Thoron. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Printed in USA. NY: Dial Press: Tudor Publishing Co. $20 from Horizon Books, Seattle, Aug., '93.

There is no longer a date on the title-page, but there is a notation "New Edition October 1936" on its back. The Horizons copy is in particularly good condition. Internally unchanged from the 1933 edition. See my comments there. The dust jacket here is like that on the 1928 Tudor edition, and the embossed cover is like that on the 1929 McVeagh edition.

1928/44 The Great Fables of All Nations.  Manuel Komroff.  Louise Thoron.  1936 printing.  Dust-jacket.  Hardbound.  NY: Dial Press: Tudor Publishing Co.  $10 from St. Croix Antiquarian Booksellers, May, '91.

1928/69 Tales of Wise and Foolish Animals. Written and illustrated by Valery Carrick. Unaltered republication of a work originally published by Frederick A. Stokes Company. NY: Dover. $3.50, Summer, '89.

Good stories and satisfactory illustrations. Several of the fourteen stories are one step away from Aesop. Getting the bear's paw stuck in a briefly-split tree trunk seems a popular motif. The FC trick shows up in "Clever Dog" (39) with a good final twist: the young dog brags about getting the cheese, and the old dog immediately snatches it up. The hare tricks the lion into seeing himself in the well and jumping in. The hare sees his ears shadowed, runs from the chasing monster, and is happy in the shade that he is fast enough to have run away from him. Note that Valery is a male.

1928? Aisopeion Mython Synagoge: Fabulae Aesopicae Collectae. Ex Recognitione Caroli Halmii (Carl Halm). Exemplar Photomechanice Iteratum. Hardbound. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner. See 1884/1928?.

1928? La Fontaine: Fables Choisies. Livres VII a XII. Nouvelle Série. Notice et Notes par Ferdinand Gohin. Les Classiques pour Tous: Littérature Française. N^o 154. Paris: Librairie A. Hatier. 1.50$ Canadian from Librairie Bibiomanie, Montreal, Oct., '95.

Forty-eight fables, listed in a T of C at the very back, in the kind of pamphlet the French seem to have made a specialty! See 1938 for a later edition, which adds some critical judgments and big enough print to make the booklet grow from 80 to 112 pages.

1928? The Child's World. Hardbound. Memphis, TN: Students Educational Publishing Company. $7 from Todd Wagner, Dayton, OH, through eBay, August, '00.

This thick book comes apparently from a religious publishing house. Three parts present, respectively, ten traditional stories, lives of great Americans, and bible passages with prayers. Among the ten traditional stories are three traditional fables, each with a simple black-and-white design. They are "The Lark and the Farmer," FWT, and "The Cobbler and the Rich Man." The latter story shows people in contemporary modern dress. The man in a suit gives the cobbler $500. There is an unfortunate typo "Childern" on the title-page.

1928? Twenty Four Fables of Aesop and other Eminent Mythologists. Roger l'Estrange. Illustrations after etchings of Marcus Gheeraerts the elder. Dust jacket. Printed and made in Great Britain. NY: E.P. Dutton and Co. $10 at Old Capitol Books, Monterey, Feb., '97. Extra copy without dust jacket for $4 at O'Gara and Wilson, May, '89.

Most of the illustrations are taken from Gheeraerts' edition from Bruges of 1567 (the three others are from Gheeraerts' work published in another edition of 1617). The high quality etchings are unfortunately a bit light here. A note on the illustrations (48-49) is written by A.E. Popham.

1929 Am Karpfenteich. Vortragsfabeln von Karl Heinz Hill. Paperbound. Berlin: Verlag Maria Luehr. DM 2 from Germany, July, '02.

The subtitle "Vortragsfabeln" indicates that these literary works are meant for entertainment. They do not seem to be fables in the stricter traditional sense. These are rather short stories and even allegories. Some are in prose and some in verse. At the end there are two narratives in dialect. As the T of C at the back indicates, there are thirty-three works in this 42-page pamphlet. Closest to fables might be these four works: "Elternträume" (25); "Die alte Klage" (27); "Die Eule" (31); and "Pussi und der Hase" (37). I found the first two especially insightful; their surprise endings work.

1929 Androcles and the Lion.  Bernard Shaw.  Hardbound.  London: Constable and Company.  £4.95 from D.A. Pearce, Norfolk, UK, through eBay, April, '15.  

1929 Child-Story Readers. By Frank N. Freeman, Grace E. Storm, Eleanor M. Johnson, and W.C. French. Illustrated by Vera Stone Norman. Hardbound. Chicago/NY: Lyons and Carnahan, Publishers. $2 from Don's Antiques, Walnut, IA, August, '00.

The title-page neglects to mention what is clear on the cover of this children's reader: it is a primer. There is one fable here: "The Baby Show" (114). Five colored images help to show how every animal mother was proud of her baby. Mother Monkey's baby could not run or play and was not pretty, but his mother declared "I have the finest baby of all." The king looked at every baby, but no one got the prize. Every mother thought her baby finest of all. Formerly in the Villisca School Library, this book is in very poor condition. The covers have already separated. A small hand has been busy pencilling!

1929 Child-Story Readers: Jack and Jane.  Frank N. Freeman, Grace E. Strom, Eleanor M. Johnson, and W.C. French.  NA.  Hardbound.  Sacramento: Child-Story Readers:  California State Series.  $19.5 from Shakespeare, Berkeley, June, '13.

1929 Dreams & Fables. C.S. Woodward. With illustrations by Ethel Everett. Dust jacket. London: Longmans, Green & Co. $12 from Yoffees, April, '92.

Twelve stories, apparently not distinguished between dreams and fables, written by this canon of Westminster and originally broadcast as part of children's services. The stories are very pious. I suspect that for an educated believer today they are curious at best. Angels move in and out of the stories. Lent is the long white road to the cross. An old church and the buildings around it converse--especially to suggest that the church needs more money for maintenance! Dead flowers meet in the "kingdom beyond" to discuss their experiences of trying to make people happy. I could not take more than half of the stories.

1929 Fables. Theodore Francis Powys. First edition. Dust jacket. NY: The Viking Press. $25 at Alkahest, Evanston, Oct., '94.

Nineteen stories that are really tales, I would say, about talking sub-human creatures rather than fables in the tradition, invoked by the dust jacket, of Aesop and La Fontaine. The dust jacket says aptly "The common note is a sort of smiling cynicism." I read five and found them various, offbeat, and engaging. "The Withered Leaf and the Green" (31) is a poignant classic confrontation of young and old with well-etched attitudes given to each. "The Seaweed and the Cuckoo-Clock" (45) is a bizarre piece about Miss Gibbs who marries unlike things to each other, like these two objects. "The Ass and the Rabbit" (65) is a good commentary on the problem of a creature whose life gets complicated and mixed up by thinking he is God. It contains this fine sardonic remark: "There are some who have even doubted that the hermit ever lived at all upon the moor, for during all the time that he lived--if, indeed, he did live--he caused no scandal that could rightfully give him the smallest place in the remembrance of a man" (67). Though I do not think these belong in the history of fable, I intend to read more.

1929 Fables de Jean de La Fontaine Illustrées.  Paul Jouve.  Signed; #112 of 150.  Hardbound.  Lausanne: Philippe Gonin.  €3000 from Librairie de l'Avenue Henri Veyrier, St. Ouen, May, ‘21.  

1929 Fables de La Fontaine.  Etchings by T. Polat.  Preface by Louis Barthou.  #3 of 196 copies; on Vélin de Rives.  Hardbound.  Paris: Henri Vever.  $200 from Paris, July, '14.

1929 Fables de La Fontaine.  Illustrations Félix Lorioux.  Hardbound.  Paris: Hachette.  See 1921?/29.

1929 How Amusing! And a Lot of Other Fables. By Denis Mackail. First edition. Hardbound. London: William Heinemann. $5 from Henrietta Page, Middlesex, England, through eBay, Oct., '02. 

This is a book of short stories very typical of life as literature depicts it in the 1920's. The two I read were the first and last: "As You Dislike It" and "How Amusing!" The stories are similar. They consist mostly of bright banter among the bored rich, often about the subject of getting married. The only positive quality in life is anything's amusingness. There is a good twist at the end of the final story. Bettine has spent a day full of short encounters with several different men, each of whom proposes marriage and each of whom loses something valuable in pursuit of her. Her mother checks on her as she has come to bed very late; the mother wonders why she has missed important appointments during the day. "And you had an amusing time, I hope?" she asks. Bettine sits up in bed with a jerk. "Amusing!" she snorts. "It's been the most boring day I've ever had in my whole life!" I am afraid that I would be tempted to say the same about the two stories that I read. I will not again confuse this with a fable book!

1929 How Amusing! And a Lot of Other Fables. By Denis Mackail. First edition? Hardbound. Boston & NY: Houghton Mifflin Company. $27.20 from Neil Shillington, Hobe Sound, FL, through abe, May, '03. 

Here is the American version of a book I have already catalogued in its English version from Heinemann in the same year. Both versions were printed at the Windmill Press, Kingswood, Surrey. It is a book of short stories very typical of life as literature depicts it in the 1920's. The two I read were the first and last: "As You Dislike It" and "How Amusing!" The stories are similar. They consist mostly of bright banter among the bored rich, often about the subject of getting married. The only positive quality in life is anything's amusingness. There is a good twist at the end of the final story. Bettine has spent a day full of short encounters with several different men, each of whom proposes marriage and each of whom loses something valuable in pursuit of her. Her mother checks on her as she has come to bed very late; the mother wonders why she has missed important appointments during the day. "And you had an amusing time, I hope?" she asks. Bettine sits up in bed with a jerk. "Amusing!" she snorts. "It's been the most boring day I've ever had in my whole life!" I am afraid that I would be tempted to say the same about the two stories that I read. I will not again confuse this with a fable book!

1929 Inductive Readings in German: Book 1. By Peter Hagboldt and F.W. Kaufmann. Hardbound. Fifth Impression. Chicago: The University of Chicago Junior College Series: The University of Chicago Press. See 1927/29.

1929 John Martin's Big Book for Young People. Volume 4 of a seven-volume set. NY: Collier and Son. See 1919/20/21/24/26/29. 

1929 Klingspor-Kalender 1929 mit Fabeln von Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.  Gedruckt und herausgegeben von Gebr. Klingspor.  Schmuckstücke von Willi Harwerth.  Paperbound.  Offenbach am Main: Gedruckt und herausgegeben von Gebr. Klingspor.  €18.75 from Wissenschaftliches Antiquariat Thomas Haker, Klettgau, Germany, Sept., ‘21.  

1929 La Fontaine: Fables. Précédées d'une notice biographique et littéraire et accompagnées de notes revues et complétées d'après l'édition de É. Gerusez par M.E. Thirion. Trente et unieme édition. Paris: Librairie Hachette. Gift of Jim Ciletti of Aamstar Books, Colorado Springs, Christmas, '95.

This may be the most compact full edition of La Fontaine's fables that I have. It contains all the fables and extensive notes in a book of 4" by 6". There are both an AI and a T of C at the back. How nice that Jim thought of me!

1929 La Fontaine: Fables. Précédées d'une notice biographique et littéraire et accompagnées de notes grammaticales et d'un lexique. Par René Radouant. Paris: Librairie Hachette. 65 Francs at Pochotheque Hachette, Paris, May, '97.

This is the standard school text for La Fontaine's fables today, recommended to me when I arrived at the Rue de Grenelle this year. It is a textbook of amazing staying power! There must be a way to tell what edition this is, but I cannot find it. I do seem to find some indication that my copy was published in 1996. I found it useful in a recent trip through LaFontaine. Grammar, vocabulary, and T of C at the back. Is this edition the successor to that of Gerusez and Thirion?

1929 Merry Animal Tales. A Book of Old Fables in New Dresses. By Madge A. Bigham. Illustrated by Clara Atwood Fitts. First thus. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. $12.50 at Bibelots & Books, Seattle, July, '93.

A delightful book that I have read carefully. It is unusual in pulling its thirty-five traditional fables, based on those of LaFontaine, into one almost seamless narrative. There are happy endings here. For example, the eagle does not eat the little owls that he takes from the nest (152), and the fox caught after his many tricks is sold to the circus (139). Many actors are changed. "Universal Peace" involves the fox and turkeys (131). A frog, not a turtle, is carried through the air on a stick (176); he gets up to walk home after he falls. Blackie the rat, not a weasel, is caught in the corn-house with a crack in the wall (64). There are seven full-page colored illustrations, with many black-and-white illustrations in the text. Maybe the best of the latter shows the rat family moving to the country with the help of a toy pull-horse (17). Chapter XXVI is a difficult-to-believe version of "The Monkey and the Cat." T of C at the beginning, with lists of both kinds of illustrations.

1929 Recueil Général des Isopets, Tome Premier.  Publiée par Julia Bastin.  Hardbound.  Paris: Société des Anciens Textes Français: Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion.  €50 from Librairie Picard, Paris, August., '13.

1929 Recueil Général des Isopets, Tome Premier.  Publiée par Julia Bastin.  One of 25 on special paper.  Paperbound.  Paris: Société des Anciens Textes Français: Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion.  $24 from Commonwealth Books, Boston, June, '16.

1929 Recueil Général des Isopets, Tome Deuxième.  Publiée par Julia Bastin.  Hardbound.  Paris: Société des Anciens Textes Français: Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion.  €50 from Librairie Picard, Paris, August., '13.

1929 Recueil Général des Isopets, Tome Deuxième.  Publiée par Julia Bastin.  One of 25 on special paper.  Paperbound.  Paris: Société des Anciens Textes Français: Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion.  $24 from Commonwealth Books, Boston, June, '16.

1929 Studies in Reading: Second Grade.  J.W. Searson, George E. Martin, and Lucy Williams Tinley.  Illustrated by Ruth Mary Hallock.  Hardbound.  Lincoln: University Publishing Company.  See 1918/29.

1929 The Bolenius Readers: Fourth Reader. By Emma Miller Bolenius. Illustrated by Mabel B. Hill and Edith F. Butler. Revised edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. See 1919/26/29.

1929 The Children's Own Readers: Book Two. Mary E. Pennell and Alice M. Cusack. Illustrations by Marguerite Davis and Blance Fisher Laite. Hardbound. Boston: Ginn. $12 from Unknown source, June, '10.

Here is the second reader in a series from which I already have the third reader. This book is in good condition. It has one fable: TH (19), with an illustration by Blance Fisher Laite. "After a long time the hare waked up" (11). Usage has changed in eighty years! 

1929 The Children's Own Readers: Book Three. By Mary E. Pennell and Alice M. Cusack. Illustrated by Maurice Day and Harold Sichel. Boston: Ginn and Company. $2 at Antique Joe's, Breda, Iowa, Sept., '95.

A pretty standard reader for the times. Its three fables are particularly well told. The first is AL (41) with two illustrations (perhaps to be analyzed by the four colors they use) by Day. The second is "The Wise Jackal" (52) with four illustrations by Day. The last is "The Monkey and the Crocodile" (197), apparently with four illustrations by Sichel, since they are not signed as Day's are. This fable is told with differences from the standard version. Here it is an older crocodile, not a wife or mother, who demands a monkey's heart. The monkey and crocodile are not friends before the action of the fable. The monkey has left his heart on a fig tree; all the figs are monkey hearts!

1929 The Fables of Aesop. Selected, told anew and their history traced by Joseph Jacobs. Done into Pictures by Richard Heighway. Hardbound. NY: The Book League of America. $25 from Miscellanea Libri, Philadelphia, Jan., '01.

This book duplicates and recognizes MacMillan's printings -- some fourteen of them -- between 1894 and 1929. It lacks the typical frontispiece of FS. The cover is red cloth with a simple printer's design on the front. I will include comments from an 1894 copy I have. There is a curious pre-title page that says "Jacobs's Fables of Aesop." I love Heighway's work! There are 220 pages, followed by a two-page AI. Some of the early elements following the curious "Jacobs's" page include: a right-page dedication to Prof. F.J. Child; a preface signed by Jacobs beginning on the right page (ix) and ending over a design on xii; a "Contents" page; "A Short History of the Aesopic Fable" (xv-xxii); "List of Fables" (xxiii-xxv) including eighty-two fables numbered here but not in the text; a left-page showing a hand holding a mirror's reflection of a demon and a right page with a framed scroll of a title ("The Fables of Aesop"); and finally "The Cock and the Pearl" (2-3). By contrast with many of the smaller editions, the two pages of one fable here face each other, and so one does not need to turn a page to finish a fable. The illustrations, titles, and closing designs are very distinct here. Among the best are "The Hart & the Hunter" (64), "The Fox & the Cat" (90), "The Shepherd's Boy" (103), "The Four Oxen & The Lion" (123), and GGE (134). This book was born in a tumultuous time! 

1929 The Fables of Aesop. Selected, told anew and their history traced by Joseph Jacobs. Done into Pictures by Richard Heighway. NY: Macmillan. See 1894/1929.

1929 The Fables of Aesop. (Cover and spine: Aesop's Fables.) Text Based upon LaFontaine and Croxall. Illustrated by Joseph Eugene Dash. World-Wide Edition of a Just Right Book. Chicago: Albert Whitman and Co. See 1925/29.

1929 The Lights of Canopus: Anvar i Suhaili. Described by J.V.S. Wilkinson. London: The Studio. $75 from Argosy, NY, Feb., '92. Extra copies for $19.50 from David Morrison, Portland, March, '96 and, with slightly torn binding, for $20 from Bookhouse, Arlington, VA, Jan., '96.

A presentation of "Additional 18579" and particularly its thirty-six paintings, from the hands of several artists, dated to about 1610. Quinnam (23) gives the year of publication of this book in a helpful bibliographical entry. Chapter VI (24-53) summarizes the stories of the fourteen books and comments on each of the colored plates, which are mounted on heavy, lined paper. The best of the illustrations for me are "The Fox Crushed Between the Fighting Goats" (VII); "The Woman Killed by the Sneeze" (VIII); "Dimnah and the Ox" (XI); "The King, The Ape and the Thief" (XXII); "The Lion, the Unfaithful Wife and the Prince" (XXV); "The Old Woman, the Sick Daughter and the Cow" (XXVI); and "The Ravening Lion" (XXX). The plates are listed on viii-ix. An unusual and lovely book. I will keep the Argosy and Morrison copies in the collection, the latter because of its lighter-colored cover with black lettering instead of the gold engraving of the other two copies.

1929 The Little Wise One. By Frank Worthington. With fully Illustrated Text by the Author. Hardbound. London: W. Collins and Sons & Co., Ltd. $AUS 35 from Elverston Books, Queenscliff, Australia, April, '99.

Twenty stories, copiously illustrated with small black-and-white designs. I have read the first five. TH is told in a standard story form, in which a succession of look-alike turtles chide the racing hare at every signpost. Hare supposedly cleans lion's tail of fleas but is secretly burying it in the ground. Hare tricks the baboons in revenge for their trick on him. Hare tricks bear in revenge by getting bees into his blanket. Hare saves a man from a lion by distracting the lion to pursue him for his boasting. I find the stories enjoyable, tight, fun.

1929 The Real Picture Book. Artists include Milo Winter, as the editors include Valdemar Paulsen, for Aesop. NY: Rand McNally & Company. $20 from Midway, Jan., '97.

This is a beautiful, large picture-book drawing from nine favorites, including such titles as The Real Story Book, The Illustrated Bible Story Book, and The Peter Patter Book. The introduction evokes a time when for a small child the pictures were everything. "The text, you observe, is merely incidental…." The illustrations, always on the right-hand page, are indeed magnificent here! Five fables are included and—for the first time in my awareness—attributed for their texts to Paulsen. The fact that there are few fables here spurred me to examine their texts more carefully, with some surprising results. Thus there are time problems in TMCM (44). After a country lunch, which the town mouse shows that she eats only to be polite, there is some talk, and then they go right to bed, where the country mouse dreams of city life. The next day they travel and find the leavings of a banquet. Are not two versions conflated here, one of which involved immediate travel and the other a country overnight? After intrusions from a cat and later from servants and a dog, the country mouse stops in the town mouse's den only long enough to pick up her carpet bag and umbrella. In "The Rose and the Butterfly" (49) both are inconstant. In TH (71), the tortoise sugests the race. The hare naps in order to show the tortoise how ridiculous it is for him to run against the hare. In GGE (107), there is an egg every day. "The Peacock" (119) is new to me. He got the magnificent tail-feathers that he lacked originally but asked for later at the price of having to give up flight. Unfortunately several pages are torn, e.g., the front endpaper, the frontispiece, 37, 41, 47, and 85-92.

1929 The White Elephant And Other Tales from Old India. Retold by Georgene Faulkner, "The Story Lady." Illustrated by Frederick Richardson. ©1929 The P.F. Volland Company. NY: The Wise-Parslow Company. $21 from Richard Dix, Beaverton, OR, March, '96. Extra copy for $20 from the Thrifty Scotsman, Denver, March, '94.

This book has captured my fancy. I find three fables: "The Timid Little Rabbit" (22), "Singh Rajah and the Cunning Little Jackals" (29, patterned after the story of the hare, lion, and well), and "The Brahmin and the Tiger" (67). Besides those there are three wonderfully told stories. "The Kingdom of Mouseland" (35) tells of the mice's revenge upon the camel-stealing woodcutters. "The Bear's Bad Bargain" (75) rewards a couple with all the good breaks while the poor bear gets all the bad breaks. "The Man Who Rode a Tiger" (84) has an unlikely hero who gets very lucky. Note the misprint where for were in the bottom line on 65. The extra copy has writing on its cover, and many of its typical Richardson-Volland illustrations have slightly misaligned colors.

1929 The White Elephant And Other Tales from Old India.  Georgene Faulkner.  Frederick Richardson.  Hardbound.  NY: The P.F. Volland Company.  NY: The Wise-Parslow Company:  P.F. Volland.  $15 from Treehorn Books, Dec., '99.

1929 Uj Magyar Fabulak (New Hungarian Fables).  Jozsef Bartoky, edited by Karoly Szasz.  Apparently first edition.  Hardbound.  Szarvas, Hungary: Szarvasi Oregdiakok Szovetsege (Szarvas Alumni Association).  3800 Hungarian Forints from Antikvarium, Budapest, Hungary, Sept., '20.

1929 Uj Magyar Fabulak (New Hungarian Fables).  Jozsef Bartoky, edited by Karoly Szasz.  Apparently first edition.  Paperbound.  Szarvas, Hungary: Szarvasi Oregdiakok Szovetsege (Szarvas Alumni Association).  3250 Hungarian Forints from Antikvarium, Budapest, Hungary, Sept., '20.

1929 Wings of Flame: Everyday Fables. Joseph Burke Egan. Edwin J. Prittie. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Chicago: John C. Winston Company. $25.00 from Midway Book Store, St. Paul, March, '98.

This is not the first time that I have guessed wrong on the basis of a book's sub-title and a bookseller's affirmation that "there are a lot of fables in this book." Oh, well. These are edifying stories, often in several parts or chapters. I tried "The Unconquered Army" (248). A power-centered king who relies on the strength of his army visits another land where they cherish children and so have a great army in their regular citizens. Other readers can go further in this book!

1929/29 Hindu Fables For Little Children. Dhan Gopal Mukerji. With many illustrations by Kurt Wiese. Third printing. Hardbound. NY: E.P. Dutton. $1 from A Novel Idea, Lincoln, May, '95.

There is already a copy of the fourth printing in the collection. Here is a copy of the third printing with a different texture -- a cloth that is almost cordury -- for its covers. I found this copy (which once belonged to the Lincoln Public Library) and read it in an evening on a road-trip after a year of trying to get to the first copy. It is in only fair condition. As I wrote of the fourth printing, there are here ten stories remembered from a childhood in India, with ten full-page illustrations with blank backs. Four stories use standard fable material: "Bunny the Brave" (9) has a tiger, not a lion, brought by the rabbit to the well. "How a Single Bunny Overcame a Herd of Elephants" (39) has a clever rabbit acting as the moon's voice to command a herd of elephants away from the rabbits' pool. "Monkey Vanaraj" (58) is the standard "I left my heart at home" story, but this version ends with the baboon and the two crocodiles becoming friends! "Bunny the Brave Saves Brahmin the Priest" (89) is the standard story about getting the tiger back into the cage. Two stories are well known Jatakas stories on generosity: "Bunny in the Moon" (30) and "Pigeons of Paradise" (69) both involve the same motif of giving oneself as food to another. "Monkey and Gun" (3) has to be recent in this long tradition; it is quite pointed.

1929/29 Hindu Fables For Little Children. Dhan Gopal Mukerji. With Many Illustrations by Kurt Wiese. NY: E.P. Dutton & Co. Fourth printing of the first edition, Nov., '1929.

Ten stories remembered from a childhood in India, with ten full-page illustrations with blank backs. Four stories use standard fable material: "Bunny the Brave" (9) has a tiger, not a lion, brought by the rabbit to the well. "How a Single Bunny Overcame a Herd of Elephants" (39) has a clever rabbit acting as the moon's voice to command a herd of elephants away from the rabbits' pool. "Monkey Vanaraj" (58) is the standard "I left my heart at home" story, but this version ends with the baboon and the two crocodiles becoming friends! "Bunny the Brave Saves Brahmin the Priest" (89) is the standard story about getting the tiger back into the cage. Two stories are well known Jatakas stories on generosity: "Bunny in the Moon" (30) and "Pigeons of Paradise" (69) both involve the same motif of giving oneself as food to another. "Monkey and Gun" (3) has to be recent in this long tradition; it is quite pointed. I found the extra copy (which once belonged to the Lincoln Public Library) and read it in an evening on a road-trip after a year of trying to get to the first copy.

1929? Abdallah or the Magic Rug and Other Stories. [Cover: Fun and Fiction.] No author or editor acknowledged. Dust jacket. Apparently put out as/by Child Play Magazine. $5 at Holmes, Oakland, July, '89.

Perhaps a title page is missing. Three fables, each with something different. SW has a bet over stripping a man of (all) his clothes--and gets him into a stream. TH has the tortoise dozing across the finish line. FG has this moral: "Out of reach is not worth having."

1929? Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrations de Vimar. Hardbound. Printed in France. Tours: Maison Alfred Mame et Fils. See 1910?/1929?

1929? Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrations de Vimar. Colored cover.  Hardbound. Tours: Maison Alfred Mame et Fils. See 1910/29?

 

To top