1930 to 1939

1930 - 1931

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

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

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

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

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

1930 Choix de Fables de La Fontaine: Album pour les Enfants avec de nombreuses illustrations par J.-J. Grandville. Chromotypogravure de Brun et Cie. J.-J. Grandville, Jules David. Hardbound. Paris: Librairie Garnier Frères. €1.75 in Paris, August, '12.

This book represents a curiosity. It stands, as it were, halfway between the 1930 edition, with which it shares the cover picture by C. Hirlemann and colophon at the end acknowledging printing in 1930 by Paul Dupont in Clichy, and the 1926 first edition. With the latter, it shares the pages of advertising including mention, in both places, of the work of Benjamin Rabier. The front cover shows La Fontaine observing a number of different animals, birds, fish, a stagecoach, and even one resting human. La Fontaine is seated at an oversized urn, on top of which the hard-working fly wipes his brow after he has brought the stagecoach to the brim of the hill. 

1930 Choix de Fables de La Fontaine: Album pour les Enfants avec de nombreuses illustrations par J.-J. Grandville.  Chromotypogravure de Brun et Cie.  Added illustrations by Jules David.  Canvas-bound.  Paris: Librairie Bibliophile Garner Frères.  $7.50 from Fran Vaccaro, Colorado Springs, CO, through Ebay, July, '18.

This is an improved and slightly expanded copy of another book in the collection, both showing 1930 in their colophon.  This copy is inscribed in 1932.  The expansion consists in an extra page before the title-page.  This page includes the T of C on its verso.  And the book's final page includes advertisements for nine, not six, of Benjamin Rabier's books.  The books share the same colophon on 64.  Like the other copy, this work includes several full-page colored illustrations by Jules David.  As I wrote there, this book represents a curiosity.  It stands, as it were, halfway between the 1930 edition, with which it shares the cover picture by C. Hirlemann and colophon at the end acknowledging printing in 1930 by Paul Dupont in Clichy, and the 1926 first edition.  With the latter, it shares the pages of advertising including mention, in both places, of the work of Benjamin Rabier.  The front cover shows La Fontaine observing a number of different animals, birds, fish, a stagecoach, and even one resting human.  La Fontaine is seated at an oversized urn, on top of which the hard-working fly wipes his brow after he has brought the stagecoach to the brim of the hill.

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

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

1930 Fabeln von August Strindberg.  Aus dem Schwedischen übersetzt von Pauline Klaiber-Gottschau.  Hardbound.  Leipzig: Insel-Bücherei #288:  Insel-Verlag.  €14 from Krull, GmbH, Neuss, Germany, July, '15.

Here is a little curiosity.  Strindberg is known outside Sweden primarily as a playwright.  I find one copy available on abe, where it is listed as published in 1930.  The dealer there aptly describes the book in these terms: "Pappband, Frakturschrift."  I would describe the contents as eight short stories, listed in the T of C at the end of the book.  I read the shortest of them: "Schamhaftigkeit und Kälte."  It is a funny fable, if a bit long at a page and a quarter, of a mother ptarmigan ("Schneehuhn") who is incensed over her son's report that birds down in the valley are showing their legs!  Mother goes down to get clarity and comes upon a flock of partridges who have just arrived from the south.  They are all showing bare legs!  She insults them and tells them to go back home with their immodesty.  They answer her: "You wear pants not out of a sense of shame or modesty but because it is cold!"

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

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

1930 Fables Choisies Mises en Vers par M. de La Fontaine, Tome I.  Compositions décoratives de Pierre Laprade, illustrations de Edmond Malassis et Fred. Money, gravées sur bois en couleurs.  First and only edition.  Paperbound.  Paris: Louis Conard.  $45 from The Bookseller, Inc, Akron, OH, through Bibliocity, Nov., '99.

Here is a paperbound copy of a book also in a hardbound version.  That hardbound version is one volume of a three-volume set.  We also have a single book containing all three volumes.  This copy is just Volume I.  As I write of the hardbound version, this item, Bodemann #425, is a real treasure!  Each fable has a lovely colored woodcut about a third of a page in size.  An early note indicates the woodcut plates were destroyed in the presence of witnesses after the printing of the book.  This volume covers Books 1-4.  There are three sets of art work here.  Each fable gets a small illustration above its title, done by either Malassis or Money.  They are demanding work, as is clear from the start in GA.  These illustrations often give the particular scene a large background, as in "Les Deux Mulets" (9).  Some of these have a lovely design quality, e.g. "Le Dragon à plusieurs Têtes, et le Dragon à plusieurs Queues" (29).  Among my favorites in this group is one of the few human depictions I have seen of TMCM (23).  Also good are 2W (41); "L'Enfant et le Maitre d'École" (45); "L'Oiseau blessé d'une Flêche" (69); SS (81); "L'Ivrogne et sa Femme" (133); and "Le Lion amoureux" (163). The cat-woman chasing the rat is completely naked here (99).  SM (117) has for its illustration a simple portrait of a French king surrounded with a sunburst.  Perhaps the most curious of the illustrations is for "Le Loup, la Mère et l'Enfant" (207).  The visual paradigms behind these illustrations are quite traditional.  As Bodemann notes, many of the illustrations move out slightly beyond their rectangular margins.  There is also a clever little design between each illustration and its title.  Thus for "La Besace" (17), it is appropriately a mask.  A third group of illustrations comprises the "decorative compositions" of Laprade placed at the beginning of each book.  These are light and airy.  Of the four here, I like best the image of ape and dolphin at the beginning of IV.

1930 Fables Choisies Mises en Vers par M. de La Fontaine.  Compositions décoratives de Pierre Laprade, illustrations de Edmond Malassis et Fred. Money, gravées sur bois en couleurs. First and only edition, boxed, with artist's proof.  Hardbound.  Paris: Louis Conard.  $90 from Hart Enterprise, Jefferson, OR, through Ebay, April, '20.

This is quite an acquisition.  It brings into one volume three volumes already exemplified in the collection.  The special characteristics of this single volume include that it is one single volume, 6" x 8½" x 3" thick!  There is also an inserted page.  The Ebay seller admitted, rather inaccurately, that "there is some writing on the inside of the front cover."  The writing is really further into the volume, and it is a bookdealer's note that this volume includes an original aquarelle of Malassis, one of the prominent artists in this work, and the certification of that aquarelle signed by the artist, "Edm. Mallassis," on April 29, 1934.  What a find!  And it cost about the sum of the three separate copies found previously.  I will try to organize here comments made separately on the three volumes.  Bodemann #425.  Each fable has a lovely colored woodcut about a third of a page in size.  An early note indicates the woodcut plates were destroyed in the presence of witnesses after the printing of the book.  There are three sets of art-work here.  Each fable gets a small illustration above its title, done by either Malassis or Money.  They are demanding work, as is clear from the start in GA.  These illustrations often give the particular scene a large background, as in "Les Deux Mulets" (9).  Some of these have a lovely design quality, e.g. "Le Dragon à plusieurs Têtes, et le Dragon à plusieurs Queues" (29).  Among my favorites in this group is one of the few human depictions I have seen of TMCM (23).  Also good are 2W (41); "L'Enfant et le Maitre d'École" (45); "L'Oiseau blessé d'une Flêche" (69); SS (81); "L'Ivrogne et sa Femme" (133); and "Le Lion amoureux" (163). The cat-woman chasing the rat is completely naked here (99).  SM (117) has for its illustration a simple portrait of a French king surrounded with a sunburst.  Perhaps the most curious of the illustrations is for "Le Loup, la Mère et l'Enfant" (207).  Among the best in the central volume are "La Vieille et les deux Servantes" (19), "La jeune Veuve" (111), and "Le Mal Marié" (129).  The bear here seems to be looking at the companion in the tree in "L'Ours et les deux Compagnons" (53).  Is "Le Coche et la Mouche" (151) monocolor in the midst of all these polychrome illustrations?  I have seldom seen "L'Horoscope" (241) illustrated.  Among the best in the third volume are "Le Mari, la Femme et le Voleur" (49); "Le Trésor et les deux Hommes" (54); "Les Deux Aventuriers et le Talisman" (119); and "Le Singe" (243).  The visual paradigms behind these illustrations are quite traditional.  As Bodemann notes, many of the illustrations move out slightly beyond their rectangular margins.  A third group of illustrations comprises the "decorative compositions" of Laprade placed at the beginning of each book.  These are light and airy.  This volume has at the end an AI of the whole work besides the usual T of C for the individual volume.  The spine and the box are both wounded.

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

1930 Fables de la Fontaine. R. de la Nézière. Hardbound. Tours: Maison Alfred Mame et Fils. See 1926/30.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1930 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. See 1926/30.

1930 Graded Readings in Gregg Shorthand. Alice Margaret Hunter. Aesop illustrations by Richard Heighway. Anniversary Edition. NY: Gregg Publishing Co. See 1919/30.

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

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

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

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

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

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

1930 Jean de La Fontaine: Fables, Tome I. Édition conforme aux textes originaux établie par Louis Perceau. Ornée d'Illustrations en couleur par Joseph Hémard. #1124 of 1238. Hardbound. Paris: Le Livre du Bibliophile: Geroges Briffaut, Éditeur. $29.98 from Kenpa through eBay, August, '10.

Previously I had found Hémard's other work represented in Bodemann, his 1937 Quarante-Cinq Fables de La Fontaine published by Les Laboratoires Bouillet, Roger Dacosta, Éditeur. I have the sense of having seen his work elsewhere too. These two volumes were a lucky find on eBay. The 242 fables are ordered according to their date of appearance. Thus after the six books of fables -- and their epilogue -- that first appeared in 1668, there is 1671's dedication and eight fables, followed by "The Sun and the Frogs" of 1672 and the whole collection of things involved in the publication of 1678, including an "Avertissement," a dedication to Madame de Montespan, and a "First Book" containing sixteen fables. Bodemann speaks of "colored drawings (reproduction as a colored printing from several plates)." Metzner doing the notes in Bodemann finds 26 illustrations outside of the fables. These he calls "humorous sketches of figures with Jugendstil pedestal-like decorations." There are thirty-two illustrations before fables and twenty-nine after. Men and animals are marionette-like in their 17th-century costumes. I am particularly taken with the coloring of Hémard's work. The full frontispiece (CW) is followed by many designs and illustrations. The first book, for example, has four part-page illustrations. The strongest are for GA (43) and WL (55). Note the humor on 81 of the beetle using a mallet to break the eagle's eggs! The human-animal crossovers already strong in WL (55) are accentuated in WC (115): though both are human, they emit strong suggestions of their animal character, even through the bonnet and stance of the female crane. Watch the mother lark run with her children on 129. The T of C for the first volume on 271 has a lovely design of the acorn and pumpkin. Bodemann says that this limited edition of two volumes is part of an eleven-volume works of La Fontaine. The upper part of the spine of this first volume is cracked, disconnected, and taped. When the library gets to repairing books, this is one of the first in the collection to work on!

1930 Jean de La Fontaine: Fables, Tome II. Édition conforme aux textes originaux établie par Louis Perceau. Ornée d'Illustrations en couleur par Joseph Hémard. #1124 of 1238. Hardbound. Paris: Le Livre du Bibliophile: Geroges Briffaut, Éditeur. $29.98 from Kenpa through eBay, August, '10.

Previously I had found Hémard's other work represented in Bodemann, his 1937 Quarante-Cinq Fables de La Fontaine published by Les Laboratoires Bouillet, Roger Dacosta, Éditeur. I have the sense of having seen his work elsewhere too. These two volumes were a lucky find on eBay. The 242 fables are ordered according to their date of appearance. The substance of this volume is apparently the "Livre Second" of 1678. The frontispiece is a strong rendition of "The Shoemaker and the Financier," echoed in the design of moneybag and musical notes on 5. The design for "Two Rats, a Fox, and an Egg" on 80 is likewise charming. I do not think I have ever before seen this fable presented in human form. Again in this volume, Hémard's colors are glorious. A fine example is "La Perdrix et les Coqs" on 94. "The Two Goats" on 159 features two women, both laden with huge baskets; they present a fine standoff! One of the appendices on 219 presents variations in the fables' texts. The design for this appendix has a human -- La Fontaine? -- transforming into a bird in five stages. Delightful! Another funny design graces the "Table Alphabétique" on 237. Here two human figures hold several letters of the alphabet each, while other letters are strewn about at their feet. The same "Acorn and Pumpkin" illustration here graces 261 that graces 271 in the first volume.

1930 Jean de La Fontaine: Fables, Tome I.  Édition conforme aux textes originaux établie par Louis Perceau.  Ornée d'Illustrations en couleur par Joseph Hémard.  #264 of 1238.  Paperbound.  Paris: Le Livre du Bibliophile: Geroges Briffaut, Éditeur.  €50 from Librairie de Sèvres, June, '19.

We already have a copy of this work in the collection.  I include this copy too for two reasons.  First, our first copy is hardbound and not in top condition, while this copy is paperbound in excellent condition.  Secondly, it has been our policy to include second copies of numbered editions.  This is copy #264 of 1238.  I will repeat some of my comments from that first copy.  The 242 fables are ordered according to their date of appearance.  Thus after the six books of fables -- and their epilogue -- that first appeared in 1668, there is 1671's dedication and eight fables, followed by "The Sun and the Frogs" of 1672 and the whole collection of things involved in the publication of 1678, including an "Avertissement," a dedication to Madame de Montespan, and a "First Book" containing sixteen fables.  Bodemann speaks of "colored drawings (reproduction as a colored printing from several plates)."  Metzner doing the notes in Bodemann finds 26 illustrations outside of the fables.  These he calls "humorous sketches of figures with Jugendstil pedestal-like decorations."  There are thirty-two illustrations before fables and twenty-nine after.  Men and animals are marionette-like in their 17th-century costumes.  I am particularly taken with the coloring of Hémard's work.  The full frontispiece (CW) is followed by many designs and illustrations.  The first book, for example, has four part-page illustrations.  The strongest are for GA (43) and WL (55).  Note the humor on 81 of the beetle using a mallet to break the eagle's eggs! The human-animal crossovers already strong in WL (55) are accentuated in WC (115): though both are human, they emit strong suggestions of their animal character, even through the bonnet and stance of the female crane.  Watch the mother lark run with her children on 129.  The T of C for the first volume on 271 has a lovely design of the acorn and pumpkin.  Bodemann says that this limited edition of two volumes is part of an eleven-volume "Works of La Fontaine."  I add now that the design above the Preface on 5 is worth noticing: on the left, we see a standard depiction of FC, and on the right a pickpocket is taking the wallet from a non-observant person singing or proclaiming.  Cleverly done!

1930 Jean de La Fontaine: Fables, Tome II.  Édition conforme aux textes originaux établie par Louis Perceau.  Ornée d'Illustrations en couleur par Joseph Hémard.  #264 of 1238.  Paperbound.  Paris: Le Livre du Bibliophile: Geroges Briffaut, Éditeur.  €50 from Librairie de Sèvres, June, '19.

We already have a copy of this work in the collection.  I include this copy too for two reasons.  First, our first copy is hardbound and not in top condition, while this copy is paperbound in excellent condition.  Secondly, it has been our policy to include second copies of numbered editions.  This is copy #264 of 1238.  I will repeat some of my comments from that first copy.  The 242 fables are ordered according to their date of appearance. The substance of this volume is apparently the "Livre Second" of 1678.  The frontispiece is a strong rendition of "The Shoemaker and the Financier," echoed in the design of moneybag and musical notes on 5.  The design for "Two Rats, a Fox, and an Egg" on 80 is likewise charming.  I do not think I have ever before seen this fable presented in human form.  Again in this volume, Hémard's colors are glorious.  A fine example is "La Perdrix et les Coqs" on 94.  "The Two Goats" on 159 features two women, both laden with huge baskets; they present a fine standoff!  One of the appendices on 219 presents variations in the fables' texts.  The design for this appendix has a human -- La Fontaine? -- transforming into a bird in five stages.  Delightful!  Another funny design graces the "Table Alphabétique" on 237.  Here two human figures hold several letters of the alphabet each, while other letters are strewn about at their feet.  The same "Acorn and Pumpkin" illustration here graces 261 that graces 271 in the first volume.

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

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

1930 Polnoe Sobranie Basen Krylova (Cover: Basni Krilova). Ivan Krylov. With 32 illustrations by Percy Billinghurst. Paperbound. Berlin/Paris: Zolotaya Biblioteka: Moskva. $26 from Mark Kazakevich, San Francisco, through eBay, Nov., '06.

Here is a complete edition of Krylov's fables. I trust the library's bibliographers who came up with the date of 1930, which I cannot find in the book itself. Two questions jump out at me from this paperback book that has lasted some eighty years. First, was there a Moskba Publishing firm in Berlin and Paris in 1930? Expatriots? A Communist Bolshevist outfit in Paris? Secondly, I would love to track down the Billinghurst illustrations. I am willing to be that they are simply stolen from his Aesop and La Fontaine books and then supplied with (rather crude) Russian titles. In that case, it would be a testimony to how much Krylov depended on those two for his fable stories. Is there an N. Olshansky somehow also involved in the production of this book? 

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

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

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

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

1930 Stories of Animals and Other Stories.  Margaret L. White and Alice Hanthorn.  Illustrated by Sue Runyon, Ruth Bennett, and Others.  Hardbound.  NY: Do and Learn Readers: Second Reader: American Book Company.  $5 from Second Story Warehouse, Rockville, Nov., '19.

This reader from a series we do not have yet at all in the collection includes three Jataka Tales, introduced on 157.  "The Clever Monkey" (158) offers five good colored illustrations for the story of the crocodile wanting a monkey heart.  "Bunny Cotton-Tail's Plan" (165) is the familiar KD story of regulated sacrifice.  It includes an unusual illustration of the lion diving into the well (174).  "King Jackal" (202) is a somewhat strange tale of a jackal finding a hat and wearing it as a crown and demanding obedience from animals as they pass by his place on the road.  Even the lion, seeing the hat but not the jackal, runs away in fear.  The lizard puts the jackal off and even declares that the jackal is no king.  Caught by the tail, the lizard asks to go down his hole so that he can come back and worship on his knees.  The jackal stupidly gives in -- and that is the last that the jackal sees of the lizard.  "No king I see" is the lizard's enduring response.

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

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

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

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

1930 The Elson Readers: Book Three.  By William H. Elson.  Hardbound.  Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company.  $5 from an unknown source, August, '18.

The title-page describes this book as the revision of "Elson Primary School Reader, Book Three," of which we have a copy listed under 1912/13.  The book has been thoroughly reorganized.  Now "Fables and Folk Tales" is the very first section, followed by "Brownies and Fairies."  That first section includes eleven stories, several labelled as coming from Aesop.  "The Hare and the Hedgehog" (7) has joined this section.  "Old Horses Know Best" (13) features a young horse drawing a cart of jars, dishes, and bowls; he decides to show the old horse how to get down a hill in a hurry.  And he succeeds!  "The Miser" is a standard telling of the well known fable.  "The Dog and the Horse" comes from Krilov (8:16); the dog claims that the farm does not really need the horse.  "The Clown and the Countryman" has become "The Clown and the Farmer."  The newly fashioned illustration featuring several colors contrasts nicely with the earlier monochrome illustration.  Further stories in the section come from Grimm, Japan, Russia, and the American South.

1930 The Fables of Jean De La Fontaine. Newly Translated into English Verse by Joseph Auslander and Jacques Le Clercq. Title-page and decorations engraved on copper by Rudolph Ruzicka. Volume I: Books I-VI translated by Joseph Auslander. NY: The Limited Editions Club. Boxed. $18 from Lord Randall in Marshfield, MA, April, '89.

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

1930 The Fables of Jean De La Fontaine. Newly Translated into English Verse by Joseph Auslander and Jacques Le Clercq. Title-page and decorations engraved on copper by Rudolph Ruzicka. Volume II: Books VII-XII translated by Jacques Le Clercq. NY: The Limited Editions Club. $75 (for two volumes) at Renaissance, May, '88. #1217 of 1500 signed by the illustrator. Boxed. $18 from Lord Randall in Marshfield, MA, April, '89.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1930/35 Make and Make-Believe. By Arthur I. Gates and Miriam Blanton Huber. Illustrated by George M. Richards. NY: MacMillan Company. $4 at Renaissance, Dec., '90.

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

1930/37 Make and Make-Believe. Arthur I. Gates and Miriam Blanton Huber. Illustrated by George M. Richards. Hardbound. NY: MacMillan. $5.75 from White Way Antique Mall, Nashville, April, '96.

I have a copy of this school reader in its 1935 printing. Here is the 1937 printing, also in very good condition. Two fables: MM (39) has an excellent illustration. "The Hunter and the Rabbit" (41) is identified as by Aesop, but I think I have not seen it before. Its point is the same as that of MM. Here is a good example of the limited but important role Aesop was given in readers sixty years ago.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1930? Aesop's Fables No. 2.  Illustrated by Harry Rountree.  Pamphlet.  London: Success Series:  W.H.C.  £ 60 from Goodman Books, Essex, UK, July, ‘21.

I had found the first book in this series -- a series of only two? -- 23 years ago for £57 less than this little treasure!  At the end of cataloguing that earlier pamphlet, I wondered about further members in the series.  In between, I had never run into the series again.  So I sighed but dug deep into our wallet this time!  "If you have not seen it before, you are unlikely to see it again.  So get it now!"  Like its partner, this is a curious little landscape pamphlet with paper wraps and twelve very thin interior pages.  On both covers are identical strong presentations of CP.  After the inside front cover again introduces us to Aesop's fables (with no apostrophe in the first of these two words), we find one page given to FG and then two pages each to DM; TH; FS; BW; CP; and FWT.  The texts are again succinct.  The good moral for FS is "The joker sometimes suffers from his own jokes."  The illustrations look like monochrome redoings of Rountree's more ambitious colored book pictures.  Again, I wonder if this pamphlet might have been a promotional premium, found inside a breakfast cereal.

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

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

1930? Aesop's Fables Retold for Children.  By Elizabeth Hardie.  Hardbound.  London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, Ltd.  $24.50 from Lori Stern, Livingston, NJ, through eBay, Oct., '13.

This book is internally identical with another in the collection of the same size with the same title, publisher, and approximate date of publication.  The difference is that this copy includes an additional colored picture pasted onto its white cloth cover.  This picture shows the miller and son riding on their ass; it is consistent with the illustration of these two meeting a traveller mentioned below.  The other copy has seven children dancing in silhouette across its green rag hard cover.  Otherwise I will copy my remarks here from that copy.  Sixty-two fables with four colored full-page illustrations and numerous black-and-white illustrations.  The best of the black-and-white illustrations along the way include OF (16) with a weeping frog near a tombstone proclaiming "Here lies the frog who would be as big as an ox."  Other good etchings show the miller returning home with his son (37) and the wolf standing over the dead lamb (56). I have seen before the colored picture of the fox weeping while the stork eats from the vase (96).  The last black-and-white image accompanying "The end" is of a broken egg, while the last story is that of "Mercury and the Woodman."  I do not understand.  T of C at the beginning.  5¼" x 6¾".

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

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

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

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

1930? La Fontaine en Images.  Paul Colin.  Paperbound.  Jarville-Nancy: Imagerie Réunies de Jarville-Nancy.  $52.50 from Old Imprints, Portland, OR, through ABE, Oct., '16.

Here is a large (11"x16½") booklet containing inside its covers 18 newsprint sheets by Paul Colin, each presenting one fable by Jean de La Fontaine.  I have eleven of these as separate broadsides elsewhere in the collection (https://www.creighton.edu/aesop/artifacts/printedmaterial/broadsides/imageriesreuniesdejarvillenancy).  Those repeaters are "The Rat Who Retired from the World"; BC; "Death and the Woodman"; "The Acorn and the Pumpkin"; GA; "The Old Man and Three Youths"; TH; FK; FG; "The Old Cat and the Young Mouse"; and "The Cook and the Swan."  The seven new presentations are: "The Shepherd and the Sea"; "The Coach and the Fly"; OF; "The Lion Grown Old"; GGE; "The Thieves and the Ass"; and "The Monkey and the Cat."  Among my favorites are "Death and the Woodman"; "The Shepherd and the Sea"; and "The Old Man and Three Youths."  This object is very delicate, and its paper is very thin.  The seller notes that there may have been manual coloring on the first fable.

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

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

1930? Little Fables: Story and Painting Book Adapted from Aesops Fables.  Paperbound.  Burnley Lancashire, England: Candlelight Productions.  $35 Australian from antsinpants2020 through Ebay, July, ‘21.  

This booklet, meant to invite painting, luckily had no takers.  The illustrations are intact!  There are here five stories, each two pages in length: OF; TH; MM; FC; BC.  Each fable has two illustrations.  In two cases (TH; BC), neither line drawing is colored.  In two cases (OF; FC), one is colored.  In one case (MM), both are colored.  Maybe understanding how the publisher printed and bound this pamphlet would help explain this rather random pattern.  The rabbit in TH “lay down for a nap just to show his contempt.”  MM has as its moral “Never count your chickens before they’re hatched,” articulated to Patty the milkmaid by her mother.  FC’s characters have gender: Mistress Crow and Mr. Fox.

1930? Livre de Fables Offert par les Grand Magasins Sigrand & Cie.  Jacqueline Jacques-Duché.  Hardbound.  Paris: Sigrand & Cie.  €20 from a Swedish seller at Marché Dauphine, Clingnancourt, Paris, August, '14.  

Sigrand & Cie seems to have existed from 1928 to 1968.  This attractive pamphlet of eight pages has three fables: "The Spoiled Grape"; "The Dead Bird"; and "Soup."  These are followed by an alphabet.  The first fable teaches, somewhat heavy-handedly, that bad companions spoil the good.  The second proclaims loud and clear "Take care of your parents!"  "La Soupe" teaches "Love whatever people give you," only to get the answer from a child "Do not give me what I do not love!"  J. Duché offers excellent multi-colored pictures.  Perhaps the best has the regretful daughter admitting to her mother that she took some sugar meant for the bird who has just died.  The seller at Marché Dauphine came after me perhaps half an hour after I had finished my business with her.  She has moved away from offering children's literature but then found this old treasure.

1930? Neue Fabeln. Friedrich Blumberger. Hardbound. Berlin: Verlag Albert Ahn. DM 20 from Zentralantiquariat Leipzig, July, '95.

Blumberger was a teacher and school principal. This book contains a mix of literary genres. Perhaps eleven of the thirty offerings are fables. The remaining nineteen are parables and other narratives, often involving animals and offering a moral at their end. The fables criticize human weaknesses like vanity, stupidity, thoughtlessness, and laziness. The fables address everyday life of individual human beings; they do not address social and political issues. In "Das Licht" (1), a cat hates light and is proud to raise a dust-cloud around herself against the light of the sun. In answer to her boast of victory, a finch sitting on a nearby branch declares "You are in the wrong. The rest of us can see as clearly as before. Your dust affects you, not the sun whom you oppose." In "Der Esel als Gärtner" (4), the lion appoints the ass as his gardener but then has to face the consequences when his family comes to enjoy the garden and finds it instead a field full of thorns! In "Der Fuchs und die Gänse" (4-5), the wolf tells the fox that his stalking of geese today is useless since they have noticed him and are making noise. "Rather, I am happy that they make noise. It makes my choice easier. The biggest geese make the most noise." A particularly apt fable is "Eulenweisheit" (19-21) with its moral: "der in der Stille schaffende Geist ist es, der zur Weisheit führt." 

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

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

1930? Reineke der Fuchs: Nach der Niederdeutschen Ausgabe des "Reinke de vos" von 1498. Erzählt von Wilhelm Fronemann. Mit 4 Bunt-, 3 Ton-, 6 Voll-, und 32 Textbildern von Heinrich Kley. 2. Auflage. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. Stuttgart: Loewes Jugend-Bücher Nr. 580/Jugend-Klassiker: Loewes Verlag Ferdinand Carl. €15 from Antiquariat Delirium, Münster, August, '06.

Fronemann signs his Nachwort in 1930. I cannot find another date in the book. If the publication date is that early, it is rare, I think, to find so colorful a cover and to find a dust-jacket at all. The book's prose text is in Gothic script. This fact would tend to date it before 1945, I believe. The title-page tries to give a very exact accounting of the illustrations here, and there is a rich array of them. The best of the four many-colored illustrations may be those picturing the king, queen, and monkey in conversation (120) and the final duel between Reynard and Isegrim (152). One of the full-page sepia ("Ton"?) illustrations shows the horse kicking the wolf (104). One of the partial-page black-and-white engravings ("Textbilder"?) presents the fable of the horse and the stag (125). A full-page black-and-white engraving presents "The Dog and the Ass" (129), and a smaller one WC. The wolf's frozen-tail story is pictured in sepia on 144, while his story with the fox in the well is on 145. The picture of a laughing Reynard on the dust-jacket's front-cover catches just the right tone, I think. The series to which this book belongs seems to be different on the dust-jacket ("Loewes Jugend-Klassiker") and end-papers ("Loewes Jugend-Bücher").

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

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

1930? The Aesop's Fables. Paperbound. Hong Kong: $29.98 from Jamie Johnson, paradisepostcards, through eBay, April, '10.

This is a rare, ephemeral find! This 5" x 7¼" soft-cover paperbound book has some 290 pages. Each of 299 fables is printed in English on the left side and in Chinese characters on the right side. I cannot identify the English version of the fables, but the total of 299 fables should give a good clue. There are charming errors here, like "Teh" for "The" on the spine and "chriping" for "chirping" on 4. The first two pages have some Chinese and English writing on them, respectively. The back cover is detached. I am somewhat amazed to have found this book!

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

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

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

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

1930? The Fables of Aesop. Hardbound. NY/Boston: The World's Popular Classics. Art-Type Edition: Books, Inc. $3 from an unknown source, Sept., '93.

Here is a book interiorly very close to another "Art-Type" version for which I have also guessed a date of 1930. This copy has a green cloth cover instead of the brown-and-blue faux grain of the first copy. It has no pre-title-page acknowledging La Fontaine and Croxall. Otherwise my comments made there hold true for this book. This straightforward volume has several claims. It contains a large number of fables, perhaps 275, listed alphabetically on xi. In the introduction, J.W.M. makes the claim "we believe this to be the first full English version which gives a moral in every case." Besides Croxall and L'Estrange "considerable new material has been obtained from other credible sources." Finally, the book makes an explicit effort at simplicity. It departs at some points apparently from the Lupton-Arlington-Homewood tradition of versions taken from the two authors and LaFontaine. Compare with my 1925? editions that list only NY as the site of the publisher. 

1930? The Fables of Aesop. Hardbound. NY/Boston: The World's Popular Classics. Art-Type Edition: Books, Inc. Gift of Veronica Pruhs, June, '99.

Here is a third form of an "Art-Type" version published by Books, Inc. This copy is larger in format that the interiorly identical green-covered book. This copy adds a printer's design on its purple cloth front-cover but has a simpler spine with only the title and "Books, Inc." under five simple stripes. The book is thinner, though it has the same 230 pages. It has no pre-title-page acknowledging La Fontaine and Croxall. As I wrote of the other two versions, this book contains a large number of fables, perhaps 275, listed alphabetically on xi. In the introduction, J.W.M. makes the claim "we believe this to be the first full English version which gives a moral in every case." Besides Croxall and L'Estrange "considerable new material has been obtained from other credible sources." Finally, the book makes an explicit effort at simplicity. It departs at some points apparently from the Lupton-Arlington-Homewood tradition of versions taken from the two authors and LaFontaine. Compare with my 1925? editions that list only NY as the site of the publisher. 

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

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

1930? The Old Man and His Donkey.  Paperbound.  No.338.  B.B. Ltd.  £8 from Stella & Rose's Books, Tintern and Hay-on-Wye, UK, Feb., '14.  

This 16-page large-format (8¼" x 10") booklet with two staples is in such good condition that I have wondered if it is a reproduction.  The rusty staples suggest that it is not.  The front cover features a close-up of the old man and his son together on the donkey.  The back cover shows the tortoise passing the hare.  Inside there are four more full-page colored pictures and four part-page black-and-white illustrations for MSA.  The final colored picture shows the donkey partially under water and comments "The Ducks were most amused."  LM has two full-page colored pictures and two part-page black-and-white designs.  TH has two more of the former and one of the latter.  The back cover's hare wears not only an athletic uniform with an "H" on the shirt but also blue shoes!  The best illustrations may be the first two, including walking the donkey to market.  I wish I could find more information about this very nice pamphlet!

1930? The Original Fables of La Fontaine. Rendered into English Prose. Fredk. Colin Tilney. Illustrated by the author. London: J.M. Dent and Sons/NY: E.P. Dutton. See 1913/30?.

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

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

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

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

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

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

1930? Three Animal Fables Selected from Aesop. S.M. Spence. Hardbound. London: Thorsons. £4.99 from Wallycorker Ltd, Rotherham, South Yorkshire, UK, through ebay, Nov., '02.

This is a second copy of this delightful book. Its binding is blue rather than gray and is appreciably stronger. So I have made a second record and will keep both in the collection. This copy has a strange scent: a mixture of an old basement and a lot of incense! I include some of my remarks from the first copy. The pages are not numbered. Alternating black-and-white and color illustrations. The lion and hare drawings sometimes end up slightly odd. LM features a "Do not disturb" sign and a safari with movie cameras. TH is elaborate. The circular course is many miles long; a blacksmith lion is the starter. TMCM departs most from tradition and may destroy its own fiction. The town mouse arrives in a limousine and has an army of servants. The country mouse takes the train, gazes at a toy shop, gets help from a policeman, and knocks at the door.

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

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

1931 Aesop's Fables Hankie Book. Illustrations by Pearl Gilligan (et al?). Paperbound. Los Angeles: N.R. Woodard Co. $38.93 from Giancarlo's Closet, Exton, PA, through eBay, August, '11.

It took twelve years, but this purchase solves a mystery. I had found a copy of this book in 1999 and saw it as a coloring book. "What it has to do with a hankie neither the seller nor I can figure out," I wrote then, adding that it measures slightly larger than 10" x 11" and has seven pages of black-and-white outlines to color in. They were in fact colored in by some youthful hands. Now I find a copy whose spine has given way but whose pictures are uncolored. But this copy contains six of the (probably) eight original handkerchiefs pinned into the booklet! Those missing are "Don Dog" and "Waffles and Countess." Neither copy seems to have a first coloring-page for "Mike," one of the handkerchiefs here. As the seller noted, "the hankies are in great condition and have no distinguishing damage other than some slight color variation/facing and/or creasing due to age." In fact, the handkerchiefs present a fine color version of the coloring book design I admired in that copy. As I mentioned then, the booklet fits with the "Aesop's Fables" pins I have found and with versions of the cartoons associated with this Van Beuren series. See "Clothing and Accessories" under artifacts for images of the handkerchiefs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

1931 Dix Fables de La Fontaine.  Illustrées par Suzanne Phocas.  Avec une Préface de Raymond Hesse.  No. XVIII.  Portfolio.  Paris: Aux Dépens d'un Amateur.  $40 from Donna Martens, Eagle River, WI, through Ebay, Dec., '18.

The first task upon receiving this portfolio was to organize it.  It seems complete.  The outer jacket is in only fair condition.  The ten engravings are in good condition.  The format is about 10" x 13", with illustrations about 6" x 7½".  I may not have figured out the pagination even yet.  It seems that the engravings precede the texts.  Fables here include: "The Eagle and the Owl"; "The Two Pigeons"; "The Young Widow" (perhaps among the best here); "Love and Folly"; MM (also strong); LM; GA (among the best); "Two Cocks"; WL; and FC.  GA pictures the ant as a stalwart matron rejecting the grasshopper, who is a lovely, bare-breasted ballerina.  Some copies beyond those numbered 1 to 100 were made for collaborators in this project, and they are numbered with Roman numerals.  This is number XVIII.  Not in Bodemann.

1931 Dreissig Tierfabeln (cover: Tierfabeln).  Ausgewählt fur Schule und Haus von Viktor Fadrus.  Bilder von Erich Dichtl.  Hardbound.  Vienna/Leipzig: Deutscher Verlag für Jugend und Volk.  €28 from Bücher Ernst, Vienna, July, '19.

Here is a 48-page school booklet offering thirty fables chosen from Aesop, Phaedrus, and a wide collection of German authors.  Authors are listed in the closing numbered T of C but not with the fable texts themselves.  The texts include both verse and prose.  The black-and-white illustrations are large, varied in size, and simple.  The book belonged to the Volkschule der Stadt Wien and was inscribed in 1933/34.  The cover reads "Tierfabeln" although the title-page has "Dreissig Tierfabeln."  A winged insect is the sole illustration on the dark green cover.  My award for a great short fable goes to Lessing's "Der Affe und der Fuchs" (8).  The monkey boasts, "Name me an animal whom I cannot imitate!"  The fox answers "And name me an animal so insignificant that it would occur to him to imitate you!"  On the next page Gellert's proud coachhorse raises his legs and asks the plowhorse when he can prompt such great respect.  The plowhorse answers "Quiet.  If I my industriousness did not plow the field, you wouldn't have the nourishment that makes your legs so proud."

1931 Fables by Shchedrin. (Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov). Translated from the Russian by Vera Volkhovsky. Hardbound. London: The Phoenix Library: Chatto and Windus. €3.11 from Kennys Bookshop and Art Galleries, Galway, Ireland, Dec., '12.  Extra copies for $30 from DeWolfe & Wood, Alfred, ME, through ILAB-LILA, August, '02, and for $10.39 from Books Ulster, Northern Ireland, through abe, Feb., '03.

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

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

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

1931 Fables de la Fontaine.  Illustrated by R. de la Nézière.  Hardbound.  Tours: Maison Alfred Mame et Fils.  $52 from 68nyer, Sacramento, through Ebay, Feb., '20.

This is our fifth Nézière version of La Fontaine and one of the most interesting.  Here is the history as I believe we can reconstruct it.  Mame published a fine Nézière edition in 1926.  It was slightly larger than this present edition, which is almost 8" x 11".  It contained 60 fables on its 159 pages.  It combined 16 strong full-page colored illustrations with two smaller black-and-white illustrations for every fable except one, MM.  The match between the colored and black-and-white illustrations was particularly good.  Front and back covers also had full-page illustrations of arches with the poet on stage on the front cover and anthropomorphized animal characters in the foreground; on the back cover, another set of anthropomorphized animal characters was in the foreground.  I praised this book for its extravagant imagination.  This edition was apparently exactly reprinted in 1930 in our second copy.  Our third copy is an inexpensive Dutch paperback from 1979, but it coincides with the present book in presenting internally only black-and-white versions of Nézière's original illustrations.  It presents only 35 fables and eliminates entirely the full-page illustrations.  The fourth book is a 2001 Everyman's Library edition that reproduces both the smaller black-and-white illustrations of 1926 and the 16 full-page colored illustrations.  Now I have found this 1931 edition, whose 160 pages render the full-page illustrations in black-and-white and are selective in the smaller illustrations that are included.  There are significant stretches of fables toward the end with no illustration at all.  Might this version be a cheaper post-stock-market-crash version?  Pinterest shows many copies of the colored 1926 version but none of this 1931 version.  As I have mentioned a propos of the other versions, one of Nézière's gifts is the inclusion of contemporary technology, from bicycle pumps to biplanes.

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

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

1931 Fables de la Fontaine I.  Jean de La Fontaine.  Touchagues.  #HC.  Paperbound.  Paris?  Collection des grands textes humoristiques:  Éditions du Sagittaire.  €25 from St. Ouen Marché des Puces, August, '14.  

I first found this book twenty-two years ago.  That copy had a companion second volume, as this one does not.  It remains a favorite of mine, and I found this copy at the stall of a favorite seller who is both a Seine Buchinist and a St. Ouen flea-market seller.  In keeping with the policy of including in the collection second copies that are numbered, I will include this copy, even though I am unsure of its marking.  I believe that "HC" indicates "hors concours" or "outside the numbered set," but there is an additional marking like a "w" in an "at" sign: @.  Publisher's signature perhaps?  I will include remarks from the first copy.  One can simply enjoy the color and composition of illustrations like the frontispiece or 107.  In other eye-catching illustrations, the fox rolls away the cheese (6), the rats hold a meeting (51), the man on the sponge-laden ass spouts water (66), the girl trims the lion's nails (127), the long serpent bites the file (203), and the bear sniffs one companion (211).  Perhaps two-thirds of the fables are either illustrated or decorated.  Bodemann #429.  I find no reference to this work in Bassy, Hobbs, Quinnam, or Lindseth.

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

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

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

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

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

1931 Fables of Aesop according to Sir Roger L'Estrange. Sir Roger l'Estrange. With fifty drawings by Alexander Calder; designed by Monroe Wheeler. #573 of 595 copies printed on Auvergne hand-made paper. Hardbound. Paris: Harrison of Paris. $225 from Dickens, Atlanta, Dec., '94.

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

1931 La Famille Croque-Lardons.  M.F. Hellet.  Illustrated by Jean de la Fontinelle.  Canvas bound.  Paris: Éditions Berger-Levrault.  €10 from Librairie Dinali, Strasbourg, July, '19.

A "lardon" is a piece of diced bacon.  "Croquer" means to munch.  Two things captivated me about this oversized book with boards for covers and canvas spine as soon as I noticed it.  The first is the delightful execution of the illustrations, especially those that are colored.  These show the mice doing all sorts of human things.  The second is the name of the artist Jean de la Fontaine.  He must be playing on the Jean de La Fontaine that is the creator of France's popular animal fables.  The book's seven chapters are listed in the T of C on 43.  Black-and-white and colored illustrations are mixed along the way in various sizes.  By Chapter II we have playing of music and reading of books by candle light.  On 14 we get one of the first colored illustrations, apparently a mouse sailor or pirate.  Chapter IV has them changing residence, while Chapter V is at table.  Page 31 is another full colored page showing the preparations for a mouse banquet on the floor.  Do not miss the engaging mouse character bowing on the back cover.

1931 Les Bambous: Fables de La Fontaine travesties en patois martiniquais.  French by Louis Jamah-Desrivaux.  Paperbound.  Paris: J. Peyronnet & Cie.  $35.08 from Librairie Devaux, Moulins, France, through ABE, Jan., '22.

Here is a 90-year old paperbound book, unillustrated except for its frontispiece of J. de Magallon.  As its closing T of C shows, it has 50 fables on some 246 pages.  It offers "Bambou" text on each left-hand page, with a classical French translation on each right.  Apparently, "Les Bambous" was first published in 1846.  According to the cover and identical title-page, this 1931 edition is revised and augmented by a literary notice and by the French translation of Louis Jamah-Desrivaux.  Might the original have been written by Francois Marbot, not mentioned here but credited with the work in "Zayann" in 2000?  One can pick out perhaps a French word or two in each verse of the Bambou.  This book makes a pleasant addition to the collection.  It pleases me particularly to save another fragile paperbound book from, as Hopkins would say, "world's wildfire"!  Among the questions raised by this book is: "Why the mention on the cover and title-page of "Un Vieux Commandeur"?  Is that the original author or reporter?  The translator?

1931 Les Fables de Pitje Schramouille.  Roger Kervyn de Marcke ten Driessche.  Pen and ink drawings by Jean Dratz.  Deuxieme edition.  Paperbound.  Louvain: Éditions Rex.  €4.50 from Pele Mele, Brussels, August, '19.

Here is the first of two copies of a second edition, apparently referring to the first edition by Éditions de la Jeunesse Nouvelle in 1923.  This work was mentioned to me by fellow Jesuits at my first breakfast in Brussels, and my first copy was waiting at my bedroom door by the time I returned from breakfast.  This edition adds a separate drama at its end and also at least four pen and ink drawings (17, 41, 49, and 89).  Because the language of the fables is too difficult for me, I resort to an abbreviation of my slightly paraphrased version of an online translation of a description used by Amazon: "Written in a mixture of Flemish and French, these fables were first published in 1923. Inspired by La Fontaine, they entertain us with tenderness, humour and common sense, the atmosphere that prevailed at the beginning of the century in the streets of the Marolles, in the heart of Brussels. Through the original and spontaneous language of the author, a whole section of the population expresses itself. This true literary creation has a surprising naturalness, which suggests all the richness of personality of the author.  Roger Kervyn de Marcke ten Driessche (Ghent 1896 - Brussels 1965) was originally a lawyer, a defender of the small people. He perceived from his childhood and with accuracy the soul of the Marolles. He described the inhabitants with the irony and finesse of his temperament."  There is a T of C on the last page, 95, including the play added here: El Sièg' de Trwa."

1931 Minute Biographies: Intimate Glimpses into the Lives of 150 Famous Men and Women. By Samuel Nisenson and Alfred Parker. Hardbound. Grosset and Dunlap. $3.99 from Wonder Book and Video, March, '10.

About two months ago, Ray Matotek emailed me to let me know that my single page, catalogued in "Printed Material," which gives a "Minute Biography" of Aesop came from a book of minute biographies. He has editor names, the publisher, and even the year. It took me about five minutes on ABE to find the book at an amazing price. Lucky me! There on page 12 in alphabetical order is Aesop, between John Adams and Luisa May Alcott. I did not know that "Aesop used to sit on doorsteps and in streets, recounting his beautiful fables about familiar animals." The illustrations include a head done after Velazquez and a scene after Fontana. The book cost about half the price of a single page!

1931 Panchatantra and Hitopadesa Stories (Cover: Panchatantra and Hitopadesa). A.S.P. Ayyar. Limited to 1500 copies. Hardbound. Bombay: Great Short Stories of India: D.B. Taraporevala Sons & Co. $7.95 from an unknown source, August, '92.

It has taken me twenty years to catalogue this book! I was hesitant because I thought it was an examination of "Panchatantra" and "Hitopadesa." It is rather, after a lengthy introduction, a selection of some forty-eight stories from these two works, with eleven sub-stories included -- and listed in the opening T of C. While there are stories that are new to me, it is wonderful here to run into old friends, even near the front of the book: "Crows Kill a Serpent"; "The Crane and the Crab"; "Too Much Sponging Leads to Death"; and "The Camel Trapped." The book is in fragile condition. It was once sold by Samuel Weiser Bookstore on Broadway in New York. 

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

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

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

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

1931 Taten und Meinungen des Herrn Fuchs und Andere Fabeln. von J. Van Hilbrinxen. Paperbound. Berlin-Weisensee: Verlag der Scholle. DEM 10 from an unknown source, July, '01.

This 43-page pamphlet in small format (4½" x 5¾") is a pleasant surprise. It contains real fables in its two parts: "Taten und Meinungen des Herrn Fuchs" and "Andere Fabeln und Parabeln." Van Hilbrinxen returns time after time to elections among the animals. In "Vor und Nach der Wahl" (12), the ass gave a speech during the campaign supporting the fox. Once elected, the fox created a law saying that asses should not give speeches but rather carry sacks. In the next fable, the animals elected the fox but then found him committing crimes against rabbits and other small animals. They complained and received this answer: "Why did you elect him?" In "Honorarersatz" (14), Mr. Representative Fox has dined luxuriously but got a bone stuck in his throat. The Crane was called -- of course! -- and performed the usual operation. After it the fox said that he was in no position to pay for the service but he would see to it that the crane got a doctorate "honoris causa." A curious first piece before the fables, "Ein kurzes Wort voraus," has the author proclaiming that there are truths to be had from fables. And truths are sometimes painful and treated with suspicion. Besides, he writes, he is a catholic, and a priest told him that these fables needed to be published. So, he writes, then they must also be allowed to be published. One can tell from the advertisements on the last pages that the publisher is a Catholic press. One can only imagine the mindset of Catholics in Germany in 1931!

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

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

1931 The Child's Treasury. Editor May Hill. The Foundation Library. Chicago: Foundation Desk Company: W.F. Quarrie & Company. See 1923/24/26/31.

1931 The Fables of Esope, Translated Out of Frensshe. William Caxton. With Engravings on Wood by Agnes Miller Parker. No. 221 of a limited edition of 250 copies. Hardbound. Newtown, Montgomeryshire, Wales: The Gregynog Press. $2787.65 from Nigel Sustins Books, Bishops Castle, SHROP, United Kingdom, through abe, April, '10.

There are ninety-seven fables of Romulus in five books and seventeen further Aesop's fables in Caxton's late medieval versions. Caxton's ever-present slashes have been well replaced with colons. The title-picture includes grasshopper, stag, wolf and dog, and two birds. Among them are reeds and pages of print. There are, as Bodemann points out, seventy-five initials, the title-picture, and thirty-six illustrations in the text. The initials, done by the printer William MacCance, are frequently repeated. They do not deal with the subject matter of the fable they begin. The Parker woodcuts are simply lovely! One after another is engaging. I will start by using GA and the title-page to give people an idea of her artistry. One could take almost any of the thirty-seven woodcuts and find it leading to a good understanding of the fable. I will include some comments from the bookdealer. This is the original printing, bound in brown sheepskin which is mottled, darkened and rubbed, repaired at the head and heel of spine, corners pushed and fraying, new endpapers, edges rough-trimmed, initial letters designed and engraved by William MacCance, the printer at Gregynog, internally the pages and illustrations are clean and crisp, with a small mark and some browning to the inner edge of the title page, white mark (like correction fluid) to the edge of the following page, and the occasional slight sign of handling.

1931 The Fables of Aesop. Illustrated by Charles H. Bennett. Compiled and with an introduction by Willis L. Parker. NY: Deluxe Editions: Illustrated Editions Co. See 1857/1931.

1931 The Fables of Aesop. Illustrated by Charles H. Bennett. Compiled and with an introduction by Willis L. Parker. NY: Illustrated Editions Co. See 1857/1931.

1931 The Fables of Aesop (small format). Willis L. Parker.  Charles H. Bennett.  Hardbound.  NY: Illustrated Editions Co.  See 1857/1931.

1931 The Fables of Aesop. Illustrated by Charles H. Bennett. Compiled and with an introduction by Willis L. Parker. "An Illustrated Edition." Cleveland: World Publishing Company (©1931 Illustrated Editions Co.). See 1857/1931.

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

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

1931 The Fables of Jean de La Fontaine. Volume 1.  Edward Marsh.  With twenty-six engravings on copper by Stephen Gooden.  #298 of 525 copies signed by Marsh and Gooden.  Hardbound.  London/NY: London: William Heinemann/NY: Random House.  $30.25 from cfadventures516, Long Beach, NY, through eBay, Oct., '13.

Here is another signed and numbered copy of this beautiful book, this one #298 of 525 and again signed by both Marsh and Gooden.  This copy is in even better shape than the earlier copy.  This book's cover material seems to deteriorate over the years as blotches of cream color appear in the gold.  As I wrote there, this book is vastly superior to the 1933 edition I had found earlier.  A real treasure!  The engravings alternate between larger and smaller; they are listed on xv.  The best after the title page are "Death and the Woodman," "The Lion in Love," "The Lark and the Farmer," "The Carter Stuck," and "The Young Widow."  The engravings in this presentation take off by contrast with those in the 1933 reprint.  The tellings are lively.  The translator's preface is so British and so "30's."

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

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

1931 The Fables of Jean de La Fontaine.  Volume 2.  Edward Marsh.  With twenty-six engravings on copper by Stephen Gooden.  #298 of 525 copies signed by Marsh and Gooden in Vol 1.  Hardbound.  London/NY: London: William Heinemann/NY: Random House.  $31 from cfadventures516, Long Beach, NY, through eBay, Oct., '13.

Here is another copy of this beautiful signed and numbered edition, this one numbered #298 of 525 and signed by both Marsh and Gooden in Volume 1 of the two-volume set.  This copy is in even better shape than the earlier copy.  This edition's cover material seems to deteriorate over the years as blotches of cream color appear in the gold.  As I wrote there, this book is vastly superior to the 1933 edition I had found earlier.  A real treasure!  The engravings alternate between larger and smaller; they are listed on xv.  The best after the title page are MM and "The Acorn and the Pumpkin."  The engravings in this presentation take off by contrast with those in the 1933 reprint.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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1932 - 1933

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

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

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

1932 Bajky: Nemecky Vypravuje (Cover: Fabeln).  Jaronslav Tomsa.  Second edition.  Paperbound.  Liberec, Czechoslovakia.  €10 from Abrahamschacht-Antiquariat Schmidt, Schachtweg, Freiberg, Germany, through abe, Jan., '16.

Here is one of the more fascinating fable books to come into my hands.  First, it must be something of a miracle that this small (4¾" x 5¾") pamphlet has survived.  Secondly, it is a curious book in that it advertises itself with a German title outside but a Czech title inside.  I presume it was meant as a text for learning German in Czechoslovakia.  What would it have been like to be publishing German books in Czechoslovakia in 1932?  I have had to work with online translation services to piece some of its information together.  There is a famous Czech Jaroslov Tomsa, but he was born two years before this book was published.  There is a small flyleaf at the beginning and end of the book.  The flyleaf at the end gives an address of the author.  How strange!  Inside there are eighteen German-language fables and an epilogue apparently about various fabulists.  The fables chosen, all in prose, seem to stem from German authors.  I can recognize immediately some of the fables, like the opening "Die Beiden Ziegen."  Others are new to me, like "Die Spatzen" (7).  Father sparrow tells his little sparrows to fly away promptly when they see a boy reach down to the ground to pick up a stone.  "But, Father, what if the boy already filled his pocket with stones?"  There is an excellent initial for each fable and a black-and-white illustration of an elephant just before the first fable.  That elephant is repeated on the front cover.  There is also a T of C at the end. 

1932 Bewick's Select Fables of Aesop. Together with the Life of Aesop by Oliver Goldsmith. No. 595 of 1200 copies. Printed by Richard Ellis. NY: Cheshire House. $10 at Biermann's (?) in Minneapolis, June, '87. Extra copy (#882 of 1200) for $20 from Clare Leeper, July, 1996.

Far superior renditions of the engravings to those in the 1973 reprint of this book by Avenel. Taken from Bewick's Select Fables (1784). Holes at the sides of some of the rough pages. A real find! Because both of my copies are numbered, I will keep both in the collection.

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

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

1932 Essays and Ancient Fables of Francis Bacon. Paperbound. NY: The Companion Classics: Walter J. Black, Inc. $9.99 from Jean Emery, Bloomington, IN, through eBay, Jan., '13.

There is no fool like an old fool. I noticed this book available and was surprised that Francis Bacon wrote fables. Well, he did not! He wrote ancient myths, that are presented here on 219-310. Their chapter heading is "The Wisdom of the Ancients: A Series of Mythological Fables." The book itself is paperbound with leatherlike covers. The front cover and endpaper has already separated from the book block. I will keep this book in the collection as a caution to me and others not to jump at the chance of purchasing Bacon's "fables"! 

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

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

1932 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.

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

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

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

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

1932 The Lion and the Ox.  Vladimir Lebedev.  Hardbound.  NY:  MacMillan.  $40 from Brattle Books, Boston, June, '16.

I had found another copy of this book twenty-four years ago.  This copy is identical except for the different color -- and material? -- of the cover.  This copy has a partially sun-bleached green cover.  Its black cover ink does not have a glossy finish.  That other copy has a gray cloth cover with glossy black in.  As I wrote then, it is curious that there is no teller at all acknowledged for this story.  I am also amazed to find this account of Bidpai's Shanzaba story in an American kids' book from so long ago years ago!  This copy is without the penciling on the copy found earlier, and it has no torn pages.  Very few fables are included within the story; I notice only "The Serpent and the Crow" on 12 and "The Rich Man's Parrot" on 32.  The black-and-white art is simple and strong.  The best illustrations may be of Dimna whispering in Shanzaba's ear on 17 and of the first encounter of battle on 21.  Shanzaba dies proclaiming his innocence.  The lion carries the guilt, while Dimna fears that Kaleel will betray him and thus discusses the matter.  The leopard listens in.  Dimna stands down all accusers in court until the leopard reports on the overheard conversation.

1932 The New Wonder World: A Library of Knowledge. Volume V: Story and Art. No editor acknowledged; introductory message by Bertha E. Mahony. Various illustrators (Heighway and Boutet de Monvel for Aesop). Chicago: Geo. L. Shuman and Co. See 1914/32/55.

1932 The Pathway to Reading: Third Reader.  Bessie Blackstone Coleman, Willis L. Uhl, and James Fleming Hosic.  Illustrated by Eunice and John Stephenson.  Hardbound.  NY: Silver, Burdett.  See 1926/32.

1932 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. See 1926/32.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1932? Les Fables de Jean-Pierre-Claris de Florian.  Illustrées par A(uguste) Vimar.  Avant-Propos de M. André Theuriet.  Hardbound.  Paris: Les Chefs-d'Oeuvre: Henri Laurens.  €26.25 from belauben through Ebay, Sept., '22.

Here is apparently a 1932 reprint of the first printing, also by Laurens, in 1899.  I note several small changes.  The cloth cover is now red.  The page facing the title page has expanded the number of books being advertised and divided them into two series.  This book belongs to the former, "Les Chefs-d'Oeuvre," along with Morin's La Fontaine.  The only clue to this printing's date comes at the bottom of that page: "9.32."  As I wrote of the 1899 printing, this is a beautiful book.  On the cover is an animal excursion led by the monkey with a magic lantern on his back.  The title-page illustration is an animal parade led by the fox barrister.  All 110 fables are represented. Bodemann counts 75 illustrations in the text.  Of these I find three (Bodemann counts only two) that are full-page colored illustrations: "Le Singe qui montre la Lanterne magique" (34), "L'habit d'Arlequin" (84), and "Le Léopard et l'Ecureuil" (118).  We both count five further colored illustrations:  "La Carpe et les Carpillons" (10); "Le Danseur de corde et le Balancier" (42); "Le Paon, les deux Oisons et le Plongeon" (68); "Le Lapin et la Sarcelle" (95); and "Le Procès des deux Renards" (111).  The uncolored drawings are also often delightful.  Particularly spirited are these illustrations:  "Le Boeuf, le Cheval et l'Ane" (5); "L'Ane et la Flûte" (115); and "Le Crocodile et l'Esturgeon" (124).  There is a full T of C at the end.

1932? The Fables of Aesop.  Translated by Samuel Croxall, D.D., and Sir Roger L'Estrange.  Hardbound.  London: The Readers Juvenile Library 19:  The Readers Library Publishing Co., Ltd.  NK 60 from Brugt og Nytt As, Bodo, July, '14.  

Here is a strange find from a strange place.  I had presumed for a long time that this was a duplicate of a book I already had.  Closer inspection seems to indicate otherwise.  It has an unusual colored pictorial cover of FG.  The title-page continues "With Applications, Morals, etc. by the Rev. G.F. Townsend and L. Valentine."  That phrasing is familiar from other editions.  Indeed, this edition acknowledges Warne and Company, and I have an edition of theirs for which I have guessed a date of 1866. The beginning T of C lists 160 numbered fables on some 253 pages.  The back cover is an advertisement for Nestle's Chocolate.  Dating this book has not been easy.  Its printer, Greycaine Book Manufacturing Company, is reported to have begun by about 1908.  There are advertisements on the web for various similar publications of The Readers Juvenile Library.  One such for #4 in the series was dated 1928.

1932? The Original Fables of La Fontaine. Rendered into English Prose. Fredk. Colin Tilney. Illustrated by the author. London: J.M. Dent and Sons/NY: E.P. Dutton. See 1913/32?.

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

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

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

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

1933 Aesop's Fables. Samuel Croxall's Translation with a Bibliographical Note by Victor Scholderer and Numerous Facsimiles of Florentine Woodcuts. Limited Editions Club. #542 of 1500. Boxed. Oxford: University Press. See 1518/1933.

1933 Aesop's Fables: Samuel Croxall's Translation with a Bibliographical Note by Victor Scholderer. Numerous Facsimiles of Florentine Woodcuts. #280 of 1500; signed by Bruce Rogers. Hardbound. Oxford: Limited Editions Club: Oxford University Press. See 1518/1933.

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

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

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

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

1933 Die Fabel von dem Bauer, seinem Sohn und dem Esel: Holzschnittfolge.  Essay by Max Bendel.  Woodcuts by Tobias Stimmer.  Portfolio.  Frauenfeld/Leipzig: Huber & Co.  €14.50 from Versandantiquariat Der-Philo-Soph, Viersen, July, '18.

This is a portfolio of six large-format woodcut scenes created by Tobias Stimmer (+1584) illustrating MSA.  They were created most probably in 1572 or 1573.  Also included in the portfolio is a large-format pamphlet with an excellent essay by Max Bendel presenting Stimmer and examining the six scenes.  Stimmer was born in Schaffhausen and worked principally in Strasbourg.  These six scenes are a humorous story well told through woodcut.  As Bendel points out in his helpful essay, the six scenes also represent the five principal landscape tropes of Stimmer's day, which are roughly "to market," "wandering," "pilgrim and beggar," "mounted nobility," and "seafaring warrior."  Bendel's detailed comments on each of the six scenes are insightful and well worth reading, though the old German script makes it harder for some of us.  I notice online that we join six libraries in the world who have this work to offer, including UCLA, the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, and the Musées de Strasbourg.  What a great find!

1933 Dos Tahkhi Katshet Zikh Oyf'n Baykhi: Lider Un Fablen Far Kleyn Un Groys (Yiddish).  Meyer Ziml Tkatch.  Hardbound.  Chicago: M. Ceshinsky.  $80 from Dan Wyman Books, Brooklyn NY, March, '15.

"Songs and Fables for People Old and Young."  A T of C at the back offers apparent groupings, which seem to be "Rain"; "Snow and Cold"; "Skies"; "Animals"; and "Fables."  62 pages.  No illustrations.  6" x 9".

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1933 Fables d'Ésope. Illustrations de Jack Orr. Hardbound. Paris: Nelson, Éditeurs. 240 Francs from Librairie D.V.F. Chanut, Paris, by mail, April, '00.

This book seems to be one-quarter the size of the English version of Orr's book, but it is really two-thirds of its size, having 60 pages to the 96 pages of the English edition. The paper is thinner here. But almost all of my favorite Orr illustrations are among those chosen. The four colored illustrations are beautifully presented here and better preserved than in my English edition. I still favor "The Eagle and the Crow" (24), TB (32), and "The Thieves and the Cock" (52). Among the black-and-white illustrations, I still enjoy "The Miser" (17), "The Ass and the Little Dog" (31), "The Astrologer" (39), "The Ass and His Driver" (43), and "The Rat and the Frog" (51). See my comments on the English edition of the same year. The text peculiarity that I noted there in TH has been lost (10). The boy cries "Wolf!" "parfois" (36). The fable about the doe and the lioness is one of those dropped. It is unusual for a French book to have a T of C where it is here, at the book's front; might the English publisher help to explain that unusual placement?

1933 Fábulas de Iriarte. Dibujos de Asha. First edition. Hardbound. Barcelona: Casa Editorial Araluce. £110 from Robin Greer, London, Nov., '11.

This is a splendid addition to the collection! Iriarte is so seldom illustrated! Here are forty-eight fables, one each to the book's very tall (12½" x 8¾") pages. The cover shows the hippo and donkey as a marching band with the monkey ringing a bell. The paper used in the book is very thick. About a third of the pages are illustrated in full color. Text and illustration are well integrated with each other in the design of individual pages here. Among the best of the colored illustrations are FC (5); "Los Dos Conejos" (15); "La Cabra y el Caballo" (21); "El Jardinero y su Amo" (29); "Los Dos Tordos" (33); "El Juez y el Bandolero" (35). "El Topo y Otros Animales" (39); and "La Rana y la Gallina" (47). Among the black-and-white pages, some of the best include "La Abeja y los Zánganos" (4); "El Mono y el Titiritero" (7); and "La Compra del Asno" (30). Even the back cover is fun: five children and a dog crowd around to read the book of Iriarte's fables while one child cries apart from the group.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1933 The Fables of Aesop. Illustrated by Charles H. Bennett. Compiled and with an introduction by Willis L. Parker. NY: De Luxe Editions: Illustrated Editions Co. ("Three Sirens Press" on spine.) See 1857/1933.

1933 The Fables of Aesop. Illustrated by Charles H. Bennett. Compiled and with an introduction by Willis L. Parker. NY: Three Sirens Press. See 1857/1933.

1933 The Fables of Aesop. Illustrated by Charles H. Bennett. Compiled and with an introduction by Willis L. Parker. NY: Windsor Press. See 1857/1933.

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

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

1933 The Great Fables of All Nations. Selected by Manuel Komroff. Illustrated by Louise Thoron. Dust jacket. NY: Tudor Publishing Co. See 1928/33.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1933/1935 Nine Fables.  Dramatized by L.W. and M.G.M. Faucett.  Illustrated by Grace Lodge.  Third Impression.  Pamphlet.  Oxford: The Oxford English Course: Oxford University Press.  1660 Hungarian Ft from Antikvarium, Prague, Czech Republic, Feb., '23. 

This 32-page pamphlet, 5" x 7¼", offers nine traditional fables dramatized for greater learning for those learning English.  The fables are all from the usual Aesopic tradition.  There are about three helpful duochrome (black and orange) illustrations with each fable, starting with BS, the major illustration for which also appears on the cover.  Most fables, like the second, are broken into phases: "The Broken Handle"; "The Meeting of the Trees"; "The Next Day."  At the pamphlet's end we find "Questions and Tests" (28).  I am delighted to have found this piece of ephemera.  And we found it in Budapest!

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

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

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

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

1933? Fabeln des Äsop Nach Steinhöwels "Erneuertem Esopus".  Bearbeitet von Victor Zobel.  After Vergil Solis.  11.-15. Tausend.  Hardbound.  Leipzig: Insel-Bücherei Nr. 272:  Insel-Verlag.  $14.99 from bandit 1990, Terre Haute, Indiana, through Ebay, April, '19.

Here is a better preserved copy of a book I had found in 1998 at Joachim Luehrs in Hamburg.  This copy is in far better condition.  As I wrote then, what a lovely thin book!  I think that there are fifty fables and fifty illustrations, along with a frontispiece-illustration.  It is thus surprising that the front cover proclaims "Mit 49 Holzschnitten."  The Solis imitations here are very good.  Maybe among the best are the illustrations for "Vom dem Pferd und Hirsch" (31) and "Vom Fuchs und dem Bock" (49).  This is an unusual fable book in that it has almost nothing besides the fables and their illustrations.  There are just two sentences on 56 about the original author, the original engraver, and the present artist.  In any case, the fables here are numbered.  This copy was sold at Westermann in New York City.

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

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

1933? Righteous Gentiles: Two Parables (Hebrew).  Translator: Baruch Krupnik.  Pamphlet.  Berlin: Menora Publishing.  $25 from an unknown source, July, '20.

The two stories in this pamphlet seem to be "A Lot of Work" and "A Righteous Deed."  The first story was first printed in 1777 in the booklet "Tipeh Elahim or Act Rav, etc" by an unknown author.  The second piece was printed in Ashkenazi Jewish in 1933 in "Di Yodisha Welt" magazine.  Krupnik seems to have been a prolific author who died in 1972.  24 pages.  5" x 7¾".

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

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

To top

1934 - 1935

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

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

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

The T of C at the front lists about ten fables in this large, cheap-paper book. The surprise comes when a reader finds out that 205-84 are missing! How did these "extra" pages fit into this book? Thre three fables that are left turn out to be unusual tellings. In AL (57), the emperor orders that Androcles be kept in prison until a lion big enough can be found to eat him in one bite. On the fourth morning, they lead Androcles out into a lion's den, and there crowds gather to watch what happens. Not all of this seems to me to fit together…. In FC (84), the crow finds the cheese in a rat-trap under the chicken coop, where the fox could have found it. The fox is angry that he did not find it first. In MSA (151), the two are taking the donkey to town to buy food for dinner. A good repeater line in this version is "Why, I/we had not thought of that." There is a simple line-drawing for AL and MSA. I would have loved to see how other stories are handled!

1934 Eton Fables. By Cyril Alington. New impression. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Printed in Great Britain. London: Longmans, Green and Co. See 1921/34.

1934 Fabeln von Erasmus Alberus. Ein Nachwort von Wilhelm Matthiessen. 15 Holzschnitte von Vergil Solis. Berlin: Greif Bücherei. See 1550/1934

1934 Fables d'Ésope. Traduit du Grec par J.-B. M. de Bellegarde avec les Quatrains de Benserade. Illustré par X. Lefèvre. #2172 of 2500. Paperbound. Printed in Abbeville, France. La Collection Antiqua #29. Paris: A l'Enseigne du Pot Casse. $26.58 from Glenn Russell, Childs, MD, through Ebay, Oct., '00.

This is the sort of book for which this collection exists! At first it looks like nothing more than a beaten-up old paperback, remarkable perhaps for the fox who scratches his head on the cover while the stork eats out of a vase. When we investigate a bit, we find that it is a numbered limited edition with perhaps thirty lovely full-page illustrations for its one-hundred numbered fables. There is a T of C at the back. Pages without illustrations have a Greek "Aisopos" nameplate as header and a branch design as footer. The illustrations are classic in recalling traditional artists. Among the best are "The Dog and the Sow" (59), "The Blackbird and the Fowler" (83), "The Stargazer" (169), and "Le Souhait de l'Envieux" as it is so aptly titled (201). I wonder if this X. Lefèvre has anything to do with the Achille Désiré Lefèvre who did illustrations for Benserade's texts in the Fables Choisies d'Ésope published in 1818 (Bodemann #232.1). I notice that SW is told in the poorer form (178). The book is fragile and slightly watermarked, and the spine is tearing.

1934 Fables de la Fontaine. Avec des Figures de Sylvain Sauvage. Hardbound. Paris: Les Grand Classiques Française Illustrés: Librairie Hachette. £5 from J. Sharp, Swindon, Wiltshire, England, through eBay, Sept., '04. 

I had known of this book earlier, since it is reviewed in "L'Illustration" of December, 1934. I find the pen-and-ink (?) illustrations of Sylvain Sauvage witty delightful, and often farcical, exaggerated, and dramatic. There is a whole series of these before we ever meet a fable: the wolf as shepherd (pre-title-page); death as a huge scarecrow meeting the woodgatherer (frontispiece); the proud ass carrying relics (title-page); "The Bear and the Hermit" (at the start of the life of La Fontaine); "The Astrologer" (one of the best illustrations here, and one I think I have seen before, here at the start of the preface); "The Two Pigeons" (at the start of the dedication to the Dauphin); and FC (at the start of Book I). The illustrations recur then at the rate of about three or four per book of fables. Among the best are "The Pedant and the Drowning Boy," another strong farcical presentation (35); CW (56); "The Wolf, the Mother, and the Child" (102); "The Lion and the Hunter" (131); "The Women and the Secret" (189); "The Man, the Wife, and the Thief" (238); and "The Old Man and the Three Youths" (289). There are also small endpieces throughout, as at the end of each book; I like particularly "The Young Widow" on 151. A number of the pages are still uncut, but all of the illustrations are now accessible. One finds at the end both a T of C and an AI, followed by one last endpiece and one last lovely illustration of a shepherdess. The book is beautifully bound in half-leather, with marbled covers and endpapers. What a treasure!

1934 Fables de la Fontaine.  Avec des Figures de Sylvain Sauvage.  Paperbound.  Paris: Les Grand Classiques Française Illustrés:  Librairie Hachette.  $30 from Marco Panella, Brattleboro, VT, through eBay, April, '15.

Earlier I had found a bound copy of this book.  Now I have one not yet hardbound.  What a delight!  As I wrote then, I had known of this book earlier, since it is reviewed in "L'Illustration" of December, 1934.  I find the pen-and-ink (?) illustrations of Sylvain Sauvage witty delightful, and often farcical, exaggerated, and dramatic.  There is a whole series of these before we ever meet a fable: the wolf as shepherd (front cover); death as a huge scarecrow meeting the woodgatherer (frontispiece); the proud ass carrying relics (title-page); "The Bear and the Hermit" (at the start of the life of La Fontaine); "The Astrologer" (one of the best illustrations here, and one I think I have seen before, here at the start of the preface); "The Two Pigeons" (at the start of the dedication to the Dauphin); and FC (at the start of Book I).  The illustrations recur then at the rate of about three or four per book of fables.  Among the best are "The Pedant and the Drowning Boy," another strong farcical presentation (35); CW (56); "The Wolf, the Mother, and the Child" (102); "The Lion and the Hunter" (131); "The Women and the Secret" (189); "The Man, the Wife, and the Thief" (238); and "The Old Man and the Three Youths" (289).  There are also small endpieces throughout, as at the end of each book; I like particularly "The Young Widow" on 151.  Starting with the fourth book, there are a number of uncut pages.  One finds at the end both a T of C and an AI, followed by one last endpiece and one last lovely illustration of a shepherdess (back cover).  What a treasure!

1934 Famous Animal Stories: Animal Myths, Fables, Fairy Tales, Stories of Real Animals. Edited by Ernest Thompson Seton. Hardbound. NY: Tudor Publishing Company. $5 from an unknown source, Jan., '13.

Here is a long book of 668 pages. The sub-title gives Seton's sense of the four categories of animal stories, and his foreword explains each. He describes fable as an allegory in which each animal represents some vice, virtue or quality. The actors here are "human beings going around in Animal forms" (v). The fable section of the book runs from 43 through 97 and includes some 31 Aesopic fables and sixteen others. Of these Seton himself is the author or adapter of nine. Other authors include Allan Cunningham, John Gay, Mary Howitt, James Montgomery, Arthur Guiterman, George Lanigan, and Mark Twain. Cunningham's "The Fox and the Cat" in verse is new to me; its verse presents a chain of judges of slayers who then turn to slaying (43). Mary Howitt's "The Spider and the Fly" reads like a classic I learned as a child, but I believe I have not seen it for years (45). Arthur Guiterman's "A Rabbit Parable" shows in verse how a simple dwelling is seized by one mightier than another until they slay each other and the rabbit returns to his home (49). Most of Seton's own fables are replays of traditional stories. "The Yankee Crab" (82) is an exception. It is new to me and well done. Those wanting something different can try Seton's "The Cyclone and the Steeple" (87). Mark Twain's "The Fable of the Scientific Expedition" goes for eight pages (90-97). 

1934 Folk Tales Children Love. Edited by Watty Piper. NY: Platt and Munk. $13.50 at Rock Creek Bookshop in DC, Sept., '91. Second copy for $10 from Roger Carlson, August, '96. Third copy for $5, Dec., '87. Extra defective copy for $10 from Heartwood, Charlottesville, March, '92.

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

1934 Folk Tales Children Love. Edited by Watty Piper. NY: Platt and Munk. See 1932/34/55.

1934 Fontaine's Fables. No author or illustrator acknowledged; illustrator is in fact Félix Lorioux. Racine: Whitman. $30 at Old Children's Books, New Orleans, June, '89. Extra copies for $35 from The Antiquarian Archive, Los Altos, Jan., '97 and for $7.50 at Three-in-One Books, St. Paul, March, '88.

Wonderful colored illustrations in a delightful book. The best are those at the end of each of the six stories (e.g., of the wolf with the last lamb bones). In the Three-in-One copy, a youthful crayon lover has marked up lots of the black-and-white illustrations that alternate with the great colored pictures. The Antiquarian Archive copy has some pencilling, smudging, and other signs of wear. The illustrations are selected from among those in Hachette's 1921 Fables (entirely in color), reprinted in 1992; here they are slightly larger, and the text in them is of course transformed into English. Several illustrations are dropped from the original in each story. From the original this text drops the lamb's reference to being at its mother's teat, and Lorioux's chicken hanging in the fox's kitchen with an "a conserver" sign on it has become a pedestrian pot.

1934 Jean de la Fontaine: Fables Choisies.  Ferdinand Gohin.  First edition.  Paperbound.  Paris: Les Textes Français:  Société les belles lettres.  €17.50 from Livres 113, Beautiran, France, through abe, July, '15.

I had earlier found  the 1948 reprinting of this work -- reprinted actually by the Société les belles lettres in Switzerland.  Here now, I am glad to say, is a copy of the original publication.  I wrote lthen that I had not been aware that Budé texts include French classics, too.  A lovely softbound volume.  There are notes at the back, especially on sources and variants.  This volume contains Books 1-6.

1934 Jean de la Fontaine: Fables Choisies, Tome II.  Ferdinand Gohin.  First edition.  Paperbound.  Paris: Les Textes Français:  Société les belles lettres.  €17.50 from Livres 113, Beautiran, France, through abe, July, '15.

I had earlier found  the 1948 reprinting of this work -- reprinted actually by the Société les belles lettres in Switzerland.  Here now, I am glad to say, is a copy of the original publication.  I wrote then that I had not been aware that Budé texts include French classics, too.  A lovely softbound volume.  There are notes at the back, especially on sources and variants.  This volume contains Books 7-12.

1934 Jean de la Fontaine: Fables Choisies I.  Ferdinand Gohin.  Paperbound.  Paris: Les Textes Français:  Société les belles lettres.  $10 from Serendipity Books, Berkeley, Dec., '09.

I searched for this pair of volumes for months and found them in my "extras":collection.  Perhaps I got partway through cataloguing them or recataloguing them.  In any case, what a joy to find them now!  Earlier I had been given the 1948 reprint of this Budé text in two volumes.  I am delighted now to find the original.  The special feature of this pair of volumes is that, as the cover of this first volume shows, the pair belonged to one of my heroes, Prof. Bernard Knox.  I would never have thought that I would come into possession of one of his books.  A lovely softbound pair of volumes.  There are notes at the back, especially on sources and variants, and then a T of C.  This volume contains Books 1-6.  Some uncut pages.

1934 Jean de la Fontaine: Fables Choisies II.  Ferdinand Gohin.  Paperbound.  Paris: Les Textes Français:  Société les belles lettres.  $10 from Serendipity Books, Berkeley, Dec., '09.

I searched for this pair of volumes for months and found them in my "extras":collection.  Perhaps I got partway through cataloguing them or recataloguing them.  In any case, what a joy to find them now!  Earlier I had been given the 1948 reprint of this Budé text in two volumes.  I am delighted now to find the original.  The special feature of this pair of volumes is that, as the cover of this first volume shows, the pair belonged to one of my heroes, Prof. Bernard Knox.  I would never have thought that I would come into possession of one of his books.  A lovely softbound pair of volumes.  There are notes at the back, especially on sources and variants, and then a T of C.  This volume contains Books 7-12.  Uncut pages throughout.

1934 John Martin's Big Book for Young People. Volume 1 of a seven-volume set. New York: Collier and Son. See 1930/34.

1934 John Martin's Big Book for Young People. Volume 2 of a seven-volume set. NY: Collier and Son. See 1931/34.

1934 John Martin's Big Book for Young People. Volume 3 of a seven-volume set. New York: Collier and Son. See 1927/34.

1934 Kalila and Dimna (Arabic).  "Almost 100 illustrations".  5th edition.  Hardbound.  Newspaper Scheherezade and Al-Samariat.  $20 from an unknown source, June, '18.

Here is a deteriorating book covered with red cloth, embossed in silver with an image of Kalila and Dimna in discussion.  Its 431 pages include a number of early charts and plentiful partial-page black-and-white illustrations.  "Lion and Bull" begins on 167 and is accompanied very shortly with illustrations from the standard K&D stories, like "Jackal and Drum"; "Snake and Crow"; and "The Bird Tricking the Fish."  I was surprised when Google-Translate took this book on and even shifted languages on its own.

1934 La Fontaine: Fables Choisies I. Livres 1-6. Adrien Cart et Madame Roussel. Paris: Classiques Larousse. $.50 at a Paris bookstall, Aug., '88.

A typical pamphlet for French secondary students. No illustrations. It does not contain all the fables of the first six books. Apparently, Larousse started with these pamphlets and then grew into larger paperbacks with pictures. See 1934/58 and 1934/63 for later editions in this style and several listings under 1971/ for the newer style.

1934 LâFonten den Hikâyeler. Vasfi Mahir. Paperbound. Istanbul: Okuyacaginiz Kitaplar: Muallim Ahmet Halit Kitaphanesi. $40 from Alp Gencata, Istanbul, Turkey, through eBay, Jan., '05.

Alp Gencata writes to me that this is the first La Fontaine book in Turkish, printed six years after the Turkish alphabet found general use. There are forty-five fables on 95 pages. This book opens with a T of C, photocopied portrait of La Fontaine, and a two-page introduction. The black-print fables are nicely illustrated with red designs, often one before and one after each fable. I have the sense of having seen them somewhere before; what we find here is less stolen and more imitated, I believe. There are also several simple copyings from an offshoot of Oudry and other famous illustrators (35, 67, 87). The cover in red, green, and brown has La Fontaine seated before a lake with animals surrounding him. The series "Okuyacaginiz Kitaplar" is listed on the back cover, where this La Fontaine volume is fifth in order. 

1934 Le Travail et l'Épargne: Quelques Fables de La Fontaine.  Illustrées par Victor Stuyvaert.  Pamphlet.  Brussels: Caisse Générale d'Épargne et de Retraite.  €20 in Brussels, August, '19.

This is a very pleasing 14-page pamphlet presenting eight fables of La Fontaine that bear on the subjects of work and saving.  The fables are well chosen: "The Laborer and His Children"; TH; GA: DS; GGE; "The Old Man and Three Young Men"; SM; and AD.  Each except GGE is illustrated.  Perhaps the best two illustrations are the harvesting images on the cover and title-page.  This collection has a gift for saving beautiful ephemera like this!

1934 L'Illustration. Journal Hebdomadaire Universel. No 4787. 1er Décembre 1934. René Baschet, Directeur. Includes an illustrated article "Les Fables de la Fontaine illustrées par les artistes de tous les pays du monde" by André Mévil. Paris. $15 from Turtle Island, Berkeley, Sept., '01. Extra copy of the magazine with detached cover for $40 from Drusilla, Sept., '95.

Talk about a family business: there are four Baschets out of six names on the inside front cover! This number Includes an illustrated article "Les Fables de la Fontaine illustrées par les artistes de tous les pays du monde" by André Mévil. Drusilla is right: the article is lavish. I do not know if people publish magazines like this these days! Baron Feuillet de Conches conceived the idea of a unique copy of La Fontaine, constituted by the works of artists from all over the world approached to illustrate his fables. As a minister of foreign affairs for decades, he was in an excellent position to make the right contacts to produce such a book. The book never came into existence, but the collection of illustrations made for it was left in the hands of his grandson, M. Jagerschmidt. Typical examples from the collection are offered here. The engravings by French artists (Delacroix, Charlet, Bonheur, and Vernet) are excellent. Even more impressive are the ten illustrations tipped in, particularly those from India (especially MSA), Abyssinia, and Persia (especially of the cat changed into a woman). I count twenty-six illustrations in all. There are summaries in French and English well before the article itself. The diversity of processes that went into making up the art of this magazine is impressive! Even the initial for this article is tipped in! Later in the magazine one finds a review of an edition of La Fontaine with illustrations by Sylvain Sauvage (XLIV) and an advertisement for Märklin toys (XLVII). Here is an irony of book-collecting: having paid $40 for an inferior copy, I now pay $15 for a better copy!

1934 L'Illustration: Journal Hebdomadaire Universel.  No 4787.  1er Décembre 1934.  René Baschet, Directeur. Illustrated article "Les Fables de la Fontaine illustrées par les artistes de tous les pays du monde" by André Mévil.  Paris: No 4787.  1er Décembre 1934:  Gift of Fred Tollini, S.J., Jan., '99.

Here is a copy of just the fables article.  It is in excellent condition.  I include here my remarks on the whole magazine.  Talk about a family business:  there are four Baschets out of six names on the inside front cover!  This number Includes an illustrated article "Les Fables de la Fontaine illustrées par les artistes de tous les pays du monde" by André Mévil.  Drusilla is right:  the article is lavish.  I do not know if people publish magazines like this these days!  Baron Feuillet de Conches conceived the idea of a unique copy of La Fontaine, constituted by the works of artists from all over the world approached to illustrate his fables.  As a minister of foreign affairs for decades, he was in an excellent position to make the right contacts to produce such a book.  The book never came into existence, but the collection of illustrations made for it was left in the hands of his grandson, M. Jagerschmidt.  Typical examples from the collection are offered here.  The engravings by French artists (Delacroix, Charlet, Bonheur, and Vernet) are excellent.  Even more impressive are the ten illustrations tipped in, particularly those from India (especially MSA), Abyssinia, and Persia (especially of the cat changed into a woman).  I count twenty-six illustrations in all.  There are summaries in French and English well before the article itself.  The diversity of processes that went into making up the art of this magazine is impressive!  Even the initial for this article is tipped in!

1934 Stories from Uncle Remus. By Joel Chandler Harris. Edited by Mrs. Joel Chandler Harris. With the A.B. Frost illustrations. Canvas-bound. Printed in USA. Akron, OH: The Saalfield Publishing Company. $22 from Constant Reader Bookshop, Milwaukee, Sept., '99.

This canvas-bound book presents a set of copyrights on its title-page: 1880, 1895 D. Appleton & Company; 1908, 1921 Esther La Rose Harris; and 1934 Esther La Rose Harris. We here read seven stories, adorned by nine black-and-white illustrations and thirteen in full color. Unfortunately, several of the latter are poorly printed. Still, the Frost illustrations are a delight. Maybe the best of them shows Brer Rabbit stuck to the Tar-Baby at the end of that episode. By the way, the Tar-Baby in this version is female. The dialect is not as strong in this children's version as it often is.

1934 The Fable of a Proud Poppy or The Shipwreck of "The Cynthia".  John Domino.  Wood-Engravingas by Emile Lahner.  One of 25 English copies..  Hardbound.  Paris: Domino Press.  $10.99 from Blake Bellcase, Crofton, MD, through eBay, April, '15.

Here is a sweet, lovely, and beautifully illustrated story.  I would not call it a fable, but it makes a strong point.  In its first phase, the beautiful poppy hosts a ball and invites all the most beautiful people.  A number of birds and flowers are pointedly not invited.  It is a wondrous evening.  Most charming of the guests is the kingfisher, who makes a perfect romantic partner for the beautiful poppy.  Among the uninvited are Twit, a young sparrow, and his mother, Mrs. Twit.  Twit wants at least to watch the ball, and after other trees refuse them, the oak and her acorns welcome them.  After all, only ten of the hundred acorns were invited, and those ten refused the invitation because of its limitation.  In a second phase, the story involves children launching a boat the next day and making flowers its passengers.  Poppy and the kingfisher are of course among the passengers.  One acorn gets thrown in as cargo.  A storm comes up and wind snaps the strong by which the children hold onto the boat.  It soon capsizes.  The kingfisher saves himself by hiding his head under his wing in the reeds.  The little acorn is about to drown when Mrs. Twit rescues him and brings him back.  Sometime later, Thistle wants to give a party in Mrs. Twit's honor and invites her and her son to specify which guests would be worthy.  "Whom do you want to invite, Twit?"  "Everyone!"  The coloring of the wood-engravings is gorgeous!  One of the best scenes is the dance itself on 15.  I cannot tell if this is somehow a later edition or the small original hand-colored edition advertised by the colophon: 25 copies each -- French and English -- on Japan paper.  What is missing is the promised signature of the artist.  What an unusual book!

1934 The Hasidic Anthology: Tales and Teachings of the Hasidim. Louis I. Newman in Collaboration with Samuel Spitz. Hardbound. NY/London: Charles Scribner's Sons. $9 from Meir Turner, Forest Hills, NY, through abe, Dec., '02.

This huge book with a broken spine is a venerable old anthology of stories and sayings, including eight acknowledged fables. The helpful indices stretch from 551 to 720. In #37.7 we find an adaptation of Aesop's "Two Travelers and the Bear" story. This version has just one hunter, who drinks up the price of the bear's skin beforehand and misses shooting the bear because he is drunk. And #66.1 is a version of the Aesopic story of the lion and the man. Here two cubs find a picture of Samson breaking a lion in two. They ask their father about this "creature stronger than ourselves." He answers--for me, in surprising fashion--by saying that the picture should assure them that the race of lions is the "strongest of creatures, for when once a stronger creature appears, it is pictured as a miracle. Exceptions prove the rule." I gather that the logic here is this: you picture the unusual. Reverse the picture's power relationship, and you will see what normally happens. In #79.1 we have a version of the Aesopic tale about the mouse and her son. In this version, the son goes out twice and is frightened, by a rooster and a turkey respectively. Each time the parent reassures him that this is not the enemy. Without naming a cat, the mother goes on to describe the cat as the mouse's enemy. This description sets up an easy transfer, I believe, to humans: "Our enemy keeps his head down like an exceedingly humble person; he is smooth and soft-spoken, friendly in appearance and acting as if he were a very kind creature." In #86.1 we find a traditional fable changed slightly for the specific purpose of defending a man who borrowed from the church repair fund to give it to dowries for dowerless brides. The fable describes the court's quest in a time of epidemic to find the offender. After beasts of prey confess and are absolved, a sheep (not a donkey) confesses to eating a little hay from her owner's mattress. She is condemned to death. The fable at #115.11 is new to me. A hen sits on goose eggs, and the chicks believe themselves young hens. Once they wander to a pool and enter it immediately. The hen shouts in warning, but the goslings answer "We are in our element." Also new to me is #137.4. A lioness tells her cub that he need fear no living being except the man. The cub sees an old man and asks about him, only to hear "He was a man." The cub sees a child and asks, but hears "He will be a man." Then a hunter appears, and mother says "This is the dangerous being" and runs with the cub to her den. The story at #142.4 has the lion compelled to forego food so long that he breath is no longer sweet. He inquires about his breath of the ass and the wolf. The former is truthful and the latter flattering; the lion devours both. The fox answers that he has a catarrh and cannot smell. Finally #202.6 is another new story: the lion becomes enraged at his subjects. They ask the fox to placate the King by telling him an appropriate fable. The fox replies that fear has caused him to forget his fables. Hence the beasts had to wait on the lion themselves.

1934/35/82 Minor Latin Poets, Volume II. With an English Translation by J. Wight Duff and Arnold M. Duff. The Loeb Classical Library. Dust jacket. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. $15 from the publisher, Fall, 1990.

A typically good Loeb edition, with introductions to each poet and a few footnotes to help with passages whose point can be difficult. Avianus is on 669-749. I wish I had made use of this book when I worked my way through Avianus this past summer.

1934/48 Jean de la Fontaine: Fables choisies mises en vers. Texte établi et présenté par Ferdinand Gohin. Tome I. Printed in Switzerland. Paris: Société les belles lettres. 25 F at Bouquinerie du Centre, Metz, Sept.,' 92: purchased by Wendy Wright.

I had not been aware that Budé texts include French classics, too. A lovely softbound volume with uncut pages. There are notes at the back, especially on sources and variants. It is not yet clear to me how these fables are "selected," since they all seem to be here. This volume contains Books 1-6.

1934/48 Jean de la Fontaine: Fables choisies mises en vers. Texte établi et présenté par Ferdinand Gohin. Tome II. Printed in Switzerland. Paris: Société les belles lettres. 25 F at Bouquenerie du Centre, Metz, Sept.,' 92: purchased by Wendy Wright.

I had not been aware that Budé texts include French classics, too. A lovely softbound volume with uncut pages. There are notes at the back, especially on sources and variants. It is not yet clear to me how these fables are "selected," since they all seem to be here. This volume contains Books 6-12.

1934/56/61 My Poetry Book of Masterpieces in Verse. (Cover: Classics To Grow On.) Selected and arranged by Grace Huffard and Laura Carlisle. Illustrated by Willy Pogany. Introduction by Booth Tarkington. Previously published as My Poetry Book. NY: Parents' Magazine Enterprises. $4 at Claudette's at Brookdale Lodge, Aug., '89.

Hundreds and hundreds of poems! Very few illustrations. William Ellery Leonard's "The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf" is included, as is Emerson's "Fable." Also William Schwenck Gilbert's "The Fable of the Magnet and the Churn (Patience)."

1934/58 La Fontaine: Fables Choisies I. Livres 1-6. Adrien Cart et Madame Famin. Twelfth printing. Paris: Classiques Larousse. $1 at Bryn Mawr Lantern, Georgetown, Jan., '96.

See my listing under 1934 and my comments there on the earliest small Larousse that I have. And see 1934/63 for accompanying editions of the last six books. See also the several listings under 1971/ for a newer Larousse style.

1934/63 La Fontaine: Fables Choisies II. Livres 7-12. Adrien Cart et Mademoiselle G. Fournier. Paris: Classiques Larousse. $2 at Adams Avenue Book Store, Aug., '93. Extra copy, heavily marked, of the fourteenth printing (1961) for $1 from R. Dunaway, St. Louis, March, '95. And an extra copy of the 83rd edition (could that be the 1983 edition?) for $1 from the Bryn Mawr Lantern, Georgetown, Jan., '96.

Compare with my Larousse editions in this style (1934 and 1934/58), but note that those volumes deal with the first six books of fables. A frontispiece from Oudry has been added. One editor is different. Otherwise the work seems unchanged. The only clue I can find about the date of printing is the small print at the bottom of 112. The 1961 copy seems to have been done on cheaper paper. The "83e edition" seems from the numbers on 112 to be from 1957. See 1970/ for more modern Larousse editions.

1934/69 Bag o' Tales. 63 Famous Stories for Storytellers. By Effie Power. Illustrated by Corydon Bell. Unabridged republication of the work originally published by E.P. Dutton and Co. in 1934. NY: Dover Publications. $5.95, Summer, '92.

It is fun to see which stories show up when people set themselves a goal of a certain number of stories. Here there are six fables in a section on "Folk Tales and Fables." Aesop has three: "Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel," TH, and "The Contest." The last is new to me; it is not in Daly or Perry's Loeb. Both try to leap over the ditch and miss, hare by a little and pig by a lot. Fox answers the question "Who wins?" by saying "Both in the ditch,/Can't say which." Bidpai's TT, La Fontaine's SW in Wright's good translation, and Panchatantra's "Hundred-Wit, Thousand-Wit, and Single-Wit" fill out the offerings. This latter is told differently from Ramsay Wood's "Three Fish." Though no source is given for the versions, the bibliography for this section mentions Jacobs, L'Estrange, and Wiggin/Smith. There are no illustrations for any of the fables.

1934? Fábulas de Samaniego.  Samaniego.  Hardbound.  Barcelona: Bibllioteca para Niños:  Casa Editorial Ramon Sopena.  $55 from Christian Tottino, Buenos Aires, through eBay, June, '15.

Sopena has done several books in this series that are alike.  Our collection also contains Sopena's "Fábulas de Esopo," catalogued here under 1925.  A first feature one may notice here, as there, is the thick pages.  This substantial book has only 70 pages!  These editions include many texts -- roughly 120 fables here -- almost every one ornamented with a small black-and-white illustration.  Pages generally have two columns, with two or three fables recounted on each page.  There are occasional larger black-and-white images and occasional engravings (e.g., on 36-37).  Samaniego's longer original efforts often receive a full page.  Might "El Chivo Afeitado" (30) and "El Filósofo y la Pulga" (31) belong to this group?  It is good to have this many fables of Samaniego illustrated.  There is a T of C on the inside back cover.  This book was sold at Casa Editorial Ramon Sopena in Buenos Aires.  I can find records online of editions of 1934 and 1945.  There is no mention inside this book of a previous edition.

1935 Aventuras de Animales.  Texto de S.H. Hamer.  Ilustraciones de Enrique B. Neilson.  Hardbound.  Barcelona: Biblioteca para Niños:  Ramón Sopena.  $21.53 from Christian Tottino, La Plata, Argentina, through eBay, Jan., '14. 

The first surprise in this book is that its front cover shows an "Approbación Ecclesiástica"!  A second surprise is the lovely array of illustrations: several engaging full-color full-page illustrations, some black-and-white illustrations, and delightful smaller designs.  As I opened the book to study it more carefully, I thought "There are no fables here!"  It is true that fairy-tale stories seem to dominate, but there are many fables retold here.  They include "The Eagle, the Cat, and the Javelin"; UP; "The Wolf and the Sheep"; "The Fox and the Goat" (with three good illustrations);  "The Fox and the Lion"; BC; "The Stag and the Oxen"; "The Ass and the Wolf"; "The Wolf and the Stork"; "The Eagle and the Crow" (a drama in three acts with three good illustrations); DLS (again with three good illustrations); "The Fox and the Cat" (also with three); and "The Rabbits and the Frogs."  The closing T of C is the inside back-cover.

1935 Fables. Lilian Ames. Limited edition of 100. Boxed. Mount Vernon, NY: Fleetwood: Golden Eagle Press. $20 at Book Miser, Baltimore, Nov., '91.

Eight fables printed in strange fashion on magnificent paper: the pages are printed on both sides, with pages blank on both sides in between. I may need to try these fables again; at first reading, they tend to the long, heavy, preachy, or overly clever. The best of them are "The Philosophers," "The Toucan," "The Mocking Bird and the Ass," and "The Eagle and the Sparrow." Boxed. No T of C or index. Is it not usual to number copies of a limited edition?

1935 Fables de La Fontaine en Images Lumineuses.  Compositions de LaLouve.  Paperbound.  Paris: Albums du Père Castor: Flammarion, Éditeur.  $45 from Robin Bledsoe, Boston, June, '16.

Here is an intact copy of this book, a poorer copy of which I had found earlier.  There are indeed twelve silhouette images: FG; TH; "The Rabbit, the Weasel, and the Cat"; LM; WC; FC; "The Cat and the Monkey"; WL' "Two Goats"; MM; "The Heron"; and TT.  The full list of twelve fables appears here, as there, on the bottom of the second-to-last page of print.  They are all presented in color on the back cover.  There are colored sheets of translucent paper at the front and back of the pamphlet.  One is to cut out sections of these to fill in various portions of the white spaces of each illustration.  The back cover's illustrations and the circular title-page illustration of FG remain my favorites.  What a clever idea!  The effect, I imagine, is like that of seeing stained glass.  This book differs from that one in its last page of print.  That had "Paris Imp. Henon 6-36," while this has "Paris Imp. Henon 7-37,"  The books advertised on this page are also different.  There is also a change on the title-page.  "Compositions de la Louve" has become "Compositions de LaLouve."  I now recognize that this is the name of the artist!  This volume was purchased in Paris by one of the two bookstore owners for his daughter when they lived there.

1935 Fables de La Fontaine en Images Lumineuses. Paperbound. Paris: Compositions de la Louve: Albums du Père Castor: Flammarion, Éditeur. £13 from Jon Edgson, Books for Collectors, Cirencester, Gloucestershire, UK, through eBay, April, '03.

There are here six silhouette images of fable scenes from La Fontaine. Apparently, another six are missing, perhaps from the stapled center of this pamphlet. The full list of twelve fables appears on the bottom of the second-to-last page of print. They are all presented in color on the back cover. There are colored sheets of translucent paper at the front and back of the pamphlet. One is to cut out sections of these to fill in various portions of the white spaces of each illustration. The six images left here are: FG, LM, "Le Chat, la Belette et le Petit Lapin," MM, "Le Héron," and TT. The latter and the circular title-page illustration of FG are my favorites. What a clever idea! The effect, I imagine, is like that of seeing stained glass. It is amazing to find even half of this fragile book intact!

1935 Fables Choisies de la Fontaine et Florian (Cover: "Fables de la Fontaine"). Dessins d'Artistes Français.  Paperbound.  Liège, Belgium: Imprimerie Gordinne.  $30 from Gordon Carpenter, San Diego, through Ebay, Jan., '19.

This large-format, paper-bound book is like four others in the collection, three of which are dated 1937, while one did not show a date and might have been from about "1946."  Like those, this publication combines full-page illustrations that are full-colored (there are five here) with different styles and colors of monochromatic illustrations.  The double pagination is curious, 27-52 as well as 107-132.  The four full-color illustrations inside the book are "The Lion and the Mosquito" (27); "The Cook and the Swan" (31); OF (35); and "The Fly and the Coach" (39).  The fifth colored illustration is the cover illustration of "The Pedant and the Drowning Child."  Here are two last curiosities in this curious book. As in the other four, the cover reads "Fables de la Fontaine" but the title-page reads "Fables Choisies de la Fontaine et Florian."  In fact, I do not notice any Florian fables here.  Secondly, the cover illustration has a signature, apparently beginning with a "p."  I cannot make out the rest, though the finish of the signature mimics the long straight line in the beginning "p."

1935 Fábulas para Niños.  Encar Catalá.  Paperbound.  Buenos Aires, Argentina: Textos de Lectura Libre:  Collecion Claridad.  $21 from Christian Tottino, Buenos Aires, through eBay, June, '15.

This hardy paperback has survived for a long time!  It has 184 pages, divided into "Fábulas en Prosa" and "Fábulas en Verso."  The break, noted in the closing T of C, is not noted in the text.  Within that division, fables are grouped by author, given at the top of the page at the section beginning but not otherwise noted.  Some fables -- or authors? -- have highlighted morals.  At the of Tolstoy's "El Ciervo," we find this: "Toda desgracia es una lección.  No hay rosas sin espinas.  El hombre es para el hombre un espejo." (22).  One finds here a wide array of texts, including many writers -- especially Spanish-language writers, who are new to me.  It surprises me to see "Juan de la Fontaine"!  This book will be a treasurehouse for those seeking the widest number of fable texts and authors.

1935 Fifty Famous Stories Retold. With Chinese Notes. By James Baldwin. Few illustrations; illustrators not acknowledged. Paperbound. Shanghai: The Commercial Press, Limited. $15 at Arkadyan, August, '97.

Here is a find! See 1896 and 1896/1924 for my other copies of this book. Now here it is with Chinese notes. The two fable materials, like all other texts, remain unchanged: "Androclus and the Lion" (87) and "Socrates and his House" (112). The former still has a standard illustration. Compare the illustrations with those in the first printing. Many are poorly reproduced, while others (e.g. 152) are somewhat crudely copied. There is some pencilled underlining. The Chinese notes follow the regular English text, which is paginated just as the first printing was. I think all of the text plates are identical up to the last few pages of text.

1935 Isbrannie Basni A.N. (Selected Fables of A.N.). Edited by Alexander Zueva. Hardbound. Moscow: Sovetskii Pisatel (Soviet Writer). $24.98 from Armeniabooks.com, through eBay, Sept., '11.

A longish introduction (5-24) yields to 51 fables, the last finishing on 124. There is a T of C at the end. The bookseller assures me that this book is rare. Russia in 1935 would have been a fairly grim place.. Gray cloth covers.

1935 La Cigale et les Fourmis. Mickey présente. Texte de Magdeleine du Genestoux. Dessins d'après le célèbre film de Walt Disney, Silly Symphonies. Copyrigt (sic) 1935 by Walt Disney Mickey Mouse S.A. Paris: Hachette. €25 from a Buchinist on the Seine, Paris, August, '14.

Here is a second but better copy of a book I first found in 1997, probably a few blocks from the source of this book.  It is a treasure.  I find it curious that in a book marked with a Disney copyright, the illustrations are done after Disney.  They follow closely the presentation found, e.g., in Little Pig's Picnic and Other Stories.  They are probably both based on a film, which the title-page here seems to say was "Silly Symphonies."  The illustrations include twelve full-pages of color, fourteen full pages of black-and-white, and many smaller black-and-white designs.  I find it charming to see something done as a reaction to, rather than just a reproduction of, Disney work that I have enjoyed.

1935 La Fontaine: Fables Choisies. Avec une notice biographique, une notice littéraire et des notes explicatives par René Vaubourdolle. With four illustrations by Chauveau. Pamphlet. Classiques Illustrés Vaubourdolle. Printed in France. Paris: Librairie Hachette. $0.50 from an unknown source, Feb., '01.

This otherwise typical Hachette pamphlet is unusual in that it is a single volume. It contains four illustrations from Chauveau to go along with its fifty-one fables. Its special contribution might lie in the questions it articulates for each fable (95-104). There are also subjects for compositions on the fables more broadly (105-110).

1935 La Fontaine: Fables et Oeuvres Choisies. Par M. Mario Roustan. 317 Illustrations documentaires. Hardbound. Paris: La Littérature Française Illustrée: Collection moderne de Classiques: H. Didier, Libraire-Editeur. Aus$15 from Antiquariat Fine Books, Bowral, Australia, April, '05. 

This is a 963-page high school textbook. Its great contribution lies in the documentary black-and-white photographic illustrations. These present a broad range of material, from the cover of Nevelet (1610; Fig. 51) to the cover and some illustrations of the Esopet en Française (Fig. 55-59). With the text of the fables themselves, the illustrations seem to come exclusively from Chauveau. They are quite small: 2"x 1½". I believe that I do not have many books yet from Australia.

1935 Le fabuliste La Fontaine à Montréal. Robert Choquette. Inscribed by the author. Paperbound. Montreal: Collection du Zodiaque '35: Les Éditions du Zodiaque. CAD 20 from François Côté, Québec, March, '07.

What one finds in this surprising, fragile paperback from1935 is fifteen radio dramas based each on a fable of La Fontaine. The author begins his "Avertissement" with this surprising statement: "Ces croquis à main levée n'ont pas le prétention d'être de la littérature." I was lucky enough to find an article in English, "Choquette's urban fables: questioning a certain modernity," by Emile J. Talbot, Quebec Studies, Fall-Winter, 2002. I can best suggest what is here by quoting a key passage from that article. "Each of the fifteen sketches of Le fabuliste La Fontaine a Montreal bears the same title as a fable from La Fontaine whose text directly precedes it, thereby inviting its listeners/readers to expect that Choquette's brief dramatic sketch will illustrate or expand on La Fontaine's observations on the human behavior depicted. And, to a large extent, this expectation is met as Choquette, under the guise of a literary game that consists in applying La Fontaine to the thirties, targets the upper bourgeoisie of francophone Montreal, just as his French model frequently critiqued the mores of the royal court and the aristocracy. An anonymous reviewer in 1935 called them 'fables a rebours,' that is, representations of situations that La Fontaine, were he living in Montreal, could draw upon. Yet, Choquette's dialogues are not mere updatings of La Fontaine, a transfer of his tales into modern times. While their intertextual links with their La Fontainian hypotexts obtain as much in their pragmatic scope as they do at the formal and thematic level, the seventeenth-century fables are not needed to illustrate, give meaning to, or reinforce Choquette's own tales, which could easily stand on their own. Rather, their prefatory presence has the purpose of legitimizing Choquette's enterprise, reminding his radio audience that he is using the same indirect approach as La Fontaine and with a similar intent, that of reproving current behavior by allusion and reference." 

1935 Le Lièvre et la Tortue.  Mickey presente.  Texte de Magdeleine du Genestoux.  Dessins d'apres le célèbre film de Walt Disney Silly Symphonies.  Hardbound.  Paris: Hachette.  €20 from a bouquinist, Paris, June, '23.

This is a very happy find.  It is more extensive than Hachette's 1950 Album Rose version.  Very good color presentation throughout the 48 pages.  Many of the features I noted there are already true in this larger and longer version.  For example, neither tortoise nor hare has a proper name.  The hare appears in the frontispiece like a champion athlete in a robe and cincture.  Snails accompany the tortoise along the route.  In this French book, the starter's box has a title "Starter" (covers; 10).  The racing features a roll down a hill by the tortoise and showing off by the hare for the rabbit girls at their "pensionnat."  The hare's antics here are surprisingly late in the story (31-43).  At the end, the book quotes La Fontaine's moral: "rien ne sert de courir, il faut partir a point" even though that is not really the issue in this race!  7¼" x 9".

1935 Les Fables d'Ésope illustrées. Tomas Herr Martin. Illustrations J. Weil. Paperbound. Paris: Librairie Croville. €50 from Librairie Epsilon, Paris, Jan., '05. 

The subtitle reads: "Nouvelle initiation au Grec par l'Image, l'Analyse et les Tableaux synoptiques." It is just over 10½" x 8½" and has 72 pages and twelve tableaux. The 72 pages present nineteen fables. The book offers a number of helps beyond the Greek text. There are simple diagrammatic pictures, translations of phrases, comments, explanations of forms, principal parts of verbs, and grammatical explanations. I think that the author aims at introducing the Greek language through analysis of these fables of Aesop. That is a daunting task, but this book undertakes it well. Long live creative efforts by good teachers! Some of the work may be challenging; I seem to notice that all the noun declensions come at once at the end of the second fable. And there is a full plan of the verb and its parts by the end of the third fable. The fables chosen are good standard ones, beginning with "The Fox and the Mask," GA, "The Man and the Statue," GGE, and "The Stag and the Vine." The tableaux present grammar charts. There is at the beginning a preface by Emile Bréhier and a letter from Emile Chambry. At the end there is an appendix on the Greek alphabet and then a helpful T of C that sets out the nineteen fables and the grammar learned with each of them. This book would be fun to teach or to learn from.

1935 Make and Make-Believe. by Arthur I. Gates and Miriam Blanton Huber. Illustrated by George M. Richards. NY: MacMillan Company. See 1930/35.

1935 Minor Latin Poets, Volume II. With an English Translation by J. Wight Duff and Arnold M. Duff. The Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. See 1934/35/82.

1935 Teeny-Weeny's Own Fables. Humphrey Milford. Mrs. Herbert Strang. Hardbound. Oxford: The Teeny Weeny Books: Oxford University Press. £24.99 from Kate Norris, Clitheroe, Lancashire, UK, through eBay, Sept., '12.

This is a mini-book, about 2¾" x 3½". Its covers are of sturdy cardboard; they picture two mice encountering each other, surely the town and country mice, to judge from their dress. The book presents twenty-four fables with plenty of black-and-white illustrations. One of my favorites here, both for its telling and its illustration, is "The Bald Knight." Apparently the series of Teeny-Weeny books was large. Fourteen other books are listed on the first pages of this book. 

1935? The "A.L." Bright Story Readers, Grade I: Aesop's Fables (A selection).  W.H. Webster.  24th Edition.  Pamphlet.  Leeds, Glasgow, & Belfast: The "A.L." Bright Story Readers, #14:  E.J. Arnold & Son.  £1.60 from BookMangos, France, Nov., '23.

Here is an ephemeral find!  Canvas covers a two-string pamphlet 5½" x 7¼" with 31 + 2 pages.  Its ten fables are complemented by four unsigned full-page black-and-white illustrations.  Perhaps the best of these is MSA (12).  Paragraphs in each story are numbered, no doubt to help beginning readers.  I do not notice any three-syllable words.  The back cover lists three levels of readers, suitable for children 5 to 9 years of age.  I am happy to rescue this piece!

1935 The Mammoth Wonder Book for Children. Edited by John R. Crossland and J.M. Parrish. Over 450 illustrations by well-known artists. London: Odhams Press Ltd. $10 from Greg Williams, May, '92.

Mammoth indeed! There is so much stuff in this book! Among it there are six fables on 699-704. The Rountree illustrations are witty and well-preserved. The book has a variety of fetching illustration styles. T of C at the front.

1935 The Tortoise and the Hare. Story and Illustrations by the Staff of the Walt Disney Studios. Philadelphia: David McKay Company. $17.50 at Renaissance Airport, Sept., '94.

Max Hare looks very much like Bugs Bunny in this early Disney sideways hardbound book. We plunge right into the contest day itself. The first scene suggests a boxer's garb and entourage. Max pretends to sleep in order to play a joke on Toby Tortoise. The most telling illustration in this book is for me the scene at Miss Cottontail's Boarding School, where Max stops to wow the long-eyelashed bunnies with prodigious (and impossible) athletic feats. Max catches up, but Toby wins by sticking out his neck at the last moment. Asked how he has done it, Toby proclaims in part "If you do your best why you're bound to win...." Max hails the new champ and so is cheered too and hoisted onto the crowd's shoulders. The book is unfortunately much pencilled and crayoned. I first saw it at Midway ten or fifteen years ago. What a surprise to find it in five minutes before a plane!

1935 The Tortoise and the Hare. Story and Illustrations by the Staff of the Walt Disney Studios. Story and Illustrations by the Staff of the Walt Disney Studios. Hardbound. Racine: Whitman Publishing Company. $41 from Joseph Gasperov, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA, through Ebay, Nov., '00. Extra copy in good condition for $80 from Greg Williams, June, '95.

At first this edition looks exactly like that from David McKay of the same year. But there are some clear differences. See my comments there and then note these differences. The biggest is that there is no aftermath of the race. This book stops at 43 of the other, which continues on through 48. And so two of the moments I find most objectionable in Disney's version disappear: Toby no longer proclaims "If you do your best why you're bound to win...." and Max does not regain the spotlight by hailing Toby as champ. This book is not paginated. The McKay colored frontispiece is dropped; instead there is the black-and-white scene of the girls admiring Max as they sit atop the schoolyard wall. (That colored picture of both contestants and their entourages at the starting line is never regained in this edition.) Several times this edition exchanges the places of text and picture pages. The black-and-white picture of Toby passing Max (Disney 19) is not included in this version. The after-tennis picture of Max (Disney 31) is not colored here. The McKay edition inserts a copyright page and a Rudy Raccoon starter-page; Whitman juxtaposes him and Toby on both sets of endpapers. Fortunately, this book is in much better condition in both my copies, both of which I will keep in the collection.

1935 The World About Us. By Charles J. Anderson. Hardbound. The Good Companion Books III. Chicago: Laurel Book Company. $4 from Renaissance Book Shop, Milwaukee, Jan., '98.

This children's reader contains one fable, "The Cat, the Monkey, and the Chestnuts" (209-10). This becomes a flattery story. Even after the cat burns a paw, she goes back to get more nuts out of the fire. An exercise after the fable asks the student to put sentences from the story into the proper order. There is a very good two-colored illustration for this fable as well as an initial picturing the monkey.

1935 Un ancêtre de La Fontaine.  Henri Pellier.  Illustrations by Clérice Frères.  Pamphlet.  Paris: Les Livres Roses pour la Jeunesse #620: Larousse.  €2 from Brussels, next to Gallery Bortier, August, '18. 

This fragile booklet presents fifteen fables which La Fontaine took from the fables of Bidpai, as Pellier's brief preface points out.  The pamphlet begins surprisingly with two pages of lists of winners of prizes sponsored by "Livres Roses."  Most fables receive either a monochrome or duochrome (orange and black) illustration, either part-page or full.  The illustrations include some unusual touches.  The bear tending to the gardener faces a whole swarm of flies (10).  The string connecting frog and mouse is quite long (21).  This fragile pamphlet carries a story.  After several tries at finding Gallery Bortier recommended to me by Jesuits in Brussels, I found it.  Near this well-known gallery was a shop full of old books and tended by an elderly couple.  The man had a distinct limp.  He fetched a rather standard La Fontaine, which our collection did not need.  He took time to find this pamphlet priced at €2; he mentioned wistfully that he had kept it for years.  It is unusual in presenting only this segment of La Fontaine inspired by Bidpai.  It was a touching moment, as though, among all those books, he had kept this pamphlet for an occasion like this.  I was delighted to find something in my kind of old bookshop!  And I was even more delighted to be part of the connection between long-time collector and aged seller!

1935? A Book of Fables. Pictures by Jack Orr (NA). Hardbound. Printed in Great Britain. London: Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd. £4.75 from Abbey Antiquarian, June, '99.

This inexpensive book with an illustration of the wolf playing a horn for the lamb on its boards cover turns out to represent the plates used in my apparent first edition of Jack Orr's "Aesop's Fables," which I have listed under "1927?" Please see my extensive comments there, especially on the best of Orr's black-and-white illustrations. There is only one colored illustration here: the frontispiece, "The Thieves and the Cook." Someone has written "FABL" in heavy ink on the cover. If the outside of this book is in only fair condition, the inside is in very good condition.

1935? A Book of Fables.  Pictures by Jack Orr (NA).  Hardbound.  Printed in Great Britain.  London: Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd.  £18 from Stella and Rose's Books, Tintern and Hay-on-Wye, Nov., '14.  

This book is identical with another in the collection except for a few features.  Like that book, it uses the plates used in my apparent first edition of Jack Orr's "Aesop's Fables," which I have listed under "1927?"  Please see my extensive comments there, especially on the best of Orr's black-and-white illustrations.  There is here, as there, only one colored illustration: the frontispiece, "The Thieves and the Cook."  Both books are 96 pages long.  The three differences I find in the two books are these.  First, this book uses MSA for its simple three-colored front cover.  Secondly, it shifts to the page facing the T of C page here what was on the last page there, namely a list of books in the series.  The list has expanded from seven to nine.  Thirdly, this book has perhaps the thickest pages I have encountered.  That book was slightly less than ¾" thick.  This book is well over 1" thick.

1935? Aesop's Fables. Paperbound. St. Paul, MN: Brown & Bigelow. #7226. $4.99 from Sue Stubblefield on eBay, March, '05.

Seven fables are offered here in a deteriorating pamphlet. LM, "The Hare and the Rooster," "Father and Son Bear," "The Monkey and the Bananas," "The Little Boy and the Crocodile," "The Fox and the Bear," and "The Chicken and the Duckling," (The titles are mine.) Several of these are new fables to me. Apparently this is an advertising pamphlet put out by the Life and Casualty Insurance Company of Tennessee, Nashville. They add some of their own aphorisms on the back cover, "Start youth on the right road through systematic saving" and (this--or perhaps all?--from Ben Franklin) "If youth but knew what age would crave, many a penny youth would save." I am delighted to have found this ephemeral piece!

1935? Aesop's Fables. Editor (James) and illustrator (Tenniel) not acknowledged. NY: Grosset & Dunlap. See 1848/1935?.

1935? Aesop's Fables. No author acknowledged. Illustrations by Elsie M. Kroll. Front and back cover illustrations by J.W. Wenge. Racine: Whitman Publishing Company. $4 at Willow Creek, Englewood, Colorado, March, '94. Extra copy with some pencilling for $20 from Linda Haun, Utica, PA, 6/00, through Ebay.

An oversized pamphlet with cardboard covers. The fables inside are listed on the cover. The front (mother and child pig) and back (piper and pig) cover illustrations seem to have nothing to do with Aesop. Each of the twelve fables gets one page for its fable and its one colored (blue and orange) illustration, except for the last two, which are only black-and-white. In GA, the grasshopper starves and dies. In SW, there is a nice graphic anthropomorphisation of the wind grabbing the cloak. In DS, there is a girl pulling the dog's tail while the action is going on. As so often, the store owner had forgotten that he had this book on his shelves.

1935? Aesop's Fables. Edited by Christine Campbell Thomson. Hardbound. Printed in Great Britain. London: Herbert Joseph Ltd. £ 0.95 from Spencer Smart, literarynation.com, UK, through EBay, Oct., '03.

Fifty-two fables in a small-format book (3¾" x almost 5½"). The frontispiece is a simple colored presentation of FS. Morals are italicized. The book's condition is fair. There are no surprises here!

1935? Aesop's Fables. Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius. Pamphlet. Printed in USA. Girard, Kansas: Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 44: Haldeman-Julius Company. $3 from Jon Hoyt, Bristol, NY, through Ebay, June, '99. Extra copy a gift from Susie Carlson, Dec., '98.

I list this booklet separately from my other copy of Haldeman-Julius #44. For starters, its cover has changed. The title there was "Aesop's Fables for Children" and now it is simply "Aesop's Fables." Inside the title was "Famous Fables of Aesop" and now it is again "Aesop's Fables." The series was "Little-Blue-Book," whereas here it is "Ten Cent Pocket Series." The number (#44) of this booklet in the series has remained the same. The title decoration does not appear here. The booklet is now 96 pages long, not 64. And the advertisements on the back cover are not for "Childern's Games" [sic] but for the Haldeman-Julius monthly magazine Life and Letters and the weekly, Haldeman-Julius Weekly. A quick check says that these texts are from James. Notice that I list separately under this same year another generation of the same book, different especially in its series.

1935? Aesop's Fables. E. Haldeman-Julius. Pamphlet. Printed in USA. Girard, Kansas: Little Blue Book No. 44: Haldeman-Julius Company. $10.50 from Forrest Byrd, Mesa, AZ, through Ebay, Oct., '99. Extra copy for $5 from Tom Rothe, Neenah, WI, through Ebay, April, '00.

I make yet another listing for this form of Haldeman-Julius' Aesop's Fables because it differs slightly from the Hoyt and Carlson copies listed under the same title and year. The series name has shifted particularly on the cover--from "Ten Cent Pocket Series" to "Little Blue Book" (though the series name stays the same on the title-page). The advertising has been removed from the back cover. See my comments also under the same year and the title Famous Fables of Aesop.

1935? Aesop's Fables: The Wolf and the Crane and Other Stories. Paperbound. London: Mellifont Press Limited. $4.69 from John Staley, South Yorkshire, UK, through abe, March, '03.

The back cover of this children's booklet advertises sixteen books in a series whose title is too long to fit into my database categories: "Famous Tales of Andersen, Grimm, etc.: Children's Fairy Tales." This is T16 in that series. A dramatic colored presentation of WC is at the center of the cover, surrounded by various fairyland figures and scenes. The booklet's 48 pages present over fifty fables, several with a simple design. Thus there is a picture of a standing stag on 13; unfortunately, the fable there is about the sick stag lying on the ground! An Arab and camel on 29 face the story about them on 28. Flies gather around the honey pot on 45. Most of the fables feature explicit separate morals after the narrative. The front cover has separated for about an inch at both top and bottom. Otherwise good condition.

1935? Aisopiske Fabler.  Tekst ved Niels Moller.  Litografier af Karen Lis-Jacobsen.  Hardbound.  Copenhagen: Rasmus Naver.  DK 250 from Vangsgaards Antikvariat, Copenhagen, August, '14.  

Here is a new candidate for the largest-format book in the collection: 13½" x 18½".  This book presents eight fables after a great title-page that has Aesop of the Greek drinking cup interacting with animals.  That drinking cup is reproduced on the title-page.  The fables presented here include a wolf fable, FK, the bird wounded with an arrow, FC, "The Hares and the Frogs," OR, and "The Peacock and the Crane."  In several cases, two pages facing each other give two telling moments of the same fable; as far as I can tell, that is the case in OR.  The back cover is detached; in fact, nothing hangs together in this now portfolio.  The closing T of C makes clear that eight fables are presented here.  I can find only seven.  The title-page is the best of these super-sized illustrations, I believe.

1935? Der Wettlauf zwischen Hase und Swinegel. Brüder Grimm. Mit farbigen Bildern von Wolfgang Felten. Hardbound. Potsdam: Deutsche Volks- und Kunstmärchen: Rütten & Loening Verlag. €12 from Antiquariat Ihring, Berlin, August, '07.

Here is the second lovely rendition of this beloved story that I found in one visit to Antiquariat Ihring. This version, like the other from Hübener Verlag in 1947, places the race on the Buxtehuder Heide (22). The special gift of this edition lies in its fourteen carefully executed color illustrations. None of the characters here is clothed, although the lead hedgehog does smoke a long-stemmed pipe. The illustration on the very first page of text shows Grandfather narrating the story. As he does so, he blows "smoke-rings" of the hedgehog and hare (9). The illustration of the hedgehog family is particularly endearing (16). One of the children rides a miniature hobby-horse. The image of the heath on 18 gives a good visual clue as to the hedgehog's ploy. In the second-to-last illustration, one of the hedgehogs pops open a bottle of beer. Unfortunately, the pages are separating from the spine. I guess at a date of 1935 because the book is printed in Fraktur Gothic script. The title-page is even one step harder to decipher, since it uses what I think we should call handwritten Fraktur.

1935? Fables de La Fontaine. No illustrator acknowledged. Fuerth (Allemagne): G. Loewensohn. £12.5 at Great Russell Street Books, London, Aug., '88.

Done in Germany in French and sold across from the British Museum! An unusual format urges kids to color in the line-drawings next to the eight colored pictures! Though simple, these are nice--including the lively cover. Is it worth the price I paid? The coloring changes on regular pages: blue, green, red. There are nice borders made up of summary pictures.

1935? Fables de la Fontaine: Album: Premiere Série.  I, Roullier.  Paperbound.  Paris:  Editions Senefo.  $9.99 from nittanyrules on Ebay, August, '18.

Here is a curious find.  It is a pamphlet of 20 pages, 8¼" x 10½".  It presents ten La Fontaine fables with lovely two-colored illustrations.  Each fable illustration is a full left-hand page in two colors.  The right-hand page begins the text with an exquisite initial.  The booklet with its one staple at the center is well worn.  The colors are strong and the designs even stronger.  To my surprise, one of them -- FS in purple and black -- shows up on Pinterest as a fabric pattern.  That is the only clue I can find to Roullier.  The only clue to Senefo is an Etsy offer of a children's booklet dated to the 1930's.  OF in green is on the cover.  Other fables presented include MM; TT; WL; TH; LM; "Le Laboureur et ses Enfants"; OF in blue; "Le chat, la Belette et le petit Lapin"; "Les Voleurs et l'Âne"; and FC.  There is a last little design of MM on the back cover.

1935? Fables de La Fontaine, Album No. 1.  Paperbound.  Jarville-Nancy: Imageries Réunies de Jarville-Nancy.  €15.90 from vali51000 through Ebay, Dec., '21.

This booklet represents one of those great moments in collecting.  Nineteen years ago I found Album No. 2 of the fables of La Fontaine by Imageries Réunies de Jarville-Nancy, which I take to have been a major competitor of Pelerin of Épinal.  I wrote at the end of my comment "Of course the 'Album No. 2' marking makes me want to find Album No. 1!"  Now here is Album No. 1!  It is well worn, but its pictures still have brilliant color.  Like its partner, it has fifteen fables, each with the left-hand page devoted to La Fontaine's text and the right-hand page to a brightly colored illustration with a four-line frame.  As I wrote then, the illustrations are somewhere between André Hellé and Pellerin: not as simple in conception or line as the former, not as elegant as the latter.  The black-and-white title-page illustration, signed "A. Gaillard," is identical in the two booklets.  Among the best of the illustrations is that wisely chosen for the cover.  Perrette looks off with her hands in her pockets.  Nicely matching her is the man in the next illustration just bitten by the ant who had been saved by the dove.  Nicely exaggerated is the illustration for the frogs suffering from too much sun.  Hooray!  See now the set of 30 handbills presenting these same fables.

1935? Fables de La Fontaine, Album No. 2. Paperbound. Printed in France. Imageries Réunies de Jarville-Nancy. $19.99 from Michel Lanteigne, Montreal, August, '03.

This is a well crafted pamphlet with fifteen fables, each with the left-hand page devoted to La Fontaine's text and the right-hand page to a brightly colored illustration. The latter are somewhere between André Hellé and Épinal Pellerin: not as simple in conception or line as the former, not as elegant as the latter. The black-and-white title-page illustration is signed "A. Gaillard," but there is no indication whether Gaillard did the following fifteen colored illustrations. The most active of the illustrations may be TH, which also appears less well done on the front cover. The tortoise is sipping champagne with the bottle lying at his feet, the judge--another hare!--smokes a cigar at the finishing line, and a third hare sits creating either a newspaper headline or a poster. The following illustration of TMCM is also highly active. Inscribed in 1937. The cover is marked "A.F. 32." Of course the "Album No. 2" marking makes me want to find Album No. 1!  See now the set of 30 handbills presenting these same fables.

1935? Fables de La Fontaine: Livre II. No illustrator acknowledged. Hachette. $6 at Straat, Amsterdam, Dec., '88.

A large-format, lively-pictured children's book in terrible shape. This sixteen-page booklet is unusual in that four of the seven LaFontaine fables it presents are little known.

1935? Fables et Rimes pour mes petits-enfants.  R. Saillens.  Illustrated by Dudley Heath, Nellie Benson, and others; cover by Felix Lorioux.  Paperbound.  Nogent-sur-Marne: Éditions  Rayon de Soleil.  €10 from Clignancourt Flea Market, July, '17.

Here is a 40-page pamphlet with cardboard covers.  On the cover, a cat walks across the peak of a pointed ceiling while the moon watches.  The fables, ranging from one to four pages long, come from a variety of sources and have a variety of illustrators and illustration styles.  The texts are all in verse, though the fables handled by La Fontaine are not in his verses here.  The subjects range from "a boy falling backwards off of a pier because the fish on his line got free" to "tea for tadpoles."  Dudley Heath signs his illustrations for TH and FS.  As far as I can tell, the verses in these two cases ask us to think the situations through.  Do not procrastinators often in life win the prize?  Will not the fox eat his avenging stork hostess?  A lesson-teaching father finds his boys learning into a crate of oranges; he flips them in, closes the cover, sits on it, and reads his paper.  Late in the pamphlet, we get to watch a rat who fed too well slim himself down lest he get eaten.

1935? Fables from Aesop Compliments of Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup. Pamphlet. No acknowledgement of editor, artist, or publisher. $14.50 from Thomas W. Seigler, Greensboro, NC, through Ebay, April, '99.

This is a mid-size (5 1/2" x 7 1/2") pamphlet of twelve pages containing ten large sepia illustrations, each above a fable, a moral, and a comment on Mrs. Winslow's syrup. The patterns for the earliest illustrations here come from stock trade cards advertising J. & P. Coats spool cotton and other products: "The Swan and the Goose," TH, GGE, "The Fighting Cocks and the Eagle," CP, FC, and OF. Three of the images seem rather to be modeled upon someone like Rountree: "The Dog and the Hare," "The Kid and the Wolf," and FG. Alas, I cannot find similar illustrations in Rountree yet! There is a great quotation on the back from a young mother: "Grandmother used it for her babies,/Mother used it for her babies, and now/I am using it for my baby." A space is reserved at the bottom of the back cover "for Druggist's Rubber Stamp."

1935? Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks. Adapted from the French of La Fontaine. Written by W.T. Larned. Illustrated by John Rae. Chicago: P.F. Volland Co. See 1918/35?.

1935? Famous Fables of Aesop. (Cover: Aesop's Fables for Children.) Little-Blue-Book No. 44. Girard, Kansas. $20 from Turtle Island, Aug., '94.

There are sixty-four pages of fables in this little pamphlet. No T of C or AI; no art except the black-and-white elephant, trainer, and mouse on the cover. The inside back cover is an advertisement for booklets under the heading "Childern's Games" (sic). These Little-Blue-Books cost $1 for ten.

1935? Hitopadesa: The Book of Wholesome Counsel. A Translation from the original Sanskrit by Francis Johnson, revised and in part re-written by Lionel D. Barnett. With a frontispiece by Cynthia Kent. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Printed in Great Britain. NY: Frederick A. Stokes Company. $30 from Hollis Bedell, Bookseller, Windsor, PA, through ABE, Dec., '00.

This book in excellent condition starts with a very sensible introduction by Lionel Barnett. The T of C then includes all the fables by title and page number. The quoted verses here are all done in italics. Fables begin only at the top of a page. This edition uses footnotes, so that one does not have to page back and forth to notes in the back of the book. This version is more explicit than some about the sexual exploitation of the young merchant's wife by the prince (60). The merchant has brought her after supplying only one other woman for the prince's month of religious one-nighters. Likewise, this version is clear about the monkey's dangling testicles and his death in the story of his imitating the carpenter and removing the wedge (70). It is clear here that only one mouse bothered the lion in Damanaka's cunning story about keeping rulers worried and so shaping a place for oneself as minister to that worry. The lion fed a cat whenever he heard the mouse make noise. After the cat finally killed the mouse, the lion forgot about feeding the cat (83). The point: "A master ought never to be made free from cares." Here it is a "bawd" that solves the problem of the bell rung by the monkeys (86). Sajivaka the bull's appointment to oversee provisions leads to a "remissness in serving out provisions to the underlings" (90) and so motivates the cruel plotting of Damanaka and Karataka. The ploy of the herdsman's wife is clear here (97). Making love with the magistrate's son, she is interrupted by the arrival of the magistrate, another lover of hers, and so she sends the son into a cupboard. When her husband brings a new interruption, she urges the magistrate to leave quickly while pretending anger. She explains to her husband that the magistrate came seeking his runaway son, whom she had hidden so that he would be safe from his father's anger. Thus she got one of her problems to solve the other. It takes Damanaka only one visit to each antagonist to set them at odds with one another. He needs then only one line to prepare the lion for the bull's visit (112). Damanaka sets the lion at ease from his remorse after killing the bull, but the version goes no further into the future, e.g., to describe Damanaka's role. In "War," the third chapter, the two kingdoms set against each other feature Flamingo as king of the water-birds living on Karpura, with a crane as messenger or scout and a goose or duck Chakravaka as prime minister. The crane reports on the enemy, led by the peacock Chitra-varna with his prime minister the vulture and a parrot who serves as ambassador to the water-birds. Here the wheelwright raises on his head the couch with his wife and her lover and dances about with the couch on his head (129-30)! Chakravakra thinks that the crane has caused an unnecessary disturbance by shooting off his mouth; he thus wants to send someone to deal with the peacock. Strangely, he recommends the erring crane with another crane as ambassadors or spies. Chakravakra further counsels patient entry into war and preparation in the meantime of the fortress by Sarasa the Indian crane. The suspected spy, the crow, shows up at the water-bird court and is admitted. Chitra-varna attacks soon, against the vulture's advice. The water-birds attack them en route and win a battle. The peacock repents not listening to his vulture minister and pledges to listen to him now. In a tough battle, the crows burn the water-birds' fortress. The flamingo can escape with some injuries only because Sarasa protects him with his own life against the opposing general cock, whom Sarasa kills before dying himself. "Peace," the fourth chapter, can be the toughest to follow in the Hitopadesa, but it is clearly presented here. The flamingo learns through his minister the goose that the crows were responsible for burning the city. In the meantime, the peacock thinks of putting the traitorous crow in charge of the newly acquired water-bird island of Karpura. His advisor the vulture speaks strongly against that plan. The vulture advises instead that they withdraw back to their own country. They should make peace and retire, since the enemy's castle is demolished, and the peacock's realm has won fame. The peacock is not quite ready to accept this advice, so the water-birds stir up secession in a third territory, Ceylon. At last the vulture can prevail upon the peacock king to make peace, and the vulture himself comes to the water-birds to forge the agreement. The presentation helps to confirm that the Hitopadesa is well read as a guide for ministers, who are the real players here. Kings are stupid, petty, and easy to manipulate. The frontispiece, the only illustration, is a white-on-black collection of animals.

1935? Kurze Geschichten die von Tieren berichten. Mit Bildern von Rolf Winkler. Hardbound. Reutlingen: Ensslin & Laiblins Verlagsbuchhandlung. Gift of Gert-Jan Van Dyck from Brunnen Antiquariat, Düsseldorf, July, '95.

These are moral-heavy stories for young people. They include a mixture of fables. Among the fables are these: "Die beiden Ziegen" (10); "Vom Frosch und der Maus" (16); "Bestrafter Leichtsinn" (19); "Der Fuchs und der Rabe" (23); "Die Grille und der Schmetterling" (40); "Die zwei Sperlinge" (54); and "Die Bärenhaut" (61). In FM, the frog is introduced immediately as a "Schalk." The mouse needs help and will not get it from this frog! These stories are true to the cruelty of the fable-world. They tend to present conflict and death, and the price of winning is often high. Notice the mouse on 19 on whom a brick has fallen because he was careless with a mousetrap. Kids catch a butterfly, break his wing, and smash his head! The duochrome pictures are very nice in this simple children's book. 

1935? Lafontaine Fabeln. Deutsch von Theodor Etzel. Mit Holzschnitten von Grandville. Hardbound. Leipzig: Insel-Bücherei #185: Insel Verlag. Gift of Anne Pierro, July, '95.

Here is a lovely Insel-Library volume from, I am sure, before World War II. It has Anne's own notes on FC written into the margins (5). The original dealer was G. Delffs Buchhandlung in Pforzheim. The script of Etzel's verse translations is Gothic throughout. The colophon identifies the woodcuts of Grandville as being from "der ersten französischen Ausgabe (1842)." The first edition of Grandville's work in French was in 1838. Thank you, Anne!

1935? Märchen und Legenden aus den Gesta Romanorum. Mit holzschnitten von Axel v. Leskoschek. Leipzig: Insel-Verlag. $7.50 from Fuller and Saunders, Spring, '92.

A pleasing little book with some strong woodcuts. One offering--"Von der Vergeltung der Undankbarkeit"--conflates two fables: Aesop's story of the frozen snake and the (Indian?) fable that works off of the clever arbitrator's line "Show me just how it happened." The Gothic script makes the book hard to read. The book seems also hard to date.

1935? Nursery Rhymes and Fables. Fable section is titled "Funny Fables Retold for Children by Lena Dalkeith." Hardbound. London: Crest Series: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd. $4.99 from Pat Reid, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, June, '00.

This is a large book with very heavy pages. It is hard to believe that a book of 156 pages can be so thick! At 119, the "Fables" section begins with a title page announcing "Funny Fables Retold for Children by Lena Dalkeith." On 121 there is a T of C listing twenty-seven fables. My version of Dalkeith's work is listed under "1906/06?" and contains forty-seven fables. These texts are faithful to those, even including the gender confusion in TH (155), where the tortoise is twice referred to as male and once as female! Each fable is given one or two pages and one simple black-and-white rectangular illustration. Perhaps the best among these is that for FG (146) with the fox holding his nose high in the air. The astrologer's well (154) is very shallow!

1935? Ocht Sgealta o Aesop: Rang III, Ard-chursa, agus, Rang IV, Bun-chursa. C.S. O Fallamhain, Teo. Paperbound. Sar-Sgealta don Aos Og: Macmillan agus a Gcomhlucht, Teo. $15 from John Lenihan, Galway, Ireland, July, '02.

Gaelic readers will be able to understand more from the bibliographical data for this book than I can. I can see that it is a reader -- perhaps a school reader for the third and fourth grades? -- of some 32 pages offering eight stories. Four of the stories have full-page duochrome illustrations: MM, "Frogs from Two Places," TMCM, and LM. The blurbs on the back cover include "1934-'35," and I take that note as my clue for dating this offering. 

1935? Russkij Bukvar.  V.P. Vaxterov.  Pamphlet.  New York: Galician Bazar.  $10 from Ivo Dimov, Sofia, Bulgaria, through Ebay or at Black Swan, Oakland, CA, Dec., '17.

Here is a fascinating addition to the collection!  The cover seems to supply this information: "Russian Primer for Learning Letter and Reading Russian and Church-Slavic" and adds "By new spelling and from new illustrations."  It is published by "Galician Bazar" in New York.  So we already have reference to Galicia, a territory in Spain, Russia, and the USA.  If we check the back cover, we find this stamp: "Printed in Germany."  Wow!  As I tried to learn more about it, I found a copy advertised on the web, reprinted in 1964 for $58.  For somebody, it was valuable!  Inside one finds, after Russian alphabet learning and short poems, many fables between about 33 and 53, several of them illustrated, like LM (33); CP (46); "Monkey and Spectacles" (46); as well as "The Lion and Dog" from Tolstoy (49).  Many of these texts are marked "Basni."  The last surprise about this pamphlet is that I cannot establish whether I got it from Ivo Dimov through Ebay or I found it at Black Swan in Oakland.

1935? The Red Book of Children's Stories. No author or illustrator acknowledged. Racine: Whitman. $8 at Claudette's at Brookdale, CA, Aug., '89.

A very simple kids' book with poor paper, no page numbers, and a binding in very poor shape. Simple illustrations, some colored in. The nine fables tend to give good explanatory background before the traditional story begins. The mouse is in the lion's mouth when he gets him to laugh and he escapes. In TMCM everybody comes at once: the cat, the cook, and two dogs.

1935? The Tortoise and the Hare and other stories from Aesop's Fables retold for very young readers. Early Reader Series #43. Printed in Czechoslovakia. London: Hampster Books. $8 from By The Book, St. Louis, March, '95. Extra copies for $13.50 from Green Apple, Aug., '94, and for $5 from Delavan Booksellers, Dec., '86.

This book is perhaps more historically than artistically interesting. "The Cheating Fortune-Teller" is new to me. The wife is the real culprit in GGE. "The Comedian and the Countryman" might be the best for both story and illustrations.

1935? The Tortoise and the Hare and other stories from Aesop's Fables retold for very young readers. Hardbound. London: Early Reader Series #43: Spring Books. £10 from Stella Books, Hay-on-Wye, May, '08.

This book is exactly identifical with another done by Hampster Books, for which I have guessed the same year of 1935. Let me note the differences. "Printed in Czechoslovakia" was placed there underneath the frontispiece picturing LM; here it is on the bottom of the last page, 77. The typesetting of the page numbers changes from one book to the other; this edition's numbers and surrounding brackets are taller. This edition has no page number for 76; the Hampster edition has a number. The same pattern is true on 62. My, the curiosities one discovers when one looks! I wrote the following about the Hampster edition. This book is perhaps more historically than artistically interesting. "The Cheating Fortune-Teller" is new to me. The wife is the real culprit in GGE. "The Comedian and the Countryman" might be the best for both story and illustrations.

1935? 16 Fables Illustrées de J. de La Fontaine.  Paperbound.  Tournai, Belgium: Rimbaut Freres.  €3 from Pele-Mele, Brussels, August, '19.

This pamphlet, 5¾" x 8", features sixteen full-page orange monochrome illustrations.  For the first fifteen, the illustration takes up the left-hand page, while La Fontaine's text is on the right-hand page.  In the sixteenth case, the text of GGE is inserted in a text box in the upper right-hand corner of the picture on the pamphlet's last page.  The motifs seem common in popular presentations of La Fontaine, as in the case of GGE.  We have again here the disgruntled, disappointed farmer sitting on a bench with the dead goose held between his legs.  The illustrations are vigorous but are not great art.  The artist has difficulty with animal faces.  On the front cover, two children sit reading together in a chair.  I have trouble dating this pamphlet.  I could find no information on Rimbaut Freres except that a street in Tournai is named after them.  Here is an emphemeral object that we saved from the trash barrel and bonfire!

1935? 30 Fabeln für Kinder. Von Wilh. Hey. Mit 30 Schattenbildern von Marie Margarete Behrens. Vierte Auflage. Hardbound. Zwickau (Sachsen): Johannes Herrmann Verlag. DM 100 from Drehbuch, Frankfurt, July, '98. 

Here is a new approach to thirty of Hey's "fables," namely silhouettes presented in landscape-format. In each of the thirty cases, the text is presented on the left-hand page, with the silhouette on the right-hand page. The illustrations are successful, I believe. A typical picture might be "Knabe und Hündchen" about one-third of the way through the book. Another is "Schaukelpferd und Steckenpferd" about halfway through. The script is Gothic throughout. The script looks like something out of the 1930's, and that is about the only clue I can find for dating this very nice book.

To top

1936 - 1937

1936 A Treasure Chest of Nursery Favorites. Pictures by Margaret Evans Price and Milo Winter. Hardbound. Printed in USA. NY: Rand McNally & Company. $5.95 from The Red Wheelbarrow, Milwaukee, June, '98.

This is a lovely book in excellent condition (except for a tear on 81 and discoloration on the red cover). It is in an unusual format for Rand McNally and Milo Winter: 8" x 9¼". Besides very simple folk tales and myths, there are fourteen fables. I believe all of the illustrations come from Winter. They are in a variety of formats, including full-page colored illustrations and partial-page colored and black-and-white illustrations. They and their texts are all familiar from "The Aesop for Children." The stories included here are MM, BW, DM, DS, FC, TH, "The Swallow and the Crow," CP, "The Sheep and the Pig," GA, TMCM, LM, SW, and BC. Only MM and the two with unabbreviated titles above are not illustrated here. The partial-page colored illustrations are particularly sharp. This is a very nice find at a bookstore of whose existence I had not been aware.

1936 Aesop Said So. Hugo Gellert. Dust jacket. NY: Covici Friede. Gift of Adam Rue, May, '92. Extra copy with dust jacket for $25 at Fuller and Saunders, Jan., '92. Second copy in better condition for $40 at Turtle Island, Berkeley, Jan., '91. Another copy for $12.50 from Wordsmith, Lincoln, Dec., '93.

One of the most forceful Aesops I know. It took me ten years to find this book after I became acquainted with it at the Milwaukee Public Library. Outspokenly political like Aesop, often vicious. The point comes in the strong cartoon and the title, with Aesop's standard title and tale afterward. The strongest include "The Professional Patriot," "The Wounded Striker and the Soldier," "Father Coughlin and His Flock," and "Roosevelt and His Two Wives."

1936 Aesop's Fables.  Sir Roger L'Estrange.  Stephen Gooden.  Signed, #458 of 525.  Hardbound.  London: George Harrap.  £580 from David Brown, UK, through eBay, March, '14.

Here is one of the newest jewels of the collection.  I have looked for it for a long time, but the cost has been prohibitive and the edition very limited.  I finally found a copy and said to myself that it belongs in the collection.  I had found a similar book, perhaps an offshoot, in 2002.  It was printed at Cambridge University Press and had Gooden's lovely initials but not his frontispiece or his plates.  This copy has both  Those twelve engravings are listed on 15.  The engravings are naturally more impressive here than in the Knopf edition of 1992.  One can notice the slight red imprint left from each engraving on its facing page.  Several of the fables illustrated are among the less known, particularly "A Camel Praying for Horns" (160) and "A Cunning Woman" (170).  I could look at Gooden's engaging initials for a very long time!  The book is beautifully bound and covered, boxed, signed, and numbered.  It is a real treasure!

1936 Aesop's Fables. Roger L'Estrange. Illustrated by Stephen Gooden? #176 of 525. Hardbound. Printed in Great Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press? (London: George Harrap?). £38 from Rose's Books, Hay-on-Wye, Feb., '02.

This is an exceeding strange book. It has the basic marks of Bodemann #434.1, Gooden's classic edition of Aesop. But it lacks any Gooden illustrations beyond the excellent initials for each fable. Bodemann shows a title-page that includes a large circular portrait of Aesop; the only title-page here has merely "Aesop's Fables." The publisher of the classic Gooden Aesop is Harrap in London; there is no indication of a publisher here. There is indication of a printer on the colophon page at the end of the book: Walter Lewis at the Cambridge University Press in 1936. That colophon also mentions the copper plates, which are not here. And it lists this as #176 of 525. I have long wanted to have a copy of Gooden's work, especially for the exquisite initials. In fact, I was long ago disappointed to learn that there are not many full-page engravings in this work. This copy on 15 lists twelve engravings including the title-page, and of course they are not here. There is the requisite AI. Viewers of this book might want to compare it with the Everyman reprint of 1992. Might the printer have made a mistake and failed to interleave Gooden's engravings, including the title-page, into this work?

1936 Aesop's Fables in Rhyme. F.M. Cleveland, M.D.. Illustrated by Rowland Q. MacDowell. Signed by the author 10/18/39. Hardbound. Philadelphia: Philip R. Bucci. $75 from Jamie Eldridge, Links to the Past, through abe, Sept., '06.

This book looks like the privately published work of a devotee. The book presents eighty-two fables in rhymed verse. Perhaps a third of them are illustrated. The rhythm seems to tend heavily to anapests. I do not think that these are classic translations. I see them more as a delightful hobby. "The Hare with Many Friends" joins the canon here of Aesopic fables (101). Among the illustrations, perhaps that for "The Fisher and the Little Fish" (108) might be most typical. The illustration for OF (56) seems to me to be inspired by Heighway's work. The preface puts Phaedrus "about 400 A.D." Not in Bodemann. I am a bit surprised that I had never heard of this book before. I suspect that there are not many copies extant.

1936 Alsop's Fables.  By A.J. Talbot.  With Illustrations by Geoffrey Robinson.  Hardbound.  Printed in Great Britain.  London: Lovat Dickson Limited.  $16.61 from Gordon Evans, Aberdare, UK, through Ebay, June, '03.  

I would guess that most first-time readers, like me, read the title of this book as a misprint.  It is in fact a collection of about forty-three pieces that originally appeared in Punch.  A short announcement before the T of C claims that they are "true to the tradition that under the pretext of amusing us, a fable should enforce some useful truth or precept."  Like the work of George Ade, these stories are marked by the frequent capitalization of important words.  The first story tells of a postman who has been regularly chased by a dog.  He complains to the occupant, only to hear back that the dog is shaping him up nicely for hurdles competition.  The postman takes the suggestion and by the end of the season has won sixteen chests of cutlery in various games.  I have read the first five stories and find them pleasantly amusing jokes.  Do not miss "Phaedrus and the Affable Stranger" (83), which makes Phaedrus and Socrates contemporaries and builds from the Aesopic story that has Socrates wishing he could only fill his little house with true friends.  Here, a stranger retorts that he, a vintner, can see to that by stocking the cellar with good Falernian wine.  The sprightly illustrations, which occur at a rhythm of about one to a story, vary from partial-page drawings to full-page black-and-white cartoons with titles.

1936 Aus den Fabeln Johann Heinrich Pestalozzis. C. Englert-Faye. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. St. Gallen, Switzerland: Zollikopfer & Co. Verlag. CHF 33 from Peter Bichsel Fine Books, Zurich, April, '09.

This is a beautifully printed book, complete with dust-jacket. I have not had much of a chance to enjoy Pestalozzi's fables before. They are thoughtful and perhaps sometimes over-thought-out. Good examples here are "The Mountain and the Plain" (15). "I am higher than you" gets this answer: "Maybe, but I am everything, and you are only an exception from me." As often, Pestalozzi adds a comment that helps suggest the metaphorical upshot of the fable: the part would be so delighted to be more than the whole! A storm broke a branch from trees here and there. When the storm was over, snow began to fall -- and brought a thousand branches off the trees for every one that the storm had brought down (20). The dying lion told his confessor the goat that he would be delighted to hear that his sons would not be as bloodthirsty against other animals as he had been. The goat answered: "Be careful not to make the dying virtue of your last hour into the life virtue of your race" (116). Each fable gets one page. Rare exceptions flow over onto a second page. Each fable's title is in red. The script is Gothic. Some vocabulary is clarified on 188, and the next three pages present a T of C. On the last page (192), the editor identifies his source for the fables.

1936 Aus den Fabeln Johann Heinrich Petalozzis.  Johann Heinrich Petalozzi.  Hardbound.  St. Gallen: Schweizer Bücherfreunde.  €25 from Zentralantiquariat Leipzig, April, '24.

I catalogued this book carefully and then found that we had apparently acquired a copy fifteen years earlier.  Now I have compared and found two surprises.  It is internally the same book, though the publisher has changed from Zollikopfer & Co. to Schweizer Bücherfreunde, both in St. Gallen.  Secondly, this copy has not the dust-jacket and embossed cloth cover of the Zollikopfer copy, but rather a leather binding and boards with a crisscross pattern.  I will keep the remarks I put together on this copy; they may be somewhat different from my earlier remarks.  This is an attractive leather-spined volume of 192 pages.  It is our eighth book of Pestalozzi's fables.  Like others, it has the interior title "Figuren zu meinem ABC-Buch oder zu den Anfangsgründen meines Denkens."  That page is followed by "Die Veranlassung dieses Buchs."  I believe Pestalozzi here is making a claim for reflectivity: "How do I perceive an object differently from the way any other animal on earth perceives it?"  I tried several new fables after reviewing those commented on in the other seven volumes.  "Sonne und Mond" seems to me to say that, the smaller you are, the more you focus on the weaknesses of others.  A farmer father answers his child, who complains about clouds obscuring the blue sky: "What do you have from a blue sky, while clouds are for us a blessing from heaven."  Monkey spouses notice the peacefulness of an ox grazing beneath them.  He asks her why they, a more dignified species, go flying around in trees.  Her answer: "We apes are more dignified, but we are more apes than we are dignified."  Pestalozzi remains for me more a thought-challenger than a storyteller.

1936 Blätter der Vorzeit: Dichtungen aus der morgenländischen Sage (Jüdische Dichtungen und Fabeln). Johann Gottfried Herder. Mit einem Nachwort von Fritz Bamberger. Hardbound. Berlin: Bücherei des Schocken Verlags #60: Schocken Verlag. €16 from Antiquariat am Ballplatz, Mainz, July, '07.

A cursory look at this book suggests that most of the stories grow straight out of scripture. Some are nice developments of scriptural stories, like "Der Rabe Noahs" (34) and "Die Taube Noahs" (35). These texts use some imagination to dig behind the text we know. Some texts later in this little volume of 91 pages show more typical characteristics of fables. "Der frühe Tod" (82) is a good example. A girl hesitates to break the stem of roses to use them to make the crown she needs. She comes back at noon to find the loveliest roses eaten by the worm. Those the worm misses are weakened by too long in the sun. Werder interprets the story by saying that God calls his dearest children out of life early. "Die Rose unter Dornen" (84) is another example of a more standard fable. The rose here tells the young man that his enemies are like the rose's thorns: they do not prick, they protect the rose, and they give it juice. The man goes away, "his soul a chalice of gratitude for -- his enemies." There is a listing of the first fifty-nine members of the "Bücherei des Schocken Verlags" at the end of the book. The only place where one learns that this is #60 is on the front cover. 

1936 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. See 1924/36.

1936 Die Fabel von der Grille und der Ameise.  W. vom Asmuth.  Illustrated by Heinz Kopsch.  Paperbound.  Berlin: Meissner & Buch GmbH: Iduna-Germania.  €17.66 from Gebrauchtbücherlogistik H. J. Lauterbach, Wuppertal, Germany, Oct., '17.

Here is 16-page, landscape-formatted booklet (7½" x 6") dedicated by Iduna-Germania Insurance "to our little and big friends for entertainment and stimulus as a sign of solidarity."  The lettering is lovely and the five full-page colored cartoonlike illustrations delightful.  The story, described in the colophon as after La Fontaine, takes a rather different turn at its conclusion.  When the grasshopper goes through the snow to ask the ant for food, the ant is already deep under the earth with his children and cannot even hear the grasshopper knocking.  When spring comes, the ant goes out to say hello to his neighbor but finds him lying frozen and starved to death in a dark corner of his flimsy summer home.  The moral?  "Let us be like the ant!  A useful care is precaution; the best precaution is insurance from Iduna-Germania."  Of course!  Insurance is the real meaning of this fable!  Besides a simple staple in the middle, there is a strong binding through two holes punched into the left portion of the cover and succeeding pages.  This is a great ephemeral find!

1936 Fables: Aesop and Others.  Ernest Rhys.  Hardbound.  London/NY: Everyman's Library for Young People:  London: J.M. Dent/NY: E.P. Dutton.  See 1913/36.

1936 Fables Choisies de La Fontaine et Florian (Cover: Fables Choisies de La Fontaine).  Canvas bound.  Liège, Belgium: Gordinne.  €25 from a Buchinist, Paris, July, '19.

Here is a volume squarely in the tradition of Gordinne Publishing.  Our collection now has perhaps a half-dozen of these publications with typically poor bindings; colorful front covers; differences between cover title and title-page title; alternating colored and monochrome illustrations; wide variation in styles, especially among the monochrome illustrations; and confusing pagination pulling together seemingly separate books, often of 16 or 32 pages.  The cover illustration here has the jug of milk not only falling from the milkmaid's head but wetting a rooster's tail.  She is colorful in dress, with striped stockings; her surprised posture is highly animated.  The cover title here is "Fables Choisies de La Fontaine," while the title-page has "Fables Choisies de La Fontaine et Florian."  The biggest surprise in this copy is the consistent pagination from 1 to 198.  CW here (5) is a colored version of the broom-wielding woman found in other Gordinne copies in monochrome.  The canvas spine is better preserved here than in any of the other Gordinne copies, and the book is in general the best copy we have of Gordinne's unusual work.  The final page gives a firm date of 1936 for the book.

1936 Fables de Florian. Illustrées par Benjamin Rabier. Canvas-bound. Paris: Librairie Garnier Frères. $35 from Dany Wolfs, Roeselare, Belgium, Nov., '00.

Here is an oversized canvas-bound book in very poor condition. "Canvas-bound" is an exaggeration because most of the canvas has disappeared. I keep the book in the collection because I have no other Rabier rendition of Florian's fables. He is worth having in any condition! The style is Rabier's familiar style, alternating monochrome pairs of pages with highly colored pairs. The text usually appears in the middle of the page, surrounded by satiric and playful cartoon snapshots of scenes from the fable. Even in their poor condition here, the illustrations are delightful. I enjoy for example: "The Blind and the Lame" (8); "The Young Hen and the Old Fox" (16), especially the contrast between the sedate picture of the fox entering the hen-coup and all its inhabitants streaming out; the attack of a dog on a fox who thinks he will encounter a squirrel (29); and the monkey who cannot crack a nut (32). Watch out on 25 when lions and foxes shake hands! The monkey's theater-crowd in green-and-white on 14 is also excellent, as are the purple-and-white images of the rabbit stuck by a hedgehog on 21. Most of us find it hard, I suspect, to imagine an ass playing a flute, but Rabier can do it for us (43)!

1936 Fables de Florian.  Illustrées par Benjamin Rabier.  Canvas-bound.  Paris: Librairie Garnier Frères.  $185 from Librairie de l'Avenue, Saint-Ouen, May, ‘21.  

Until now we have had a Rabier Florian only in poor condition.  Here is a much better copy printed on heavy paper stock.  As I wrote then, Rabier is worth having in any condition!  The style is Rabier's familiar style, alternating monochrome pages with highly colored pages.  The text usually appears in the middle of the page, surrounded by satiric and playful cartoon snapshots of scenes from the fable.  The illustrations are delightful.  I enjoy for example: "The Blind and the Lame" (8); "The Young Hen and the Old Fox" (16), especially the contrast between the sedate picture of the fox entering the hen-coup and all its inhabitants streaming out; the attack of a dog on a fox who thinks he will encounter a squirrel (29); and the monkey who cannot crack a nut (32).  Watch out on 25 when lions and foxes shake hands!  The monkey's theater-crowd in green-and-white on 14 is also excellent, as are the purple-and-white images of the rabbit stuck by a hedgehog on 21.  Most of us find it hard, I suspect, to imagine an ass playing a flute, but Rabier can do it for us (43)!  Canvas-bound.

1936 Fables de Mon Jardin. Georges Duhamel. Trente-Unième Édition. Hardbound. Paris: Mercure de France. $13.49 from yamahadale 123, August, '11.

First published in 1936. Here is a copy from 1936, and it is already the thirty-first printing! This copy is beautifully bound with a leather spine and marbled boards. It is inscribed in 1936. I am disappointed not to find Duhamel in The Fabulists French. As I wrote of my 1946 copy, there are eighty fables here on 229 pages, followed by a T of C. I tried about four or five of the fables. They really are about the garden, and they are fables. They tend to be highly reflective, I think. They do not seem to work particularly off of traditional models. Duhamel was known for his atheism and compassion. It is frustrating for me to be close to good literature like this and not be able to track it well linguistically. 

1936 Forty Famous Stories. A Silent Reader with Speed and Comprehension Tests. By H.A. Mertz. Chicago: Hall and McCreary Company. $.98 at Half-Priced Books, Des Moines, April, '93.

About half of the forty-two stories here are Aesopic fables nicely expanded from their simple form, with questions on each selection at the end of the book and simple black-and-white illustrations for about half. Martha Freudenberger is the reteller for many of the fables. Nicely expanded from Aesop is, e.g., "The Owl and the Grasshopper" (#6). "The Stork and the Cranes" becomes "The Parrot and the Crows"(#18). New to me is the story of the three-legged rat (#20) who lost a leg in a trap. In "The Honest Woodsman" (#27), just the hand and axe appear out of the water in both the text and illustration; the voice "seems to come from the water."

1936 Funny-folk Fables: Tales of Long Ago. Illustrated by Priscilla Pointer. Pamphlet. Printed in USA. Springfield, MA: McLoughlin Brothers, Inc. $33.75 from Pat Mangano, Pennsauken, NJ, Feb., '00. Extra copy from an unknown source.

This is a very large format pamphlet (14½" x 9¾"). The twelve fables here are taken from those of Peter Parley (my copy is dated 1836), which I happened to have read yesterday! They are "The Pig in the Parlor," "The Caterpillar and the Rook," "The Frog and his Neighbors," "The Bees and the Drones," "The Angry Monkey," "The Cow and the Clover," "The Dog and his Master," "The Forest Trees," "The Fox and the Spaniel," "The Raven and the Cock," "The Candle and the Candlestick," and "The Falling Kite." Here the pig himself broke away to return to his sty. The angry monkey here was discomfited but not killed. The cow ate all the clover in one afternoon, and so was chided by the horse for causing himself stomach pains. And the fox got away from the angry farmer, but the spaniel did not. Only here he outlived the experience. Notice that the candle is female and the candlestick male in the visual artist's portrayal. Among the most engaging of these huge illustrations is that of the bee taking a club to a drone! The front cover has separated from the booklet. Otherwise this pamphlet is in good condition for its age. Numbered 403. I have found an extra copy that is worn but in one piece. I will keep both in the collection.

1936 Greener Pastures: A New Deal Fable of Past, Present, and Future. Howard Wolf. Dust jacket. Caldwell, Idaho: The Caxton Printers, Ltd. $22.50 through Bibliofind from Bookworm & Silverfish, Wytheville, VA, Oct., '97.

This is a political satire on the New Deal. I lasted two scenes, given mostly to satirizing the alphabet soup of government organizations that FDR created. Other than demonstrating one of the uses to which the word "fable" has been put, I am not sure of the value of this item….

1936 Hindu Fairy Tales.  Dewan Sharar.  Illustrated by Ernest Aris.  Apparent first printing.  Hardbound.  London: George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd.  $23.38 from Mad Hatter Books, Auckland, New Zealand, through ABE, March, '16.

The thirty-five stories presented here are taken from the Panchatantra, Ramayana, and Mahabharata.  There are some twelve full-page colored illustrations listed at the front, and there are frequent smaller black-and-white illustrations scattered in the text.  I recognize several of the stories. "The Fat Mouse" (13).  It is a sequence story.  The mouse has to ask perhaps eight parties to get the help that she wants.  Her problem was that she had eaten too much to get through the granary hole.  "The Jackal and the Drum" (19) is quickly told.   Readers of the "Panchatantra" will notice two differences, however.  First, these stories are told individually rather than in some organized whole.  And the drum is a favorite possession of this jackal.  A sniff of its parchment's odor leads him to destroy what he has enjoyed.  I guess that perhaps the first eight stories are fables.  "The Jackal and the Camel" (35); "The Faithful Mongoose" (41); and "The Jar of Barley-Meal" (43) are standard offerings that I recognize.  The blue cloth front cover sports apparently a single running figure with two heads and four arms!

1936 Im Reich der Fabel: German Animal Fables. Selected and Edited, with Introduction and Vocabulary. By Edmund P. Kremer. Hardbound. Leipzig: Emil Rohmkopf. $3.95 from Powell's, Portland, June, '03.

This is a book of texts for second and third year German classes. It is unusual, I believe, in that it is edited by a professor at Oregon but published in Leipzig. The book is organized according to twenty-four animal groups. In each group are several fables, perhaps five to seven in most cases; the book contains one hundred and twelve fables in all. Thirty-four authors are represented. A chronological listing of them follows the T of C at the beginning. There is a large vocabulary at the end, but one finds no commentary or notes on which to rely for help. Is it a surprise that in 1936 a German fable book would have the word "Reich" in its title?

1936 In the Story World.  Althea L. Clinton.  Illustrated by Fern Bisel Peat.  Hardbound.  Akron: Saalfield.  $23.80 from Burlington Antique Mall, Lincoln, NE, Dec., '14.  

Here is yet another oversized Saalfield book from the frequent combination of Clinton and Bisel Peat.  Its sixty pages or so contain four stories I would call fables: "The Hare and the Hedgehog"; TMCM; "The Greatest of All"; and FS.  The last is credited to Aesop, while TMCM is labeled "An English Story."  All but FS have pleasant black-and-white illustrations.  The book has a colored frontispiece of a young woman in a patched dress with flowers in her hand.  The first page has an ex-libris stamp saying "this is mine."  The front and back covers are identical: a goose pulls the apron from one of two children.  Someone practised his or her spelling words on the inside back-cover.

1936 Old Favorites from the McGuffey Readers. Edited by Harvey C. Minnich. NY: American Book Company. $10 at Estuary, Lincoln, NE, May, '91.

Nicely presented selected facsimiles, including six fables: "The Lark and the Farmer" (31); "The Monkey" judging cats (54, with illustration); BW (57, with illustration); "Seven Sticks" (71, illustrated); "TH" (verse, 121, illustrated); and "The Cock and the Fox" (185). Compare with The Annotated McGuffey (1976).

1936 Quelques Fables de La Fontaine.  G(eorges) Ripart.  Hardbound.  Paris: Larousse.  €75 from ermang, Laigny, Picardie, France, through Ebay, July, '22.

Here is a new and delightful edition of La Fontaine.  The delight starts with the cover illustration: the lion in the water raises his fist against the "partners" standing on land: ox, goat, and lamb.  This beginning is followed by a glorious title-page with a balance-scale on which the crow descends and the fox -- of course! -- rises.  This title-page is so well executed that it has been copied online.  I am one of those who have downloaded it!  Then black-and-white (left) and colored (right) versions of fables alternate.  The special feature of this book in 1936 is that Ripart offers those colored "epilogues" to each black-and-white fable.  To WL, his epilogue is "La dernière promenade du loup", which shows the wolf caught in a trap.  To "Le renard et le bouc" the epilogue is "Le cor au fond du bois": this horn captures and executes the fox.  In one fable after another, Ripart offers a more just -- or perhaps, a more satisfying? -- solution.  I wonder if this book is not something of a precursor to Moss and Collot's 1939 edition on La Fontaine and Hitler.  In any case, the fables handed here are: Le loup et l'agneau - Le renard et le bouc -  La cigale et la fourmi -  L'aigle et le hibou -  Le singe et le chat -  Le milan et le rossignol -  La génisse, la chèvre et la brebis en societé avec le lion -- Le renard et les poules d'Inde --TMCM -- Le chat et les deux moineaux -- WC --TT - Le petit poisson et le pécheur -- FC -- TH -- FS.  The last is strangely left without a countering "explication."  What a lively book!

1936 Story-Friends: Third Book.  By Ambrose L. Suhrie and Myrtle Garrison Gee in collaboration with John Martin and George H. Gartlan.  Illustrated by Mabel Betsy Hill.  Hardbound.  Printed in USA.  Yonkers-on-Hudson/NY/Chicago: Story-World Readers: World Book Company.  $12.60 from Suzanne and Truman Price, Columbia Basin Books, Monmouth, OR, June, '03.  

This reader includes three versified Aesop's fables versified by John Martin and apparently illustrated by Mabel Betsy Hill: CP (93), "The Cat and the Mice" (214), and TH (241).  The book is in surprisingly good condition.  It is also unusually heavy.  It seems to have been copyrighted in 1925 in Great Britain.  It was once the property of School District No. 57 in Falls City, OR.

1936 Studies in the Text History of the Life and Fables of Aesop. B.E. Perry. Hardbound. Lancaster, PA: Lancaster Press: American Philological Association. $20.25 from St. Croix Antiquarian Booksellers, Stillwater, MN, Nov., '92.

After working for years from the paperback, I am glad to get my hands on an original hardbound copy of Perry.

1936 The Children's Own Readers: Book Three. By Mary E. Pennell and Alice M. Cusack. Illustrated by Maurice Day and Harold Sichel. Hardbound. Printed in Boston: Ginn and Company. $7.50 from Hawthorne Blvd. Books, Portland, OR, July, '00.

This book is a reprinting of the 1929 original by the same authors and publishers. What has changed? The thirty-seven original stories have grown to forty-one. A curious "Note of Thanks" at the beginning there had declared "Five thousand children read sixty stories and decided which ones they liked best. This book contains the thirty-seven stories which received the most votes." Now we read the same, but instead of "thirty-seven" we read "forty-one." It would be fun to know the facts behind these assertions. Did the editors go back and add the four next vote-getting stories? Did they try five thousand new students? The cover's picture has changed from marching bears in green and orange to a Dutch boy with geese in blue and white. Though many of the plates are the same, the book's format is slightly smaller. That is, margins have been reduced. No fables have been cut or added. Four substitutions of a new item for an old have been made so cleverly that the page totals of the book still match through the first thirty-seven items. Two items remain the same but have new titles; "Earning a Holiday" has become "Getting Ready for a Holiday" (263), and "The Flame Fiend" has become "Fire! Fire!" (279). I notice a slight subtraction from the prose on 224. Let me borrow from my comments there about the three well-told fables. The first is AL (41) with two illustrations 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!

1936 The Elson-Gray Basic Readers: Book Two. By William H. Elson and William S. Gray. Illustrations by Donn P. Crane, Keith Ward, M.S. and A.F. Hurford, L. Kate Deal, and Pauline B. Adams. Hardbound. Chicago: Curriculum Foundation Series: Scott, Foresman and Company. $2.50 from Simply Bungalow at Junkstock, Omaha, June, '12.

This book is an acknowledged revision of "The Elson Readers: Book Two," which I have in this collection under "1920." Much seems to have changed from that edition. Now the series has a new name: "Elson-Gray Basic Readers" in the "Curriculum Foundation Series." 1930 was the last printing I have of the second Elson Reader, and this copyright page has a "1931, 1936" copyright. It thus appears that Scott, Foresman changed its series between 1930 and 1931. This copy is in good condition, with lovely colored art. I find only two fables, as against the many in the earlier version. "Little Mouse and the Strangers" there has become "Little Mouse Sees the World" here (94-97). It has two good partial-page colored illustrations. It is followed by "The Camel and the Pig" (98-101), likewise with two strong illustrations. 

1936 The Great Fables of All Nations. Selected by Manuel Komroff. Illustrated by Louise Thoron. NY: Dial Press: Tudor Publishing Co. See 1928/33.

1936 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.

1936 The Original Fables of La Fontaine. Translated and illustrated by F(rederick) C(olin) Tilney. Tales for Children from Many Lands. London: J.M Dent and Sons/NY: E.P. Dutton. Reprinted in 1936; a cheaper edition 1938. See 1913/36/38.

1936 Words, Beasts & Fishes. By Marmaduke Dixey. Illustrated by Clifford Webb. First edition? Dust jacket. London: Faber and Faber Limited. $20.90 at the Bookstore on the Plain, Oxford, July, '92.

A wonderful surprise. This book has been sitting around for almost two years, and I have finally had the chance to enjoy it. The flyleaf describes these twenty-one verse tales as "witty and accomplished Fables, after the celebrated model provided by Mr. John Gay." They are witty, pointed, satirical, and delightful--to my mind far more fun than Gay's. There is here a touch of Hugo Gellert when the fables deal with social issues. The off-rhymes work, as does the directness that has us learning, in the words of the first fable, "To smell ourselves as others smell us." Webb's art is strong; it reminds me of Robert Lawson's work from the same era. The best fables are "The Pole Cat's Problem" (11) and "The Dancing Elephant" (81). Other fine examples include "Mothercraft" (27), "Philosophy off the Peg" (45), "The Ant and the Sloth" (59), "Decadence" (63), "'Ware Wolves" (69), and "The Drake's Progress" (77).

1936/81 Studies in the Text History of the Life and Fables of Aesop. B.E. Perry. Softbound. Lancaster, PA: Lancaster Press: American Philological Association. Reprint 1981: Chico, CA: Scholars Press. $11.25 from the APA. One extra copy.

Table I might be the most immediately valuable part of the book, listing fables and variant readings.

1936? Fables Choisies de la Fontaine. Illustrations de Urbain Raymond. Paris: E.R.T. (Editions René Touret?). €15 from Les Boites a Quai, along the Seine, Paris, Dec., '04. 

This large-format, paperbound, stapled book of 40 pages with no title-page should be considered with the many other cheap La Fontaine editions I have found from the 30's, 40's, and 50's. Two full-colored illustrations are mixed in with duochrome illustrations; those two are "The Oyster and the Litigants" and "The Fox, the Monkey, and the Animals." The latter illustration also provides the full-color front-cover illustration. The duochrome illustrations seem to be either blue or orange. The book has a vinegar-like odor. Urbain Raymond signs each of the illustrations mirror-backwards. The first half of the book has text on the left and illustration on the right. The second half reverses the placement. At the center, without illustration, is MSA. The book provides a good clue to its background on the cover with the initials "E.R.T." Is this, as I believe, Editions René Touret? With that description stands "No. 1021." See the book I have listed under Recueil des Fables de La Fontaine (Cover: Les belles Fables de la Fontaine) with a guess that it was done in 1936. I notice that two of the full-color illustrations that I mention there are the same as the two that are here. Are they in fact identical? The cover design has "De La Fontaine" extending to the very bottom of the page.

1936? Recueil des Fables de La Fontaine. Urbain Raymond. Canvas bound. Paris: No. 265: E.R.T. (Editions René Touret?). €20 from Deesse, Paris, July, '09.

This is one of the larger cheap "Recueil" editions I have from the 30's, many of them by E.R.T. and many featuring the work of Urbain Raymond. Here one key feature of Raymond's work, including that on the cover, is that he signs his pictures mirror-backwards. A number of the illustrations seem to repeat from five other such editions that I have, all with one of three titles, either on the covers or inside: "Recueil des Fables de La Fontaine," "Les belles Fables de la Fontaine," or "Fables Choisies de La Fontaine." All are dated to either "1936?" or "1950?". In this edition, there are full-colored illustrations of GA (11 and also on the cover); "Le Coche et la Mouche" (17); "Le Gland et la Citrouille" (30); "Le Laboureur et ses Enfants" (46); WL (64); TMCM (92); FS (96); and "Le Savetier et le Financier" (110). There are also many duochrome illustrations in either orange or blue, perhaps after patterns used in full-color illustrations elsewhere. Apparent repeaters from elsewhere include FG with a proud fox walking away (106), "The Swallow and the Little Birds" with its dressed birds in the tree's branches (55), WL (64), MM with its dancing eggs (108), and MSA (70). There is a T of C on 116. The order of fables seems to be largely alphabetical, but with many items out of place.

1936? Recueil des Fables de La Fontaine. Urbain Raymond. Paperbound. Paris: No. 265: E.R.T. (Editions René Touret?). €20 from Librairie de l'Avenue, Saint-Ouen, July, '12.

Now here is a curiosity. I have a copy of this book that is almost exactly the same. As I was ready to call this a duplicate, I checked. I noticed that the first monochrome picture here is blue; there it is orange. Further checking showed that illustrations generally come in threes, one after another on right-hand pages in the first half of each copy and on left-hand pages in the second half. One of the three in each case is fully colored. The other two are monochrome, and the blues and oranges there are reversed here into oranges and blues, respectively. Did the printer simply change ink for different printings? Otherwise these two copies are identical. As I wrote there, this is one of the larger cheap canvas-bound "Recueil" editions I have from the 30's, many of them by E.R.T. and many featuring the work of Urbain Raymond. Here one key feature of Raymond's work, including that on the cover, is that he signs his pictures mirror-backwards. A number of the full-color illustrations seem to repeat from five other such editions that I have, all with one of three titles, either on the covers or inside: Recueil des Fables de La Fontaine, Les belles Fables de la Fontaine, or Fables Choisies de La Fontaine. All are dated to either "1936?" or "1950?". In this edition, there are full-colored illustrations of GA (11 and also on the cover); "Le Coche et la Mouche" (17); "Le Gland et la Citrouille" (30); "Le Laboureur et ses Enfants" (46); WL (64); TMCM (92); FS (96); and "Le Savetier et le Financier" (110). Apparent monochrome repeaters from elsewhere include FG with a proud fox walking away (106), "The Swallow and the Little Birds" with its dressed birds in the tree's branches (55), MM with its dancing eggs (108), and MSA (70). There is a T of C on 116. The order of fables seems to be largely alphabetical, but with many items out of place.

1936? Recueil des Fables de La Fontaine. Art is signed by Urbain Raymond and P. Daxhelet. Perhaps published by Vichet or by René Touret? Printed in Belgium by Protin & Vuidar, Liege. 50 Francs on the Quai de Seine, May, '97.

This large-format coloring-book without any cover is fascinating! It contains fifty full-page illustrations, thirty-six of them colored, in its 200 stapled-together pages. The colored illustrations, though paginated, have a blank obverse, while the black-and-white illustrations do not. The first half or so of the book maintains a four-page rhythm including a non-illustrated fable, an illustrated fable, the illustration, and a blank. Among the best illustrations are: FG with a proud fox walking away (26), "The Swallow and the Little Birds" with its dressed birds in the tree's branches (31), WL (39), "The Child and the Schoolmaster" (75), MM with its dancing eggs (163), and MSA (179). Many of the visual motifs are derivative.

1936? Recueil des Fables de La Fontaine (Cover: Fables Choisies de la Fontaine). Illustrations de Urbain Raymond. Hardbound. No. 1630. Printed in Belgium: Protin & Vuidar, Liège. Paris: Editions René Touret. 35 Francs from Anthon de Shuyter, Paris, August, '99.

This book, with its colored illustration of FC against a silver background on the front cover and "No. 1630" on the back cover should be considered together with two others in similar format listed under "1936?" and having the same title. This book has 60 pages and includes 12 colored full-page illustrations signed by Urbain Raymond: "L'Huitre et les Plaideurs," (3); "Les Animaux malades de la peste" (7); SS (13); OR (17); FC (the same as the cover illustration, 23); "Le Renard et le Bouc" (27); FK (33); MM (37); MSA (43); "La Tortue et les deux Canards" (47); "Le Renard, le singe et les Animaux" (53); and "Le Chat, la Belette et le petit Lapin" (57). Of these at least MM and MSA overlap with pictures found in the larger of those two books. These two may be the best illustrations here. The dancing eggs getting away from the milkmaid on 37 remain a special feature, even if repeated in another edition! This book has just one more colored illustration than the shorter book. Here there is a rhythm of either four or six page units including a colored illustration. Here there are no black-and-white illustrations.

1936? Recueil des Fables de La Fontaine (Cover: Les belles Fables de la Fontaine). Urbain Raymond and P. Daxhelet. Printed in Liège, Belgium: Protin & Vuidar. Paris: Editions René Touret. 150 Francs in Paris, July, '98.

This large-format coloring-book with "10-1936" on its back is thinner but in the same format as the coverless book I found a year earlier along the Seine. They share the same title-page title, though this one has "Les belles Fables de la Fontaine" on its cover. It contains thirty-six fables, eleven of them illustrated in lively full-page color. The best of these colored illustrations is "Le Savetier et le Financier" (103). At least one text and colored illustration is in common with the coverless copy: "The Child and the Schoolmaster" here on 38 was there on 74; even the typesetting is the same. I notice also a repeat of the text and the black-and-white illustration of "Le Cygne et le Cuisinier" on 46 here and 154 there. There are six black-and-white illustrations, and some fables without illustration. Daxhelet seems to sign only one of the black-and-white illustrations (71); others are done in different styles. Many of the colored illustrations are signed "Urbain Raymond." Again the visual motifs are derivative. Be careful with the pagination, since there are two systems at work here. The numbers in the lower corners are more helpful than those in the lower center. Alas, those in the center do not correspond with those in the other edition!

1936? Tisane Cisbey Alphabet. Paperbound. Paris: Tisane Cisbey. €3 from Philippe Saunois, Vendinelle, France, through eBay, Dec., '05.

This 24-page pamphlet starts with lines of young girls on its cover holding signs indicating "Tisane Cisbey." Tisane Cisbey seems to be a digestive herbal tea made by Laboratoires Cisbey. They dedicate this alphabet pamphlet to "young mommas" and praise the gentle effects of their product. I guess at a date of 1936 because the last award they list for their product on the inside back-cover came in 1935. As the alphabet marches along in this pamphlet, several pages refer to fables. The "L" page features a lion and says "Apprenez la belle fable de La Fontaine: Le Loup et l'Agneau." The "O" page features a bear (Ours) but adds at its bottom a picture of a lion and mouse and says "On a souvent besoin d'un plus petit que soi: Le Lion et le Rat." The "R" page includes a nice illustration and title: "Le Corbeau et le Renard." Late pages cheat to double up on U and V and on X and Y: "Xavier et Yvonne jouent à la balle." My, where do fables not show up! 

1937 Basni. I.A. Krilov. Illustrated by W.M. Konaschevitch. Canvas-bound. Moscow/Leningrad: Institute of Children's Literature: Izdatielsvo Dietskoy Literatury. $60 from Eran Reiss, Doar Na Negev Tsfoni, Israel, through eBay, Jan., '03. 

This is one of my best editions of Krilov because of the ten strong full-page colored illustrations. I find illustrations for "Quartet" (7), "The Monkey and the Spectacles" (15), "Master John's Soup" (19), "Elephant and Pug" (27), "Monkey and Mirror" (31), "Cook and Cat" (35), FC (43), GA (47), "Liar" (51), and "Trishka's Kaftan" (55). I find it hard to pick out any of these fine illustrations as better than the others. The high price I had to pay may end up being worth it!

1937 Cherokee Fables.  Retold by J.B. Davis.  Paperbound.  Siloam Springs, Arkansas: Bar D Press.  $13.85 from Freddie Brady, Pawling, NY, through eBay, April, '14.  

Now this little booklet has got to be rare!  It is 3½" x 5" and 44 pages long.  The first story here is of the terrapin and the rabbit.  This clever telling involves a race where the terrapin gets an advantage: he has to run only March, '4 of what the rabbit must run.  The course is set over four mountain ridges.  Look-alike terrapins are stationed at each to be seen ahead of the rabbit and then to get over the ridge and hide in the grass.  A terrapin chief is set at the finish-line to "answer any questions if any of the animals suspected anything."  There are a number of pourquoi stories here.  At least some of the stories are tied together into a unified narrative: because of what happens in one, some other characters decide to do something in the next.  The clever Terrapin is the central character here.  In one of the episodes he has been caught and pleads, as in the B'rer Rabbit tales, not to be thrown into the water -- since that is, of course, exactly what he wants.  A surprising story of a wedding race has the crane beating the handsome hummingbird because the former could fly all night.  However, the bride refuses them both because the crane is ugly and the hummingbird puny.  She dies unmarried.  "There is no use in trying to please a woman."  The last story is "The First Strawberries."  The first man and his wife quarrel.  She walks off.  After some reflection, he misses her and starts after her.  The Great Apportioner, the sun, takes pity on the man and starts growing things along her path, berries and then plums.  Finally, when the sun creates strawberries and she is tired, she lingers, eats, and decides to wait for him.  She finally even takes some berries and starts back to meet him.  Good things sometimes come out of troubles; we would not have these lovely fruits if it were not for their quarrel.  There is a misprint on 21: quitely for "quietly."

1937 Contes et Fables. Dessins d'Artistes Français. Hardbound. Liège, Belgium: Éditions Chagor: Gordinne a Liège. $75 from Johanson Rare Books, Baltimore, August, '11.

This is eight books put together. The dedication may be the most unusual thing in this book that has a number of unusual features. Written on the top of the first page after the first title-page is this: "Somewhere in France. October 4, 1944. For my sons, Mark and Nathan. This is the other book given to me by a French workman as a gift for my sons. Your daddy." The writer must have been an American soldier making his way through France in late 1944. Wow! A second remarkable thing about this book is its binding. Is it really contemporary with the book? It seems pristine, with its front-cover picture of a woodsman riding past a milkmaid, both surrounded by farm animals. A third unusual feature of this book is its sixteen colored pages. The colored fable pages are not new to me. Is that curious signature on most of them "LeRallie"? The first title one finds is "Contes de Perrault adaptes par France de Bardy et autres contes pour les petits: Éditions Chagor." The specific books one then encounters, paginated separately, are: "Le Petit Poucet"; "Peau d'Ane"; "La Belle au Bois Dormant"; "Histoire d'Ali-Baba et des Quarante Voleurs"; "Histoire d'Aladdin ou la Lampe Merveilleuse." All of these are between 14 and 18 pages in length; each seems to conclude with a recognition of the printer in Liège and of the French artists who created the designs. Then follow three segments of fables, 16, 32, and 16 pages in length, with the same recognition at the end of each. Most are from La Fontaine. The colored illustrations by LeRallie are better produced here than anywhere else I have seen. These include "The Balance of Minos"; "Le Boeuf, le Cheval, et L'Ane"; "L'Éléphant Blanc"; MSA; "Le Lion et le Moucheron"; "Le Cygne et le Cuisinier"; OF; "Le Coche et la Mouche"; and FG. Of all of these, the last is perhaps the star. The noble fox, hat with feather laid aside, contemplates the grapes with a kind of arrogant disdain.

1937 Fabels van Phaedrus.  Edited by G. Moens.  Illustrations by M.R. Coenegrachts.  Paperbound.  Liege: H. Dessain.  €7 from Krull GmbH, July, '18.

Here is a booklet of 74 Phaedrus fables with Dutch vocabulary and comments, presumably for students.  There are three illustrations, 1 (WL); 23 ("Cervus ad boves"); and 37 (FG).  The clue that this booklet is for students lies for me in the extensive vocabulary at the end of the booklet on 57-79.  AI at the end.  5½" x 8½".  The cover is artistically done in vintage Art Deco.

1937 Fables Choisies de la Fontaine et Florian (Cover: "Fables de la Fontaine"). Dessins d'Artistes Français. Hardbound. Liège, Belgium: Imprimerie Gordinne. €27 from Henry Veyrier, St. Ouen, Dec., '04. 

This large-format, canvas-bound book is perhaps closest to a Gordinne publication I have listed under "1946?" Like that book, this publication combines full-page illustrations that are full-colored (there are ten here) with a number of different styles and colors of monochromatic illustrations. The pagination is curious. There is a full book of thirty-two pages, then one of eight pages, then a second of thirty-two and a second of eight--all without repetition. The book's date of 1937 comes from the page 32s and the page 8s. Is this the same exploding frog a la Rabier on 21 here that I comment on there on 39? Several pages here have suffered some cutting. Though it is one of the cut pages, OF on 21 is one of the best illustrations. A strong illustration is that for "The Two Mules" on (the second) 3. The artist takes the moment of execution of the money-carrying mule with a pistol shot to the head. The courtly little mosquito seems to be thrusting a sword into the lion's nose on 9. Contrast the visual styles of "The Drunk and His Wife" (second 29), "The Peasant of the Danube" (third 3), and "The Tightrope Walker" (fourth 3). Here are two last curiosities in this curious book. The cover reads Fables de la Fontaine but the title-page reads Fables Choisies de la Fontaine et Florian. In fact, I do not notice any Florian fables here. Secondly, the milkmaid on the front cover really is dancing--and of course the milk-can is already tipping.

1937 Fables Choisies de la Fontaine et Florian (Cover: "Fables de la Fontaine"). Dessins d'Artistes Français. Hardbound. Liège, Belgium: Imprimerie Gordinne. $60 from Lucie Favreau Antiques, Montreal, through eBay, Oct., '11.

This large-format, canvas-bound book starts out being identical with another with the same titles on front cover and title-page and from the same publisher and the same year, bought at Henry Veyrier in December of 2004; that book has a dancing milkmaid on its cover. This book then departs from that. Instead of a booklet of eight pages, then one of thirty-two, and then another of eight, this has two booklets each of sixteen pages, and a final booklet of ten pages titled "Le Coffre Volant." This book has a circular medallion on its cover featuring WC. It has in common with the other publication that each "book" within the volume has a stamp on its last page giving the publisher and a date of 1937. It does, by contrast with that other publication, mix in some Florian fables with those of La Fontaine. The identical monochrome pages here are often done in a different ink color. OF on 21 is one of the best illustrations and is in better condition here. Again, the courtly little mosquito seems to be thrusting a sword into the lion's nose on 9. Does it make sense that the woman transformed from a cat attacks mice with a broom (second page 7)? Does she not want to eat them rather than to kill them? The fox in the colored FG (third page 5) is noble in dress and stance; this may be the best illustration of the whole book. As in the other volume, there are various artistic styles at work here. This is a well preserved book.

1937 Fables Choisies de La Fontaine et Florian [cover: Fables Choisies pour les Petits].  Illustrations by LeRoy, Maurice Lemainque, LeRallie, et al.  Canvas-bound. Liege: Gordinne.  £3 from intercontinentalpig through Ebay, July, '18.

Here is perhaps the largest of the 17 books I have published by Gordinne.  It has many of the features typical of Gordinne, like monochrome pages done in a variety of ink colors and styles interspersed with full-colored pages, many of the latter in the second half of the book signed by "LeRoy."  There is regularly a picture frame around the text of a fable.  The canvas spines of these 80 year old books are typically deteriorating.  Texts are generally on the left and illustrations on the right-hand page.   There are rare substitutions of a text on a right-hand page, as on many of the "1" pages beginning various sections.  The composition of this book seems particularly haphazard.  I count nine sections with pages numbered and several unpaginated sections.  The opening section runs through 50 numbered pages.  Six unpaginated pages follow, after which come 129-130.  All the other sections from there begin over again with a page 1.  Identifying this publication becomes more difficult because its first interior title is "Fables Choisies de La Fontaine et Florian."  Its cover's title is "Fables Choisies pour les Petits," a title I do not find in our collection for any other Gordinne publication.  A frequent artist for the monochrome illustrations is Maurice Lemainque.  His signature is reversed on "49" and a late "13" for "Les Deux Bacheliers."  I doubt that that is the only repeated story and image in this publication!  One late full-colored picture is signed "LeRallie."  There is a wide variety of styles in both the monochrome and full-colored sets of illustrations.  Last pages of sections frequently have at their bottom "Imprimé en Belgique et Édité par Gordinne a Liége (Belgique)" and "Dessins d'Artistes Français."  The last page adds the date 1937.

1937 Fables de Florian.  Illustrations by G(aston) Chopard.  #80 of 115; boxed.  Loose folios in a portfolio.  Paris: Philippe Gonin.  $248.14 from Librairie Axel Benadi through ABE, 2/21.

This is an oversized (about 10" x 13") set of loose pages offering 110 of Florian's fables without division into books or numbering.  It is signed by Chopard and Gonin and is #80 of 115 copies.  The fables are adorned with twelve full-page lithographs, which Metzner in Bodemann rightly describes as striking.  There are also nineteen endpiece sketches, some having only line outlines.  Most impressive among the full-page lithographs are "L'Elephant Blanc" (13); "Le Hibou et le Pigeon" (73); "Le Rhinoceros et le Dromadaire" (97); and "Le Renard Qui Preche" (107).  The white elephant is honored in India gathering in himself the souls of heroic humans.  The elephant asks to be let go back into the wilderness.  "Yes, we are noble.  How then could we be made up of the souls of people?"  In "The Owl and the Pigeon," when the owl complains that nobody takes care of him, the pigeon answers that the owl takes care of nobody.  "The Rhino and Camel" has the rhinoceros complaining that men despise him but favor the camel.  The camel answers "It's easy.  We have learned to bend the knee."  "The Fox As Preacher" has a smart old fox preach first about positive virtues, but no one listens except for a few squirrels silly enough to get within his reach.  He converts then to fiery sermons condemning the rich and powerful.  Lots of people come.  He becomes famous enough to be invited to the King Lion's court, where he preaches up a storm.  The lion thanks him and asks what he might want for pay.  "Some turkeys, please!"  One good example of the endpieces is "The Peacock, Two Goslings, and the Diver" (89).  The diver sets straight the two goslings who are criticizing the peacock.  In the features they criticize, they are themselves no better than the peacock, and they surely do not have plumage like his!  AI at end.  The box is in poor condition.  I was set to pay a much higher price.  ABE shows several copies offered for over $1000.  Bodemann #437.

1937 Fables de La Fontaine. Dessins d'Artistes Français. Canvas-bound. Printed in Belgium. Liege: Gordinne. $8 from Dany Wolfs, Roeselare, Belgium, May, '01.

Here is a large, canvas-bound book in poor condition. It is squarely in the tradition of other Belgian picture-books and coloring-books. Until now I have, perhaps mistakenly, listed them under "1946?" and this book makes me question that dating. Their titles are Choix de Fables and Fables Choisies. This book states clearly on 16 of the second volume of three that seem to be joined here that it is published in Liege in 1937. Some early pages are missing, and others throughout the work are torn. The association with the artistry there is clear for example in the colored MSA illustration here (3), which is the same as the black-and-white illustration in Choix de Fables. I write here of three volumes because pagination starts anew after 32 and then again after 16, the page with the publishing information. There is a surprising illustration for CW on 6 of the second volume. Where the metamorphosized woman usually goes after the mouse with the intent of eating it, this one is dressed like a maid and has a broom in her hand as she attacks two mice scampering away from her. Several illustrations seem to have a different style, especially those on 9, 11, and 13 of the second volume. The cover has a very attractive circular image of WC.

1937 Fables for Parents. Dorothy Canfield. Second printing. Dust jacket. NY: Harcourt, Brace and Company. $12.50 through Bibliofind from Gutenberg Holdings, August, '97.

As the dust jacket says, this is a collection of short stories concerned with the relation between children and their parents. I have read three and found them engaging: "The Rainy Day, the Good Mother, and the Brown Suit"; "Good Growing Weather"; and "The Cage." It would be a stretch of the imagination to call these fables in the sense of Aesop.

1937 Four and Twenty Famous Tales: A Book of Select Fables with Graded Comprehension Tests for Silent Reading in Lower Grades. Anna Clark Nelson. Minneapolis: Schmitt, Hall & McCreary Company. $4.50 from Avenue Victor Hugo, Boston, April, '00.

See this book's predecessor with the same title, published in 1923. By now Anna Clark has added a name, and the publisher has added "Schmitt" before "Hall & McCreary." The title-page touts this book as "A Silent Reader." Very good condition. Back in Omaha, I want to compare the two booklets. AI at the front. There are questions on each story in the back. Many stories have one small square illustration. The tellings are simple, since the book is intended for the "lower grades." Some peculiarities about the tellings strike me. In #5 (15) the kid gets the wolf to pipe at least three times before he would eat him. SW (#7, 18) is told in the poorer version. "The Rabbit and the Hedgehog" (#9, 22) involves two races, asking for an explanation, getting it, and splitting the winnings. In "The Arab and the Camel" (#11, 27), the key is getting not the camel's nose but his head into the tent. FK (#13, 31) involves three kings for the frogs: a log, an eel, and a stork. At the end, there are no frogs left. BW (#15, 35) has three phases: all the men come, then very few come, and then none come. In ML (#18, 45), the little larks' wings work when they need to. I have seen "The Lost Camel" (#19, 46) before; the lost camel is described perfectly from careful observance of evidence. I am delighted to have found this book on a beautiful spring afternoon that brought me back to Holy Cross and several old Boston haunts.

1937 Folk-Lore and Fable: Aesop, Grimm, Anderson. The Harvard Classics, edited by Charles W. Eliot. Registered edition. NY: P.F. Collier and Son. See 1909/37/69.

1937 Fünfzig Fabeln. Eugen Aellen. Frontispiece by Heinrich Kümpel. Hardbound. Basel: Rudolf Geering Verlag. €5 from Antiquariat and Verlag Marsilius, Speyer, July, '07.

Here are fifty short fables, one to a page in a small (4½' x 6¼') book. These fables are, I would say, aimed at provoking reflection. "Der Hund und die Tiere" (6) concludes with the dog saying "I master man, indeed by serving him." The majority of those I have read are dialogic, with one character or group making a self-assertive statement and a wiser animal retorting. Thus the flying crows confront a silent stork, proud of the noise they make as they advance (13). "To what purpose?" the stork asks. "We broadcast our offensiveness to the whole world." The stork answers finally "I buried my song long ago and learned how to be silent." Sparrows tell a stork on the prairie that they feel enobled by his presence in their midst. "When I am down here with you, I also become aware of my dignity," the stork answers (14). This fable may be the source of the title illustration by Heinrich Kümpel, which looks as though it were done with pencil by hand in this very book. 

1937 La Fontaine: Fables, Tome I. La Fontaine. Illustrations en Couleurs de Henri Vallette. Glassine dust jacket. Softbound. Printed in Paris. Paris: L'Édition D'Art H. Piazza. $25 from The Book Haven, Lancaster, PA, Feb., '02.

Bodemann 436. This is a wonderful find! As Metzner there says, the two volume set contains seventy illustrations in all: eleven full-page, twenty-two half-page at the beginning of fable texts, and the rest mostly bordering the text from outside. Metzner's expressions catch the slightly Dufy-esque character of this attractive art: "Fabelszenen vor meist südländischer Landschaftskulisse; flächenfüllende Zeichnung in leichten transparenten Federstrichen, leuchtend-helle Buntstiftfarben, kindhaft-naiver Ausdruck." My prizes in this first volume go to "La Mort et le Malheureux" (35), CJ (45), MSA (97), "Le Chat et un Vieux Rat" (136), TB (227), and "La Jeune Veuve" (270). La Fontaine attracted such great twentieth-century illustrators! The colophon at the end of Volume II speaks of a limited edition of 35 and 300 on Hollande van Gelder containing a suite of the illustrations in black. I presume that this pair of volumes come from a printing beyond that limited printing of 335. In any case, I find no evidence of numbering of these two volumes. There is a glassine dust jacket on each volume, slightly torn. The book has a bookseller's seal facing the inside cover: "A Nostre Dame, 37 Rue Michelet, Alger." This is my first set of volumes, I believe, that has come through Algeria! Both volumes are signed "Henry René Outin, From Grandma, July 9th, 1938." Henry was lucky, and so am I!

1937 La Fontaine: Fables, Tome II. La Fontaine. Illustrations en Couleurs de Henri Vallette. Glassine dust jacket. Softbound. Printed in Paris. Paris: L'Édition D'Art H. Piazza. $25 from The Book Haven, Lancaster, PA, Feb., '02.

Bodemann 436. This is a wonderful find! As Metzner there says, the two volume set contains seventy illustrations in all: eleven full-page, twenty-two half-page at the beginning of fable texts, and the rest mostly bordering the text from outside. Metzner's expressions catch the slightly Dufy-esque character of this attractive art: "Fabelszenen vor meist südländischer Landschaftskulisse; flächenfüllende Zeichnung in leichten transparenten Federstrichen, leuchtend-helle Buntstiftfarben, kindhaft-naiver Ausdruck." My prizes in this second volume go to "Le Coche et la Mouche" (36), "Les Femmes et le Secret" (81), TT (203), and "Le Vieillard et les trois jeunes Hommes" (263). La Fontaine attracted such great twentieth-century illustrators! The colophon at the end of Volume II speaks of a limited edition of 35 and 300 on Hollande van Gelder containing a suite of the illustrations in black. I presume that this pair of volumes come from a printing beyond that limited printing of 335. In any case, I find no evidence of numbering of these two volumes. There is a glassine dust jacket on each volume, slightly torn. This second volume still has some of its pages uncut. The book has a bookseller's seal facing the inside cover: "A Nostre Dame, 37 Rue Michelet, Alger." This is my first set of volumes, I believe, that has come through Algeria! Both volumes are signed "Henry René Outin, From Grandma, July 9th, 1938." Henry was lucky, and so am I!

1937 La Fontaine: Six Fables for Acting. Arranged by John Wilgress. Illustrated by Théa. Paperbound. Printed in Great Britain. London: Ginn and Company Ltd. $6 from Mike Kerr, Newport, Gwent, Great Britain, Sept., '01.

This is a clever book intended, as its preface says, as a dramatic reader. Wilgress asks there that, when the plays are acted, the productions should be formal rather than realist. For each of the six fables, he offers first La Fontaine's text and then a prose script for acting. Théa's cartoons are lively and helpful. Among the best are the introductory image for TB (33) and the brutal title-picture for "Animaux malades" (41). "The Schoolboy, the Pedant, and the Gardener" brings a good illustration of a kid sticking his tongue out (65) and of a tree scowling (70). The six fables offered here are "Le Bûcheron et Mercure," "Le Savetier et le Financier," TB, "Les Animaux malades de la Peste," "L'Écolier, le Pédant et le Maître d'un Jardin," and "Le Marchand, le Gentilhomme, le Pâtre et le Fils de Roi." There is a fourteen-page vocabulary at the back.

1937 Lisa and the Fish and Other African Fables (Cover: "Lisa and the Fish and Other African Tales"). R.C. Nathaniels, M.S.P. Illustrated by Clifford Lees? Paperbound. London: The Sheldon Press. $15 from Argosy, NY, through Bibliocity, Sept., '99.

This is a pamphlet presenting fifteen stories on 64 pages with eight illustrations. Paper wraps. Notice the difference in title between the cover ("tales") and title-page ("fables"). The stories seem to be much more folktales than fables. Many are etiological. Drought and famine constitute a frequent motif. Other motifs include ordeals to prove innocence, attempts to collect overdue debts, and the loss of a child. The stories explain why we cannot squint at the rising sun, why we find spiders under rocks (twice), and why hares run. The closest to fable are "The Bush-Cat and the Monkey," (26), "The Hyena and the Bush-Cat" (27, the best story here), and "The Fox and the Crab" (48). In this story, the two run a race, in which the crab clings to the fox's tail. The local fowl laugh at the defeated fox, who then chases them. This story explains why hens run from foxes. The cover-story is about a man/fish who becomes Lisa's husband and is shot by her father. As the wife learns her husband's fate, she sinks into the ground up to her neck. Various people come and try to pull her from the ground by grasping her hair, but her hair breaks into pieces. This explains why some people have better hair than others. Good condition.

1937 Make and Make-Believe.  Arthur I. Gates and Miriam Blanton Huber.  Illustrated by George M. Richards.  Hardbound.  NY: MacMillan.  See 1930/37.

1937 Quarante-Cinq Fables de La Fontaine. illustrées par Joseph Hémard. Paperbound. Printed in Paris. Paris: Les Laboratoires Bouillet, Roger Dacosta, Éditeur. FF 230 from Librairie de l'avenue Henry Veyrier, Saint-Ouen, August, '01.

Here an unattached wrapper with only the title on its front contains seventeen loose four-page folios. The lively rectangular illustrations on the first and fourth pages of the folios use two or three colors each--and use them effectively. The rectangular illustrations inside the folios are left black-and-white. Some fables get a tail-piece in addition to the rectangular illustration before the text. Among the best of the strong illustrations are "Le Savetier et le Financier" (9), TMCM (13), and "Le Coche et la Mouche" (49). For the last of these, there is also a particularly lovely tail-piece on 50. Hémard is effective in using a very little of a color in a picture dominated by other colors. Notice the little bit of blue in OR (5) and of green in BC (17). There is a T of C at the back, with a playful illustration over it of La Fontaine shaking animals out of a book. I was lucky on this trip to find several excellent limited editions of La Fontaine with illustrations from the 30's and 40's. This is one of them.

1937 Quarante-Cinq Fables de La Fontaine.  Illustrées par Joseph Hémard.  Paperbound.  Paris: Les Laboratoires Bouillet, Roger Dacosta, Éditeur.  $20 from an unknown source, August, ‘21.  

There is already a copy of this curious and engaging booklet of 66 pages in the collection, found 20 years earlier at Librairie de l’Avenue Henry Veyrier.  I include this copy for two reasons.  First, the coloration is slightly different; the two copies make for good comparison.  Secondly, this copy comes with four advertisements that would have been inserted by the original publisher, Les Laboratoires Bouillet.  They seem to be for “Iode Tulasne” and “Bismuth Tulasne.”  As I wrote of the other copy, here an unattached wrapper with only the title on its front contains seventeen loose four-page folios.  The lively rectangular illustrations on the first and fourth pages of the folios use two or three colors each--and use them effectively.  The rectangular illustrations inside the folios are left black-and-white.  Some fables get a tail-piece in addition to the rectangular illustration before the text.  Among the best of the strong illustrations are "Le Savetier et le Financier" (9), TMCM (13), and "Le Coche et la Mouche" (49).  For the last of these, there is also a particularly lovely tail-piece on 50.  Hémard is effective in using a very little of a color in a picture dominated by other colors.  Notice the little bit of blue in OR (5) and of green in BC (17).  There is a T of C at the back, with a playful illustration over it of La Fontaine shaking animals out of a book.

1937 Reading for Enjoyment, Book IV. Compiled and edited by James J. Reynolds and Mary A. Horn. NY: Noble and Noble, Publishers, Inc. $5 at Half-Price, Richardson, Sept., '94.

The T of C at the beginning (really a genre-index) brings together six fables from two places in the book (63-78 and 143-54). One of these six, "Croesus and Solon" (143), may be a chrie rather than a fable. I like one other, "The Anxious Leaf" (63) by Henry Ward Beecher. There are two other pieces elsewhere in the book which are often viewed as fables: "Fable: The Mountain and the Squirrel" (232) by Emerson and "The Blind Men and the Elephant" (81). There are orange, brown, and gray full-page illustrations by Mabel Betsy Hill (e.g., 77 and 153) and by Mary Moras Wireman (69). How is this book organized?

1937 The Fables of Aesop. Selected, told anew and their history traced by Joseph Jacobs. Done into Pictures by Richard Heighway. NY: Macmillan. See 1894/1937.

1937 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.

1937 Thirteen Fables of Aesop.  Done into Verse, with original Morals, by Ivor Gwent.  Paperbound.  Merthyr Tydfil: Merthyr Express.  £10 from Stella & Rose's Books, Tintern and Hay-on-Wye, UK, Feb., '14.  

This is the kind of booklet for which this collection was made!  4" x 6½".  The thirteen verse fables first appeared in the Merthyr Express in Wales.  The morals tend to berate modern machines and moneyed interests.  The turns of phrase are sometimes colloquial and specific to the context, as in these lines from "The Old Lady and her Maids":

            "Said parlour-maid to tweenie:

            "She thinks she's Mussolini;

            Those who mock

            Get a shock;

            Let's go out and kill the cock!"

I would guess that not many copies of this lovely little pamphlet were made.  The same author wrote "Thirteen Sonnets" and "Thirteen Epigrams."

1937 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.

1937 Uncle Remus: Being Legends of the Old Plantation.  Joel Chandler Harris.  Illustrations by Fritz Eichenberg.  Limited to 1100 copies.  Hardbound.  Mount Vernon: The Peter Pauper Press.  $30 from Owl & Company, Oakland, CA, June, '22.

This was a very nice find on a short excursion to Piedmont Avenue in Oakland.  There are eight full-page illustrations in pleasing tan and brown.  The first -- "Tar Baby" -- is typically well done, with great facial expressions on Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit.  There is also a past-on design and title on the checkerboard cover.  Besides the full-page illustrations, there are frequent designs.  Many pages are uncut, though all of the illustrations are accessible.  Here is more work by a favorite artist!

1937 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.

1937 Van den Vos Reinaerde.  J. Van Dam.  Wood-engravings by A.S. Hendriks.  Hardbound.  Lochem, Netherlands: De Tijdstroom.  €25 from Erik Tonen, Antwerp, June, '23.

Van Dam here offers "New Dutch Rhymes" and Hendriks wood engravings.  The book is a lively find from my first bookfinding in Antwerp.  Among the engravings I am particularly impressed with the first, showing a monk copying or creating a text (6), and the last, the classic scene of a kneeling Reynard being blessed as a pilgrim (111).  There are ten such full-page wood engravings.  127 pages.  7¼" x 10½".   The only online reference I find to the book shows a cover image of Reynard's face, not found here.  Perhaps it belongs to a paperbound version other than this hardbound copy.

1937 365 Bedtime Stories. Compiled by Viola Ruth Lowe. Racine: Whitman Publishing Company. $3, Spring, '92.

Eleven fables show up in the course of the year. All (with two exceptions ) are uniformly one page long. FC (257) and TB (259) include a picture and so abbreviate the tale slightly. The shepherd-boy who has called "Wolf!" says, instead of laughing, that the wolf is gone now (230); there is less overt mockery and laughter in this version of this story. Also changed is the action of the mouse; instead of running over the lion's paw, he runs through his mouth (166). This big book is testimony to Aesop's popularity in broad segments of our culture.

1937/86 The Children's Treasure House of Stories. Over 50 Great Tales by Famous Authors. No editor or artists acknowledged. Printed in Hungary. Sold with a companion volume: The Children's Wonderland of Stories. London: Bracken Books, a division of Bestseller Publications. $19.98 at New England Mobile Book Fair, Jan., '90.

A nice collection of children's stories. The colored illustrations are more representative than excellent. Aesop has ten fables on 281-6. The black-and-white fable illustrations are clever but poorly run. The best is the court judgment for bees (283).

1937? Fables Choisies.  Jean de La Fontaine and others.  Dessins d'Artistes Français.  Hardbound.  Liège, Belgium: Imprimerie Gordinne.  €15 from a Buchinist, Paris, August, '14.  

I have a number of books from Gordinne.  This may have the broadest inclusion of various styles.  Like several other Gordinne volumes, it frequently puts a picture frame around the text of a fable.  Like #3149, it includes illustrations by "LeRallie" and "Les Deux Chauves" by Lemainque, but this volume includes the artist's name in the illustration, while #3149 does not.  Closest is #5416, with which this volume shares a whole 32-page section.  In fact, this volume, unfortunately without its title-page, has six sections of 8, 16, 32, 4, 16, and 8 pages.  The artistic styles are so different!  The four-page section looks suspicious because it does not close with the usual colophon items at the bottom of the page: "Imprimé en Belgique et Édité par Gordinne a Liége (Belgique)" and "Dessins d'Artistes Français."  My favorite images here are those by "Leroy," like "La Lice et sa Compagne" (II 3).  Others are at II 9, II 15, III 15, III 25, and III 31.  Leroy also has monochrome illustrations (II 5 and III 19).  Unsigned colored pictures are at III 3, III 9, V 3, and V 15.  LeRallie has one colored picture at V 9.  There are weak monochromes, like I 5, and dramatic monochromes, like II 7.  Among the dramatic monochromes, do not miss "The Old Woman and the Two Servants" (II 7).  The ink is so heavy on some of these that they seem garish.  The work of Lemainque is frequent in the last two books.  A strong illustration is that for "The Two Mules" on III 3.  The artist takes the moment of execution of the money-carrying mule with a pistol shot to the head.  Canvas binding, as is usual for the Gordinne publications.

1937? Florian: Fables. Preface by Honoré Bonhomme. Paperbound. Inscribed in 1937(?). Paris: Les Meilleurs Auteurs Classiques Français et Étrangers: Ernest Flammarion, Éditeur. 40 Francs from a Seine bookdealer, Paris, August, '99.

This is a simple, straightforward paperbound collection of Florian's fables without illustration and with a preface by Honoré Bonhomme. There is one mystery about this book. The standard collections of Florian's fables have five books with twenty-two fables in each book. The books here all contain between nineteen and twenty-one fables. Further, the fables are differently numbered here within the books. Watch out!

1937? Les plus belles fables de La Fontaine.  Illustrated by Pierre Collot.  Paperbound.  Paris:  Imagerie Merveilleuse de l'Enfance.  €15 from Librairie Attila, St. Ouen, August, '17.

This twelve-page oversized (9¼" x 12¼") pamphlet has been a fascinating find, and the questions are not answered yet.  Seven fables are presented with strong colored woodcut illustrations in a booklet inscribed in 1937.  A colorful image of FC decorates the front cover.  Good images along the way include TH, FG, FC, "Raton and Bertrand," and "Two Pigeons" on the back cover.  My biggest question then is "Who is Pierre Collot?"  I think I know D. Collot, who produced the great book against Hitler in 1939.  There is also André Collot, who was active in 1941 and in 1962.  Help!

1937? New Lamps for Old: Story Lessons from Aesop. Samuel Bird. Hardbound. London: James Clarke & Co. Ltd.. $24 from Alibris, Dec., '98.

This book is meant to lead children from fables to the Kingdom of God. The old fables have new meanings for Christians. The book presents eighty-four fables on 132 pages. Each fable is followed by relevant scripture quotations and questions or morals. In 2W, one wife is as old as the man, "entering on the downward path of life" (20). The other wife is seventeen years old. Both seem to cut hairs from his head. Will this version work? Do not these hairs grow back? I read the first ten fables and found the tellings standard. This copy is inscribed in 1941.

1937? Recueil de Fables Choisies (Cover: Fables Choisies).  Jean de La Fontaine; Florian.  Artists: LeRoy, LeRaille (?), Maurice Lemainque, and J. Ea???.  Canvas-bound. $25 from Yellowstone53 on Ebay, August, ‘21.  

This book is squarely in the tradition of canvas-bound large-format fable books printed in Belgium before (and perhaps shortly after?) World War II.  Among them this book is a singular exemplar, especially because of the variety of illustration styles in a 62-page book.  Left-hand pages present texts and right-hand pages illustrations.  Artists include LeRoy, LeRaille (?), Maurice Lemainque, and J. Ea???.   Many illustrations are not signed.  FC as a brown-tinted triptych on 55 echoes the black-and-white central panel on the first page after the title-page.  Perhaps the closest approximation is the long “Fables Choisies de La Fontaine et de Florian” from 1937.  Some of the designs here replicate those there but are differently colored, like “The Cobbler and the Financier” on 59, with green color added to what is there only a line drawing.  Pages that appeared as monochrome there are now wonderfully colored, like “The Phoenix” (21) and “The Tight Rope Walker” (29).  The coloring of duochrome illustrations seems to me often rather garish!  The front cover pictures a grandmother reading to two children.  No publisher acknowledged. 

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1938 - 1939

1938 Aesop's Fables: Mishle Izop: 312 Tales in Hebrew and English. Philip Blackman. Hardbound. London: B.W. Hecht. $17.21 from Kennys Bookshop and Art Galleries, Ltd., through AbeBooks, Sept., '09.

"This is the first work in Hebrew to contain nearly all of Aesop's Fables. The Hebrew renderings are original: they have no connection with those of any other author." There is a good clean start to a book! It is meant to teach Hebrew speedily and easily, apparently to children. The 312 tales are arranged in order of length, from the shortest to the longest. The preface also notes that the first of four parts contains numerous notes, the second fewer, and the third none. The fourth part drops all Hebrew vowels except one. Of course, the book reads for normal English readers from back to front. The next element in the book is an AI of the fables by their numbers, not their pages. Then follow 420 pages packed with a Hebrew and then its English equivalent. The book exhibits several prices, all thankfully higher than what I had to pay! It was once sold at Foyles on Charing Cross Road and is inscribed in August of 1949.

1938 Cuentos, Fabulas y Poemas. Alvaro Yunque. Ilustraciones de Julio I. Prieto. Hardbound. Mexico: Biblioteca del Maestro: Ediciones Encuadernables de El Nacional. $35 from Libros Latinos, Redlands, CA, July, '99.

The cover lists the date of publication as 1939. An unusual pictorial cover, running from front to back, shows a boy looking up at several faces and many animals. There are eight fables here in a section that runs from 151 to 168. They are taken from Los Animales Hablan from Ercilla in Santiago, Chile. I think I understand "Idioma Universal" on 161. A parrot gathers all the animals to deal with a problem that has them subjugated to men. Human beings can all talk with each other, but the animals are all caught in the specific idiom of their species. The parrot proposes developing a universal language for all animals. Fine, but whose language will it be? The animals end up again opposing each other, and the men continue their domination.

1938 Fabeln des Äsop Nach Steinhöwels "Erneuertem Esopus".  Bearbeitet von Victor Zobel.  Hozschnitte von Professor (Wassili ) Masjutin.  #578 of 1000.  Hardbound.  Berlin: Grapische Kunstdruckerei Gebrüder Feyl.  €48 from Antiquariat Canicio, Heidelberg, July, '14.  

The texts here come from an Insel publication, perhaps published in or about 1933.  Insel's own book then used illustrations after those of Vergil Solis.  Here we have instead Wassili Masjutin's excellent woodcuts: WC (5); LS (9); FC (13); "The Smell of the Lion's Lair" (17); "Chanticleer and the Fox" (21); "The Forest, the Woodcutter, and an Axe-Handle" (25); FG (29); "The Horse and the Lion" (33); "The Cat and the Rooster" (35); and "The Wolf, the Shepherd, and the Hunter" (37).  There is on the title-page a smaller version in brown of the black FG woodcut.  These woodcuts are big, bold, and dramatic.  The moral of the fable is actually used -- in brown instead of black and in greater pitch -- as each fable's title.  I believe I first saw this book in the home of Stefan Filbry.  Adele had given it to his family.  I had never seen the book before and certainly made note of it.  How lucky to be offered it by a favorite dealer in Heidelberg two years later!  The spine is leather, and there is a leather inlay with golden lettering in the front cover.  I count this as one of the most impressive books in the collection.

1938 Fables Choisies.  (Jean-Pierre-Claris de) Florian.  Color lithographs by Jean Dufy.  #10 of 25.  Paperbound.  Paris: Gonin.  $2000 from Peter Bichsel Fine Books, Zürich, Switzerland, June, ‘21.  

With 12 original color lithographs (some double-page) and a suite of 12 orig. proofs of these lithographs in different states by Jean Dufy.   28 unnumbered leaves. Royal 4to. Loose sheets as issued in their original printed chemise in the original half cloth box.  #10 of 25 numbered copies, signed by the artist. Typography and printing by Philippe Gonin on his own press at 15, rue Lille, Paris. Jean Dufy (1888-1964) is, besides his brother Raoul, one of the chief representatives the post-impressionist artists of the École de Paris. One of the early and very rare works of the Paris Gonin press.  Not in Bodemann. The twelve fables presented here are “The Confident Parrot”; “Two Cats”; “The Coquette and the Bee”; “The Linnet and the Turtledove”; “The Fox Disguised”; “The Author and the Mice”; “The Cat and the Rats”; “The Voyage”; “The Tight-Rope Walker and the Pole”; “The Two Lions”; “Pan and Fortune”; and “The Mirror and Truth.”  My prizes for the most engaging illustrations here go to “The Confident Parrot”; “The Coquette and the Bee”; “Pan and Fortune”; and especially “The Voyage.”

1938 Fables de La Fontaine.  Dessins d'Artistes Français.  Canvas-bound.  Liège: Gordinne.  €5 from a bouquinist, Paris, June, '23.

This large-format canvas-spined booklet is a welcome addition to the collection for several reasons.  It belongs with many other books published by Gordinne in Liège.  But it has significant differences from them, particularly from the 1937 edition purchased from Dany Wolfs, with which this volume shares an attractive front-cover illustration of WC in color.  This copy puts together no less than five separately paginated booklets.  They number 32; 16; 4; 6; and 4 pages.  The first includes five full-page colored illustrations: "Two Mules" (I 3); "The Robbers and the Ass" (I 8); "The Hornets and the Bees" (I 15); "Death and the Unhappy Man" (I 25); and "A Man and His Image" (I 31).  The second "volume" includes three: "Minos' Scale" (II 3); "Steer, Horse, and Ass" (II 9); and "The White Elephant" (II 15).  The second, third, and fourth volumes include fables of Florian, even though the booklet's cover and title-page refer only to La Fontaine.  The first two volumes have only images on the right, but the last three volumes begin with a right-hand image.  The first volume is dated 1938.  Volume III has no date or publisher.  The other three have "Gordinne" and 1937.  A few illustrations are signed by Lemainque or Reloy.

1938 Folk Tales of Chhattisgarh, India.  Collected by Theophil H. Twente.  Illustrations by Dorothy R. Fyson.  First impression.  Hardbound.  North Tonawanda, NY: The Bodoni Press.  $10 from Second Story Warehouse, Rockville, MD, June, '19.

As I suspected, this collection of 26 folk tales includes several fables.  I count three.  "The Frog and the Lizard" (9) has a frog who keeps doing unintelligent things like floating down the river with the current, sitting on thorns, or settling on a dunghill.  When his lizard friend advises against each, the frog responds sharply.  For example, when the lizard warns that the frog might be drowned, the frog answers "Let your mother and sister be drowned."  The moral is that some people, when advised, retort with slanderous speech -- especially people who think themselves very religious.  "The King Who Learned from a Cock" (13) is the story from the "1001 Nights" about a man who can understand animals' speech.  "The Fox, the Tortoise and the Serpent" (40) is about how many plans each has in case of fire.  The serpent answers "100," and the tortoise "20," while the fox has only one.  Fire approaches.  The serpent goes up a tree, saying "These are my 100 plans."  The turtle crawls into a crack in the ground and says "See my 20 plans."  The fox's one plan is to run.  The fire consumes the former two, as the fox learns when he returns.  "It is better to be honest than to pretend."  Notice the reversal here: in the traditional Aesopic fable, it is the fox who claims many tricks.  And it is the fox who ultimately is caught while the one-trick cat is safe up in the tree.

1938 Frederick Richardson's Book for Children.  Illustrated by Frederick Richardson.  Hardbound.  Printed in USA.  Chicago/NY: M.A. Donohue & Company.  $12 from Midway Books, St. Paul, June, '03.  

The introduction describes this as a book of folk tales.  Perhaps I am extending the sense of "fable" too far and pushing the book into the collection.  Why?  Because I find it such a classic and because I find Richardson's work so distinctive.  I am surprised to find an apparent first edition available and inexpensive.  That same introduction has several other worthwhile contributions.  This was Richardson's last book.  These stories appeal to all ages, but they have become known as children's stories because they introduce the very young to the wonderland of romance and high adventure.  I find it significant, finally, that the introduction speaks of the stories as transcending frontier lines of nationality, race, or creed.  In 1938 that point would have a special impact, I think.  Of the ten stories, "The Cat and the Mouse" (67), "Johnny and the Three Goats" (75), and "The Wolf and the Fox" (83) may qualify as fables.  Colored full-page and black-and-white partial-page illustrations alternate.  The latter are complemented by dramatic initials.  I find the colored illustrations especially attractive.  "The Cat and the Mouse" is a progressive story.  To get her tail back from the cat, the mouse has to go to the cow, the farmer, the butcher, and the baker, because each wants or needs something that the next has.  Neither Johnny, nor the fox, nor the rabbit can get the goats out of the turnip field, but the lowly bee can, by buzzing around the ears of one goat after another.  In "The Wolf and the Fox," the fox on either of two occasions gets the wolf half of some food that has been prepared, but the greedy wolf wants more, and gets into trouble grabbing more.  On the third occasion, the fox leads him into a cellar, but the fox keeps checking himself against the hole through which they came.  The greedy wolf eats too much and can no longer fit through the hole.  He gets at least a thorough beating out of it!  By the way, "Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse" (91) is more gruesome than I had known!

1938 La Fontaine: Fables Choisies. Livres VII a XII. Notice et Notes par Ferdinand Gohin. Nouvelle Édition, augmentée de jugements critiques. Les Classiques pour Tous: Littérature Française. No 154. (See 1928? for the earlier edition and 1939 for the companion volume to this booklet.) Paris: Librairie A. Hatier. $1 from R. Dunaway, St. Louis, March, '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! Some pencilling.

1938 L'Illustration. Journal Hebdomadaire Universel. No 4996. 3 Décembre 1938. René Baschet, Directeur. Includes the article "Le Miroir de Bagdad" by Eustache de Lorey. $15 from Turtle Island, Berkeley, Sept., '01.

This lavish volume includes the article "Le Miroir de Bagdad" by Eustache de Lorey. It features first the work of Wasiti on life in Baghdad and second an illustrated manuscript of Bidpay. The latter offers four particularly exquisite colored illustrations. Like the copy I have from four years earlier, this is a magnificent magazine! There is notice of an early electric razor on XLI. Two pages earlier, there is a picture of movie star Jean Gabin as a young man.

1938 Marathi Folk Tales. By Wilfrid E. Dexter. Illustrated by Ernest Aris. Dust jacket. London: George G. Harrap and Company Ltd. $15 at Strand, Jan., '90.

A pleasing set of fifty-two brief stories from several genres with simple illustrations. The four Aesopic fables are "The Fox and the Goat" (the wolf story about finding a remedy for the king, 31), "The Lapdog and the Bull" (for Aesop's donkey, 97), "The Goat and the Baboon" (for Aesop's fox in the well, 117), and "The Cock-Pheasant and the Cat" (the rooster and the fox, 169). The last two of these have illustrations, and in the last there is a real dog! Otherwise the funniest of the stories begin on 35 and 41.

1938 Quelques Fables de Florian. Illustrées par Jean-Jacques Roussau. Paperbound. Printed in Paris. Paris: Laboratoires Bouillet. Euro 35 from Librairie La Poussière du Temps, Paris, Nov., '03.

Thirty-five fables, each with one or two pleasant black-and-white illustrations, followed by an epilogue. (The two non-pictured fables are together on 55.) There are also five unnumbered colored pages inserted at the appropriate point for their fables. The black-and-white illustrations are playful. One prize among these goes to "La Coquette et l'Abeille" (16). Typically dramatic among the several-color pages is "L'Inondation" (37). This book includes a slip declaring that this copy is a gift of Bismuth Tulasne et l'Iodulane to the medical corps. Additional inserts include a full-page offering an illustration of "Le Bismuth Tulasne et les Deux Cavaliers" and various short advertisements for Bismuth and Iodulane, e.g. in the treatment of colitis. On the gift insert we find a statement that "this" is the fifth and final fascicule. I take the "this" in that statement to refer to a portion of the book we have here rather than to the whole book we have here. That is, I doubt that there are four other volumes like this. This volume consists in single-fold pairs of pages and a heavier cover-wrapper. It reminds me of a number of fine fable books of pre-World War II vintage that I found in Clignancourt's flea markets about four years ago. It shows the same enchantment with fable combined with taste and imagination.

1938 Stories That Never Grow Old. Edited by Watty Piper. Illustrated by George and Doris Hauman. Sixth Edition. NY: The Platt and Munk Company. $25 from Judy Gutterman at Banbury Cross, Atlanta, April, '94.

This book seems nearly identical to my 1938/52 copies except for these points: First, the cover here is blue with gold embossing and a picture of a woman storyteller and some children. Secondly, colored and black-and-white pictures seem to alternate on pairs of pages. In this edition there are five Aesopic fables: FS, "The Fox and the Goat," BW, LM, and MSA. The pictures are beautiful! This is of course not a first edition but it is the earliest copy I have of this lovely book.

1938 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.

1938 The Animal Story Book. Edited by Ernest Thompson-Seton. Young Folks' Library, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Editor-in-chief. ©1938 by Charles E. Knapp. Chicago: Auxiliary Educational League. See 1902/38/45.

1938 The Animal Story Book. Edited by Ernest Thompson-Seton. ©1953 by Sarah M. Knapp. Chicago: Auxiliary Educational League. See 1902/38/52/53.

1938 The Animal Story Book. Edited by Ernest Thompson-Seton. ©1955 by Sarah M. Knapp. Chicago: Auxiliary Educational League. See 1902/38/52/53/54/55.

1938 The Cautious Carp and other fables in pictures. Nicholas Radlov. Dust jacket. NY: Coward McCann, Inc. $5 at Constant Reader, Summer, '89.

A delightful cartoon book in fine condition. One fable is pure Aesop ("The Stubborn Goats"), and several play off of Aesop: "The Ducks and the Rabbit," FG, and "The Clever Puppy." Engaging and lively three-color illustrations.

1938 The Dodo and the Camel. A Fable for Children Freely Told in English. By Kemp Malone. After the Danish version of Gudmund Schütte. Apparently out of series from a limited edition of 100. Baltimore: J.H. Furst Company. $30 at Kelmscott, Spring, '92.

More of a verse mini-beast epic than a fable. Situated in London, Madagascar, and Timbuctoo. Important groups for this happily wedded pair include the zoo and the circus. The villain is the baboon from the circus. The meters in each section are those of a well known song, for example from Gilbert and Sullivan. Malone was apparently a faculty member at Johns Hopkins. Typo on 40: in line 1 of #7, try of for if. This is an enjoyable, whimsical little book.

1938 The Fable of the Disputed Oyster: How Two Men Went to Law Over a Poor Fish.  Pamphlet.  Utica, NY: Press of Howard Coggeshall.  $10 from Riverow Bookshop, Owego, NY, through AbeBooks, April, '23.

This lovely pamphlet of eight pages is first of all a treasure because I found it offered on AbeBooks as I continued to consider whether I would purchase AbeBooks' version reduced to $120!  That copy has a laid in card from Howard & Marie Coggeshall.  I am willing to sacrifice the card for $110!  The telling also makes this pamphlet special.  It has the droll Tom Smith first asking the two if they really want to go to court with him as judge.  Then, once he has consumed the oyster, he explains to them that that is the way court works, and learning that working is worth an oyster.  The two laugh heartily.  This version includes the original Columbian Spelling-Book image of  the three men in their hats and formal coats.  4½" x 6".

1938 The Industrious Bear (Cover: From Krylov's Fables). Printed for the Russian Church Bazaar by Thoreau MacDonald. Paperbound. The Woodchuck Press. $35 from Alexander's Books, Ancaster, ON, Canada, May, '08.

This pamphlet, almost 5" x 6", has six pages printed only on the recto. There is a simple bear on the title-page, which adds the phrase "Printed for the Russian Church Bazaar - 1938." Each of the other six larger woodcuts is signed "TM." They help in lovely fashion to tell the story of clumsy Mishka, who decides to make yokes but is impatient in bending them. Among the most successful illustrations, I believe, is the one that has the bear almost swinging from the tree, while it begins to break right where he has put his upper foot. There is a pleasing emblem of a woodchuck on the back cover. I am willing to bet that not many copies of this lovely little pamphlet were made.

1938 The New Junior Classics. Edited by Mabel Williams and Marcia Dalphin. Volume One: Fairy Tales and Fables. P.F. Collier and Son: No place given. $2.50 from the Milwaukee Antique Center.

See my comments on the 1938/48/49 edition. This original edition is identical with that except that this edition does not say "De Luxe Edition" on the title-page and does not have an editorial director.

1938 The Original Fables of La Fontaine. Translated and illustrated by F(rederick) C(olin) Tilney. Tales for Children from Many Lands. London: J.M Dent and Sons/NY: E.P. Dutton. Reprinted in 1936; cheaper edition 1938. See 1913/36/38.

1938 The Tails Book: A Modern Bestiary. By Graham Carey. Illustrated by Francis Dahl. First printing. Hardbound. London and NY: Sheed and Ward. $25 from The Owl at the Bridge, Cranston, RI, May, '07.

This book was shaped by a wonderful whim, and I am including it in the collection on a whim. It does not include a fable, but the wisdom it contains is so like the wisdom of fables that I want to hang onto this book for the next person who reads fables. The book is about the variety of uses to which animals with tails put their tails. It is a "come to think of it" book. Until we think about it, we do not realize the wide variety of uses animals make of their tails. Thus early chapters--each of a few pages, with an initial and one illustration--present the horse's fly-whisker, the cat's amusement, the porcupine's spear-thruster, the dog's smiler, the crocodile's club, and the peacock's way to attract a wife. The book belonged to the Shadowbrook Library in Lenox. This is not the first time that I have bought back a book that once belonged to a Jesuit library!

1938 The Third Book of Fables.  Herbert McKay. Hardbound.  London: The Road to Reading Supplementary Series: Humphrey Milford/Oxford University Press.  £3.20 from BookMangos, France, Nov., '23.

Here is a hardbound copy of a book I found canvas-bound 31 years ago.  The book is the same with these differences in addition to the different binding.  The title-page adds Bombay, Calcutta and Madras to the earlier London.  The verso of the title page has two changes.  It makes note of the first printing in 1930 but adds five subsequent printings, including this 1938 printing.  It also moves the declaration of printer from 96 and changes from "R. Clay and Sons" to identifying the "R" as "Richard."  As I wrote of the 1930 canvas-bound copy, it has simple but strong two-color illustrations and good tellings.  Fifty-three fables, "chiefly Aesop's."  The best of the illustrations is the leaping fox on 23.  I asked then if there were more fable books in this series, and I wonder still.

1938 Toby Tortoise and the Hare. Sewed and Linen-like Finish. Hollywood, CA: Walt Disney Enterprises. $40 from Nicholas Potter, Santa Fe, May, '93. Extra copy for $19.06 from Joe and Melody Tate of Gross Valley, CA, through eBay, Oct.'05.

I am glad at last to have some original Disney fable work. The presentation is surprising. It assumes the race. During it, Max shows off for the little-girl rabbits at Miss Cottontail's Boarding School. (They can be recognized by their huge eyelashes!) All laugh meanwhile at Toby as he goes on at a snail's pace. Then, surprisingly, a different story begins: Max and Toby wage a prize fight. The experience of the first story repeats itself. Toby trains and knocks out lazy Max with one punch. Because both copies have flaws, I will keep both in the collection.

1938 9 Stories. No editor acknowledged. Illustrated by Florence Salter. Linen-like oversized booklet. Chicago: Merrill Publishing Co. $5 at Missouri Valley Antique Mall for copy with loose covers, June, '94. Extra copy with back cover half-missing for $2 at Pageturner's, Omaha, Dec., '92.

TH gets one page as one of the nine stories. Cute clothes and lively fans.

1938 66 Favorite Stories: 140 Pictures. Chicago: The Merrill Publishing Co. $2 at Pageturner's, Omaha, Dec., '92.

This is a big, cheap-paper book fourteen of whose sixty-six stories come from Aesop. Generally, the black-and-white illustrations are simple, and the tellings standard. FC has been transformed into "The Fox and the Hen and the Apple" (60), complete with LaFontaine's ending that the lesson will repay the victim for her loss. In a weird picture on the facing page, an ant doffs his top-hat to thank the dove for help. Satisfactory condition.

1938/38? Andy and the Lion. A Tale of Kindness Remembered or The Power of Gratitude. By James Daugherty. Cadmus Books. Special edition published by arrangement with the publisher of the regular edition, The Viking Press. Eau Claire, WI: E.M. Hale and Co. $6 from an unknown source, August, '11.

See my comments under the reprint (1938/66/89).  This copy is in remarkably good condition if it was indeed put out in 1938.  Notice that it is a Cadmus reprint of a book originally published by Viking.

1938/41 Tales from Storyland. Edited by Watty Piper. Illustrated by George and Doris Hauman. NY: Platt and Munk. $10 at Brattle Book, June, '91.

Typical Platt and Munk handling of FS, "The Fox and the Goat," and BW. Excellent colored pictures, especially of FS. BW gets four pages and four pictures (two colored) and a talking-to from the mayor. Originally sold at the Book Shop in Providence, RI. Several students have written their names on the cover and the page preceding the title page.

1938/41/55 Tales from Storyland. Edited by Watty Piper. Illustrated by George and Doris Hauman. NY: Platt and Munk. $5 at Time Traveller, Feb. '87.

See my comment on the 1941 edition. Comparison of the two reveals some curiosities: the earlier edition did not mention its predecessor in 1938; the cover has been downgraded to a line drawing; BW now has four colored pictures; and the colored illustrations are less well done.

1938/48/49 The New Junior Classics. Edited by Mabel Williams and Marcia Dalphin. Volume One: Fairy Tales and Fables. P.F. Collier and Son: No place given. $2.50 at Milwaukee Public Library sale, Summer, '86. Extra copy of the 1954 printing for $.75 from Friends of the Worcester Public Library, Worcester, Nov., '97.

Jacobs' version of fourteen fables with seven very nicely colored Heighway illustrations--all at the very end of the volume.

1938/48/49/58 The Junior Classics. Edited by Mabel Williams and Marcia Dalphin. Volume One: Fairy Tales and Fables. Popular Edition. Fifty-ninth printing. P.F. Collier and Son: No place given. $1.95 at Donaldson's Books, San Antonio, August, '96.

Compare this book with the larger, nicer, and more comprehensive The New Junior Classics of 1938/48/49. The same fourteen fables are presented at the end (here 345-356). Their Heighway illustrations have become monochrome, and one has been dropped, "The Cock and the Pearl." Overall in this volume, three writings have been dropped from that volume (the first by Caldecott and the last two from Japan), and the illustrations are done more cheaply.

1938/52 Stories That Never Grow Old. Edited by Watty Piper. Illustrated by George and Doris Hauman. NY: Platt and Munk. $4 at Delavan Booksellers, Aug., '87. Second copy with different cover for $6 from Bonifant, Wheaton, MD, Oct., '91.

This book is Tales from Storyland with five more stories added, including LM and MSA (and "The Little Engine That Could"). The second copy is identical except that it replaces the cover-engraving with a picture; its last page is torn.

1938/65 Stories That Never Grow Old: Best Loved Stories. Retold by Watty Piper. Illustrated by George and Doris Hauman. Hardbound. Printed in USA. NY: Platt and Munk. $9 from Gramp's Attic Books, Ellicott City, MD, Jan., '00.

Of the twenty stories in the 1952 edition, this edition chooses fifteen. It drops "Why the Bear Has a Stumpy Tail," "How the Finch Got Her Colors," "Li'l Hannibal," "Mr. And Mrs. Vinegar," and "The Old Man, His Son, and the Donkey." Of fables, four remain: FS, "The Fox and the Goat," BW, and LM. Their texts seem and the illustrations are identical with those of the earlier editions. This edition anticipates the layout and art of the early pages of the book that will be found in the 1969 edition. Of course, the old man and his son are still on the endpapers on their donkey! The T of C at the beginning has added page numbers.

1938/66 Andy and the Lion. By James Daugherty. NY: The Viking Press. $8 at Red Bridge, Kansas City, May, '93.

Now at last I have a copy by the original publisher. See my comments under the reprints by others (1938/38? and 1938/66/89). This book, which offers a third cover format and color scheme, has a specially reinforced binding. Mint condition.

1938/66 Andy and the Lion. James Daugherty. Hardbound. Twenty-seventh printing or twenty-seventh thousand. Printed in USA. NY: Viking. $2.25 from Constant Reader, Milwaukee, Jan., '99.

Internally this is the same as the edition I have listed already under 1938/66, but it has a new cover format, namely a brown/tan background with black figures and white shading. This approach to the cover matches that in the most recent contemporary softbound printing (1938/66/89). It also has a silver "Caldecott Honor Book" stamp on the cover.

1938/66/88 Andy and the Lion. A Tale of Kindness Remembered or The Power of Gratitude. By James Daugherty. Apparently the first printing of this edition. By arrangement with Viking Penguin. NY: The Trumpet Club. $1.95 from Paper Moon, Portland, March, '96. Extra copy of the second printing for $2 at Aardvark, Aug., '94.

Here is a smaller paperback edition than the Viking Penguin Puffin printed in 1989. The pages seem to be proportionally reduced. See my comments there.

1938/66/89 Andy and the Lion. A Tale of Kindness Remembered or The Power of Gratitude. By James Daugherty. A Puffin Book. NY: Viking Penguin. $3.95 at Harvard Coop, May, '89.

A charming tale of a boy who dreams about lions. The circus allows the tale to come up to our century. The nostalgic drawings and the lifestyle date the book to the 30's at the latest. The best illustration is the embrace of the boy and the lion. A successful transposition of a good old story.

1938/69 Stories That Never Grow Old. Best Loved Stories Retold by Watty Piper. Illustrated by George and Doris Hauman. NY: Platt and Munk. $8 from Red Bridge, Kansas City, May, '93. Extra copy with different ISBN number and slightly different back cover for $2.50 from Bonifant, Wheaton, MD, Oct., '91.

Chooses eleven of the twenty stories in the 1938 and 1952 editions. The title pages are laid out in a new way, and the art from the inside covers has been dropped. Someone has drawn on the front and inside covers of the Bonifant copy. Of fables, three remain: FS, BW, and LM. Their texts and illustrations seem identical with those of the earlier editions. Two have been lost: "The Fox and the Goat" and MSA.

1938/2012 Funny Fables: Modern Interpretations of Famous Fabulists.  Ed. Kuekes.   Hardbound.  Buffalo, NY/: Foster & Stewart/ICG Testing.  £29.99 from Unbeatable Sales, Lakewood, NJ, through eBay, July, '14.  

Here is a facsimile reprint of a presentation of fables in comic book style from the late 1930's.  Might the original have been in color?  This copy may be a proof copy, since the first pages seem to be alignment pages helpful to a binder.  As the beginning T of C shows, there are forty fables here, each given one page with six panels.  Kuekes hopes his approach is novel, as he writes in his introduction, in that he has decided "that they would be more interesting if they were shown as though they were actually happening today -- instead of many years ago."  He also says that he is borrowing, not directly from Aesop himself, but rather from those who borrowed from Aesop.  In both cases, I think he has more company than his statements would indicate.  In TH, for example, the hare rides a scooter and the tortoise a skateboard.  "The Mouse and the Weasel" (4) has to do with getting out through the same hole through which one entered.  Its moral is a bit surprising: "The cure is often as bad as the disease."  In OF, mother frog is "annoyed that her little ones should doubt her puffing powers."  That approach may miss a better interpretation of mother frog's issue.  The moral to GGE is "Let well enough alone" (17).  There is here a good telling of "The Wild Bees and the Bear" (18).  The bear is angered by one bee and pounces upon the whole hive -- and then has to pay the price for his inconsiderate action.  "It's wiser to endure one insult than to provoke hundreds of others by losing your temper."  Kuekes' cartooning is at its best perhaps in LM (11) and 2P (19).  I have read the first half and do not find much here that is unusual.  I would love to find a colored original!

1938? Fables de La Fontaine. Choisies et Commentées par Le Chanoine Le Meur. Hardbound. Printed in Tours. Paris: Éditions École et Collège: FF70 from Librairie de l'avenue Henry Veyrier, Saint-Ouen, August, '01.

This is a helpful school edition containing perhaps two-thirds of La Fontaine's fables. Apparently each has a black-and-white illustration, and they are well done. These would be helpful simple illustrations for handout questions when dealing with La Fontaine in a course. At the back there is first an AI of fables and then a T of C. The notes with each fable seem quite extensive. The illustrations are signed "R. MV--."

1939 All through Storyland: Stories and Verse for Boys and Girls.  Illustrated by Bill Bailey.  Hardbound.  Akron, OH: The Saalfield Publishing Company.  $10 from an unknown source, July, '16.

Here is a children's storybook with thick, unnumbered pages and a wide variety of story-types.  The one fable is identified as from Aesop and takes two pages late in the book: "The Cats and the Monkey."  When the monkey has taken several nibbles out of both pieces of cheese, the cats cry "We are satisfied.  Let us have the two pieces as they are."  The bespectacled monkey responds "You may be satisfied, but the court is not.  What remains is my fee."  After the monkey eats the last of the cheese, he declares the case settled.  Two simple but effective black-and-white illustrations.

1939 Bobbs-Merrill Readers: The Fourth Reader.  Clara B. Baker and Edna B. Baker.  Vera Stone Norman.  Hardbound.  Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Readers:  Bobbs-Merrill.  $7.95 at Black Swan Books, Oakland, July, '13.

This book fits with the Third Reader already in the collection.  Vera Stone got married in the meantime.  Fable materials here, gathered in a section named "Wise Old Tales," include "The Emperor's New Clothes" (82); ""Buried Treasure" (94); "The Quails" (100); and "The Mountain and the Squirrel" (103).  "Buried Treasure" is well told.  It features the father's will, which states "I bequeath to my sons my olive orchard and equal shares in the treasure that lies buried there."  The sons fear that anybody hired to dig up the treasure will steal it, and so they themselves do the digging.  "The Quails" includes two features besides the usual "Kalila and Dimna" feature of picking up the net and flying away with it.  One comes from the Buddhist parable in which the quails settle the net onto thorn bushes and so escape.  The other involves quails quarreling with each other and so not working together to escape.  This book is in amazingly good condition!

1939 Fabulas de Tomas de Iriarte. Ilustraciones de E. Freixas. First edition. Buenos Aires: Editorial Molino. $60 from Margolis & Moss, June, '95.

A large-format book with sixty-eight fables. (A good project sometime would be to find out why Iriarte editions end up with different numbers of fables: 66 and 76 seem most frequent. Which ones did this edition put in or leave out?) The front cover features a strong colored presentation of the dressed-up monkey and the parrot. Each fable inside has one black-and-white illustration of one-third to one-half a page; then there is an animal image at the end of those that leave some space on the page. Among the best illustrations are those for "El Mono y el Titiritero" (11), "La Mona" (41), "El Naturalista y las Lagartijas" (93), and "El Volatin y su Maestro" (99). The illustrations are either crude or smudged or both. It is unusual to get a book on fables from this corner of the world at this time!

1939 Favorite Fables from Aesop.  Pictures by Milo Winter.  Chicago: Rand McNally.  $1 at Powell's, Portland, Aug., '85.

I have three different versions of this book and will keep two copies of this first version in the collection.  I believe that this Powell's copy and the copy from Dorothy Meyer may be the most original.  The two show these features.  They include copyright information at the bottom of the title-page.  The first fable begins immediately on the verso of the title-page with a picture of CP and the text of CP on the facing page.  The T of C is at the back of the book with these numbers on its verso: CS6-39 and 30-90.  I believe that this Powell's copy may be the oldest, since it still retains its original price sticker proclaiming the cost of the book as $.10.  All the copies proclaim that they are from "The Aesop for Children" of 1919 and that they are the edition of 1939.  Both the Powell's and the Dorothy Meyer copies have flaws -- a separating binding and a taped T of C page, respectively -- and so I will keep both in the collection.  The colored pictures are very good.  The best among them are of the crab and its mother and of GA.  It is strange to find so much variation in a simple book; it is also strange to have found the book three times in a short period after finding it only once in a long period.

1939 Favorite Fables from Aesop.  Milo Winter.  Hardbound.  Chicago: Rand McNally.  Gift of Linda Schlafer from Dorothy Meyer, March, '93.

Here is the second copy of the probable first of three versions of this book in the collection.  I believe that this copy from Dorothy Meyer and the Powell's copy may be the most original.  The two show these features.  They include copyright information at the bottom of the title-page.  The first fable begins immediately on the verso of the title-page with a picture of CP and the text of CP on the facing page.  The T of C is at the back of the book with these numbers on its verso: CS6-39 and 30-90.  All the copies proclaim that they are from "The Aesop for Children" of 1919 and that they are the edition of 1939.  Both the Powell's and the Dorothy Meyer copies have flaws -- a separating binding and a taped T of C page, respectively -- and so I will keep both in the collection.  The colored pictures are very good.  The best among them are of the crab and its mother and of GA.  It is strange to find so much variation in a simple book; it is also strange to have found the book three times in a short period after finding it only once in a long period.

1939 Favorite Fables from Aesop.  Milo Winter.  Hardbound.  Chicago: Rand McNally.  $10 from Book Stop, Albuquerque, May, '93.

Here is the first copy of the probable second of three versions of this book in the collection.  The book shows these features.  Copyright information is on the verso of the title-page, followed by this number: CS 10-38.  The T of C follows immediately at the front of the book.  "30-90" is at the bottom of 64, with which the book stops abruptly.  All the copies proclaim that they are from "The Aesop for Children" of 1919 and that they are the edition of 1939.  The colored pictures are very good.  The best among them are of the crab and its mother and of GA.  It is strange to find so much variation in a simple book; it is also strange to have found the book three times in a short period after finding it only once in a long period.

1939 Favorite Fables from Aesop.  Milo Winter.  Hardbound.  Chicago: Rand McNally.  $12 from Greg Williams, May, '92.

Here is the probable third of three versions of this book in the collection.  The book shows these features.  Copyright information is on the verso of the title-page, followed by this number: CS 12-38.  The T of C follows immediately at the front of the book.  "30-90" is at the bottom of 64, with which the book stops abruptly.  All the copies proclaim that they are from "The Aesop for Children" of 1919 and that they are the edition of 1939.  The colored pictures are very good.  The best among them are of the crab and its mother and of GA.  It is strange to find so much variation in a simple book; it is also strange to have found the book three times in a short period after finding it only once in a long period.

1939 Journeys Through Bookland. A new and original plan for reading applied to the world's best literature for children. By Charles H. Sylvester. Volume One. New Edition. Various illustrators. Chicago: Bellows-Reeve Company. See 1909/39.

1939 La Fontaine: Fables Choisies. Livres I a VI. Notice et Notes par Ferdinand Gohin. Nouvelle Édition, augmentée de Sujets de composition et d'un Questionnaire. Les Classiques pour Tous: Littérature Française. No 151. (See 1938 for companion volume.) Paris: Librairie A. Hatier. $1 from R. Dunaway, St. Louis, March, '95.

Seventy-seven fables, listed in a T of C at the very back, in the kind of pamphlet the French seem to have made a specialty! Some pencilling.

1939 Les Fables de La Fontaine et Hitler.  J.-Y. Mass and D. Collot.  Paperbound.  Paris: Les Éditions Fernand Sorlot.  $195.50 from Carlos Rodrigues, Oeiras, Portugal, through eBay, July, '14. 

I had known several of the designs in this book for years and despaired of ever finding them.  Then I found them in the 2010 facsimile reproduction of the 1939 original by Nouvelles Editions Latines.  I wrote when I catalogued that edition that I was all the more eager to find an original.  I had never had one in my hand.  I was amazed to find this copy on eBay and even more amazed when I won the auction.  This original was published shortly before the German conquest of France and the consequent destruction of materials like this, materials critical of Nazis.  Ten fables are presented with their La Fontaine texts utterly intact.  The blurb on the back cover of the reproduction has it right: "Cet album, textes et dessins, dénonçait la férocité et la mégalomanie du chancelier allemand."  In this book it is the satirical illustrations that make the difference!  Several seem to me to apply less well.  Among those that may seem to stretch La Fontaine in order to criticize Hitler, I would list FC and GA.  Who is that asking Hitler the crow to drop the cheese that is Poland?  And I would never have envisioned Hitler as the artist grasshopper needing to ask the ants for shelter..  Several illustrations, though, hit the mark perfectly!  Those that seem made for criticizing Hitler have the representations that I have seen and remembered, particularly WL and MM.  Hitler as a milkmaid is a riot!  Notice the doll or girl lying near the lamb in WL's illustration.  "The Wolf Become a Shepherd" portrays the shepherd as the angel of peace sleeping in the pasture.  One that seems more a prophecy than a critique is OR.  Who is that goddess that sends the lightning down to uproot the Hitler-oak?  OF similarly looks forward to Hitler's self-explosion.

1939 Little Pig's Picnic and Other Stories. Told by Margaret Wise Brown. Illustrated by The Walt Disney Studio. Inscribed in Dec., '43. Boston: D.C. Heath. $16 from Marilyn Plate at Collectors' Fair, Omaha, Nov., '89. Extra copy inscribed in '48 for $13.50 from Midway, St. Paul, March, '94.

Beautiful illustrations throughout the work, including those for the one fable, GA. Did Disney do a movie version of this fable? The illustrations are similar--and the text exactly the same--as those in Walt Disney's Story Land (1962). Both copies are in very good condition.

1939 Magic Strings: Marionette plays with production notes. By Remo Bufano. Decorations by Boris Artzybasheff. Hardbound. NY: The Macmillan Company. $10 from Greg Williams, Philadelphia, Jan., '98.

Bufano is eager to give the marionette-theater-producer all the encouragement, help, and liberty he can for engaging performances. Three of the eleven shows proposed here deal with Aesopic material. "Aesop's Jungle" (15-25) is a farcical rendition of several fox fables, including FWT, FG, and the story of the fox who got in the granary but could not get out again. Some notes immediately following give tips, e.g., on how to make a slightly expandable fox who can get caught going out the whole through which he came in. "Androcles Likes Bananas" (47-54) alludes to Aesop and calls this lion the direct descendant of the lion who spared the human Androcles. In a surprise ending, Androcles bites off the head of his trainer but then gives it back for a bunch of bananas. "The Three Partners" (81-92) works off of Aesop's "A Lion, the Fox, and the Ass." The lion here gives the ass three chances to divide their booty of fish; he does so each time by making three equal piles. The lion simply devours him. Again, there are helpful notes for the director just after the script (93-4). He urges letting the lion be the absolute bully, the ass be entirely stupid, and the fox the epitome of slyness.

1939 Read Another Story. Marjorie Pratt and Mary Meighen. Illustrated by Carol Critchfield. Chicago: Benj. H. Sanborn & Co. $3 at Renaissance Airport, Oct., '93. Extra copy for $4 from Second Chance Antiques, Omaha, Oct., '97.

The Renaissance copy of this early elementary reader is in very good condition. Among its ten simple stories is MSA (81-91). I was surprised to see this story here, since the other stories are so simple. The illustrations are sharp and lively. The telling does not motivate the carrying of the donkey. The donkey sees a donkey in the water (are we getting this story confused with DS?), and when it is all over, the donkey walks just as the man and boy do. The extra copy was the property of the state of Texas back from 1947 to 1951 and then became the property of St. Robert's School in Omaha.

1939 Rosas de la Infancia: Lecturas para los Niños: Libro Segundo. Maria Enriqueta. Ilustraciones de A. Gedovius. Hardbound. Mexico City: Editorial Patria, S.A. $10 from Cliff's Books, Pasadena, August, '95.

This is a canvas-bound book of some 140 pages and a T of C. The front board cover pesents various colored floral patterns. An anomaly of the book is that 65-80 are missing in this copy. In their place 129-140 and the T of C are presented for a second time! There are some identified fables and a couple of others. So we find "El Lobo, el Lobo!" (20); TH (40, with colored illustration); "La Gallina que ponia huevos de oro," identified as from Aesop (51); "La Rana," also from Aesop (53); "La Hormiga y la Cigarra" (54); "El Burro y la Cigarra" (63: the donkey changes his diet to that of the cicada and dies); and "El Perro y el Gato" (130). The book forms a good testimony to the power of fables in a culture different from our own.

1939 Storyland. Hazel Gertrude Kinscella. Illustrations by Ruth Mary Hallock. Stories in Music Appreciation for the Second Grade. Lincoln: University Publishing Company. $1.50 at Antiquarium, Nov., '92.

Apparently in the same series as Folk Tales from Many Lands (1926/30), even down to the same inside covers. There is one Aesopic fable, "An Old Fable of the Cock" (and fox) on 108-110, done as a play. Note also the Chinese fable on 19 and Chaucer's Chanticleer story on 101. Again, the unusual concept of this series is that all selections are related to music, and the author recommends music to accompany each selection.

1939 Tales of Laughter Every Child Should Know. Edited by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith. Second Series. NY: Doubleday, Doran, and Co. for the Parents' Institute. See 1908/39.

1939 The Fables of Aesop and The Original Fables of La Fontaine. Translated and Illustrated by F. C. Tilney. Translated and Illustrated by F. C. Tilney. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Tales for Children from Many Lands--Double Volumes. London: J.M. Dent and Sons/NY: E.P. Dutton. $10 from Leonard Shoup, Hamilton, Ontario, July, '98.

This volume lets us see publishers at work. I have--under "1915?"--this publisher's Aesop's Fables, which is included here almost without change. I have five different copies of The Original Fables of La Fontaine, which is again included almost without change. The second book begins pagination over and so keeps elements like the frontispiece and T of C which it had as an independent book. The frontispiece still has the erroneous "left" for "leapt." Some of the book's curiosities include its author's name and its series. By the 1938 edition of the La Fontaine book, Frederick Colin had become "F.C." and so it is here. The 1938 edition had also picked up a series title: "Tales for Children from Many Lands." That series name persists here but is now augmented by "Double Volumes." As often, the dust jacket changes the title from the title-page, here by omitting the world "original." The back of the title-page for the La Fontaine section here suggests the book's history by mentioning first publication in this edition in 1913, a reprint in 1936, and reissue at a cheaper price in 1938, and a reprint in 1939. The corresponding section at the beginning of the book mentions only the first publication in this edition and gives 1939 as its date.

1939 The Four Apes and Other Fables of Our Day. Alfred Kreymborg. Illustrations by Emile Beliveau. First printing?. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. NY: Loker Raley. $39.95 from Mike's Library, Wilkes-Barre, PA, May, '08.

Here are ten plays written in verse and even in ballad form. There are helpful director's notes from Beliveau on 227-30. I tried two of the presentations: "The Four Winds Talk It Over" and "The Four Apes." I found them frankly wordy and difficult to relate to. "The Four Apes" may have most interest for us today. As Beliveau notes, it refers to Munich and the recent Nazi advances in places like Czechoslovakia. The cover art suggests its anti-Nazi stance. My dealer's notes says that these pieces were originally written for radio and were broadcast over the NBC network. Kreymborg was a major literary presence in his day, which would have generally been before the time of this book.

1939 The How and Why Program: Hero Unit. Edited by George W. Diemer; Contributing Editor Claude Merton Wise. Various illustrators. Cleveland: L. J. Bullard Co. See 1930/39/49/56.

1939 The How and Why Program: Story Unit. Edited by George W. Diemer; Contributing Editor Claude Merton Wise. Various illustrators. Cleveland: L. J. Bullard Co. See 1930/39/49/56.

1939 The Literary Snail. K.B. and L.S.G.P. Hardbound. Norton, MA: The Periwinkle Press. $5 from Wentworth & Leggett, Durham, NC, June, '96.

Here is a pleasant little collection of references in literature to the snail; such, after all, is a periwinkle. One of the first is "The Boy and the Snails" with a comment in parentheses afterwards: "We do not care for this fable.--P.P." In the preface, the editors style themselves as lacking technical knowledge but continuing to print experimentally. The very nice snail design of the last printed page is repeated on the front cover. A lucky find on a quick stop in my travels.

1939 The Satyr's Children. A fable by Edith Franklin Wyatt. Chicago: Argus Books. $7 from Roger Carlson at Bookman's Alley, Evanston, August, '96.

A wistful and romantic twenty-page short story in a pamphlet. The story touches on reactions to the foreign and especially on the need for compassion with anyone’s eccentricities. An aged woodcutter and his wife come upon orphaned satyr-children, adopt them, defend them, care for them, and worry about them—until they have grown and it is clear that their own world is calling them back. I like especially the old mother. When told "You cannot know where they came from or what will become of them," she answers "No, that cannot be known about any one." Again "Well, well, she knew that Christina was right in considering the children’s horns and tails were odd. Yet there they were,--after all, not more freakish than her husband’s perversity, or many another fact of nature through which, during a long life, she had been sustained by a sense of fun still but powerful" (14).

1939 Twenty Jataka Tales. Retold by Noor Inayat. Pictured by H. Willebeek LeMair. Philadephia: David McKay Company. $8.95 from the Book Shop, Burbank, Feb., '97.

What a beautiful old hardbound original of a book I have found in two paperback versions from the last eleven years! See my comments on them under 1985 and 1991; for them Noor Inayat adds "Khan" to her name. The nineteen black-and-white illustrations come off much better here on their special paper. The pagination here seems to agree with that in neither of the later paperback versions. Inscribed by a mother to her nine-year-old in 1942.

1939 Twenty Jataka Tales. Retold by Noor Inayat. Pictured by H. Willebeek LeMair. Hardbound. Printed in Great Britain. London: George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd. £15 from Toll Cottage, Hay-on-Wye, June, '98.

Here we have the British first edition that parallels the American first edition done in the same year by David McKay. See my comments there. This book does not inlay the cover design with gold but merely prints it with black. The design of the printing on the spine is also different. It is hard to find any other differences between the two books. There is some pencilling opposite the "Contents" page.

1939 3 Fables de Jean de la Fontaine.  R. Lombardin.  #17 of 90.  Pamphlet.  Abbey of La Cambre, Belgium: École nationale supérieure d'Architecture et des Arts Décoratifs/nationale hoogere school voor bouwkunst en sierkunsten.  €140 from Erik Tonen, Antwerp, June, '23.

Here is a really unusual piece.  Since it is such an unusual ephemeral piece, I am particularly happy -- even at the great cost -- to include it in the collection.  For such a careful work, apparently by a graduating student, this pamphlet of 6 pages bypasses what would have been helpful information.  What I miss most is "Where?"  The producing school is identified in French and Flemish.  The name that the school in Abbey of La Cambre, Belgium, seems to have has changed slightly since then, and there is another school with a very similar name in Paris.  The pamphlet's format is simple.  After a title-page, there are three pairs of pages, each beginning La Fontaine's text on the left and concluding it with a strong black-and-white rectangle on the right.  The first of these is the story of the wolf and the skinny dog.  This unwise wolf does not eat the skinny dog while he can, but believes a promise that the dog will fatten up.  The illustration focuses on a second dog, a hefty watchdog for whom the wolf would be no match.  La Fontaine's last line: "This wolf did not yet know his business well."  The second fable has a traveler encounter a satyr.  The Satyr here is a fascinating visual figure looming over the rather dandy traveler and his overly articulated fingers.  The third shows us the monkey and the cat who has fetched chestnuts, supposedly for them both.  Is the cat here just now turning around from his painful labor?  The last two pages offer colophons, one in French and one in Flemish.  The pamphlet was a New Year gift of this school.  What was New Year's Day like in Belgium in 1940?  Not in Bodemann.

1939/42 African Aesop, Containing "The Little Wise One" and "Kalulu the Hare". Written and illustrated by Frank Worthington. Signed by the author. 1942 reprinting. Hardbound. Printed in Great Britain. London/Glasgow: Wm. Collins and Co. £28 from Kenya Books, Brighton, U.K., Feb., '00

"The Little Wise One" and "Kalulu the Hare" are volumes of, respectively, twenty and twelve fables each that are bound together here. Worthington's little accompanying illustrations are, I believe, especially delightful for the "exhaled cries" that one can see emerging from animals' mouths as though shot from cannons. The book is signed by Worthington in 1948. It was originally sold by Preece & MacKenzie in Bulawayo. This book has traveled! Despite the book's title, these are stories more in the tradition of Uncle Remus than of Aesop. They are delightful tales of wit, with the hare usually playing the role of the clever trickster. Let me give a short account of the first six. TH involves five different tortoises at different landmarks along the way. In the second tale, hare secretly puts lion's tail into a hole and tamps it fast while he seems to be cleaning it of fleas. In the next, baboons trick hare by taking him to a beer pot, but it is up in the tree and he cannot reach it. So he puts a beer pot in the middle of a field he has burned out--and then insists that the baboons can lift up the beer pot only if they have clean hands. In the fourth, buffalo makes hare carry blankets on a trip to see lion, his chief, and pays no attention to his pleading that they are too heavy. So hare puts bees into the blankets, shuts the door on buffalo's hut, props it closed, and leaves. In the fifth, lion instructs a man to let his dogs eat the captured antelope, and then he should eat the dogs, and the lion will eat the man. A hare says "yes" and mentions that then he will eat the lion! He finally gets the lion mad enough to come after him--which gives the man a chance to escape with the dogs and the antelope, since he does not want to follow the lion's pyramid scheme. In the last, hare entices others to get revenge on those who would not help hare when he needed to get across the river because of a dangerous fire. Hare often lures one of his enemies into attacking another. These are enjoyable stories, even though they are not fables in the strictest sense.

1939/50/66 A Book of Children's Literature. Selected and edited by Lillian Hollowell. Third edition. Dust jacket. NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. $3 at Jim's Trading Post, Grand Ronde, OR, Aug., '87.

An excellent textbook for children. A large selection from various genres. The fable section (101-9) is short but well introduced. There are excellent essays in the appendices on children's literature and illustrations.

1939? How Bunny Rabbit Caught the Sun and the Elephant and the Monkey. Editor (Watty Piper) and illustrators (Lucille W. and H.C. Holling) not acknowledged. First edition? Platt and Munk Co. $5.50 at MisterE Books, Seattle, July, '93.

Elephant and monkey disagree: Is it better to be quick or to be strong? They call on owl to decide. Little Bunny Rabbit finds long-footed tracks of someone who gets to the hunt before him, even when he gets up very early in the morning. Finally, he makes a trap, only to catch the sun! When he finally releases the sun from his trap, the sun touches his tail and burns part of it. That is why bunnies have such short tails. Good runs of the nice colored illustrations; several of the illustrations here are rendered only in black-and-white.

1939? The Country Mouse and the City Mouse and Other Stories. Editor (Watty Piper) and illustrators (Lucille W. and H.C. Holling) not acknowledged. First edition? Platt and Munk Co. $5.50 at MisterE Books, Seattle, July, '93.

Undated selection of three fables (TMCM, DS, and "The Rooster and the Fox") presented in The Road in Storyland (1932). Good runs of the lovely colored illustrations; several of the illustrations here are rendered only in black-and-white. One illustration is added here for "The Rooster and the Fox."

1939? The Little Turtle That Could Not Stop Talking. And how brother rabbit fooled the whale and the elephant. Editor (Watty Piper) and illustrators (Lucille W. and H.C. Holling) not acknowledged. Platt and Munk Co. $5.50 at MisterE Books, Seattle, July, '93.

Undated selection of two stories presented in The Road in Storyland (1932). Good runs of the lovely colored illustrations; two of the four illustrations here are rendered only in black-and-white.

1939?/52? The Country Mouse and the City Mouse and Other Stories. Watty Piper NA. Lucille W. and H.C. Holling NA. Pamphlet. Platt and Munk. $5 from Chimney Sweep Books, Santa Cruz, August, '89. Extra copy in good condition for $5 from Book Alley, Pasadena, July, '00.

This is, I believe, a reproduction of the Platt and Munk original I have dated to "1939?" It is in good condition. This reprint seems to have paper of a different quality. As I write there, this is a selection of three fables (TMCM, DS, and "The Rooster and the Fox") presented in The Road in Storyland (1932). Good runs of the lovely colored illustrations; several of the illustrations are rendered only in black-and-white. One illustration is added for "The Rooster and the Fox."

1939?/52? The Little Turtle That Could Not Stop Talking. And how brother rabbit fooled the whale and the elephant. Watty Piper NA. Lucille W. and H.C. Holling NA. Pamphlet. Platt and Munk. $5 from Book Alley, Pasadena, July, '00. Extra copy in slightly poorer condition for $5 at Chimney Sweep Books, Santa Cruz, Aug., '89.

Undated selection of two stories presented in The Road in Storyland (1932). Good runs of the lovely colored illustrations; two of the four illustrations here are rendered only in black-and-white. This reprint uses, I believe, a different kind of paper from that used in the original ("1939?"). See my comments there.

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