1965 to 1969

1965

1965 A Cure for Gloom, being the full set of "Fan-Target Toba Pictures" as first published at Osaka, Japan, in 1720 plus fables with & without morals. Edited by Meredith Weatherby. Dust jacket. Hardbound. Printed in Japan. Tokyo: A Weathermark Edition: John Weatherhill, Inc. $25 from McBlain Books, Hamden, CT, July, '02.

Here is a curious book, starting from its unusual size of 5¼" x 9¼". The 1720 Toba-Picture Fan Targets were popular comic woodblocks, a prototype of cartoon books. This art's appeal was distinctly plebeian. This edition adds a characteristic tint to each of its three component books. The texts added here are modern creations. A comment on the original woodcuts spoke of "very strange paintings but somehow you will find them very fondable and attractive." The human representations are deliberately slightly askew, with strange faces and elongated arms. The stories' humor is generally slightly off-color, often dealing with the embarrassing revelation of older men's genitals or with word-plays on the male member. A good example occurs in "Top Spinning" (62), where everything said about the men's tops can be applied as well to their penises. Perhaps three of the best of these stories are "One Hat, Two Heads" (34), "A Lord Disrobed" (36), and "Fox Trap" (40). These engaging stories remind me of those in Perry's Aesopica, especially when a story that looks merely funny turns out to be a genuine fable. The last story's last line speaks of smiles and laughter as "the only cures for gloom" (68). The back flap of the dust jacket gives an excellent account of the elements of the book's format, down to the traditional Japanese wrapping paper that makes up the dust jacket.

1965 A Folklore Reader. Edited by Kenneth and Mary Clarke. Dust jacket. NY: A.S. Barnes and Co./London: Thomas Yoseloff Ltd. $4.50 at Jackson Street, Oct., '94.

Two sections offer fables here. First there is a section of Ryder's translation of the Panchatantra on 115-35. It covers the time from the beginning of the story of friendship lost, when the merchant sets out with his bull Lively, until the time when Victor is winning the lion Rusty over to investigating the sound of the bull's voice. In the book's next section (136-40) we find five Aesopic fables in Handford's Penguin version, complete with his lively interpretative titles. The dust jacket is torn.

1965 A Fox in One Bite.  Elizabeth Scofield.  Illustrations by K. Wakana.  Dust-jacket.  Hardbound.  Tokyo: Kodansha.  $24 from an unknown source, July, '18.

This is a set of six stories, all dealing with foxes and/or badgers.  I read the first four.  Though filled with magic transformations, there is a fable element here, as in the first story.  A boy duels with a bewitching fox and challenges her to transform into a "dumpling in my hand."  She does, and he eats it/her.  Victory!  This book has an unusual paste-over on its verso of the title-page, attributing distribution rights in the USA to Kodansha in Palo Alto.

1965 A Turtle and a Loon and Other Fables. Diane Redfield Massie. NY: Atheneum. $1.48 at Half Price Books in St. Paul, July, '89.

Ten original fables with simple, pleasant illustrations. Try "The Rhino and the Oxpecker" and "The Snail's Cousin" for starters. The fables tend to deal sensibly with uncomfortable situations in life.

1965 Aesop's Fables. No author or illustrator acknowledged. Milwaukee: Ideals Publishing Co. $1.67 at Walnut Antique Mall, Walnut, Iowa, April, '93. Two extras with different presentation of copyright information on title page, one a gift of Mrs. S. Adamski, Oct., '87.

A small-format book, almost a pamphlet. The companion volumes come in 1966. The best illustrations in this volume are of GGE and FG. Do not miss the DS moral: "The good things that you have are lost when you are unwilling to share." Hmm....

1965 Aesop's Fables.  Retold by Blanche Winder.  Introduction by Earle Toppings.  NY: Airmont Publishing Co.  $1 from Attic Books in Laurel, Feb., '92.

A great example of the basic cheap edition of Aesop, this book does not admit who its illustrator is.  The illustrations tend to be crude and the narratives overly extended.  Here is the $.50 version of this book, which will go on to versions for $1.25 and $1.50.

1965 Aesop's Fables.  Retold by Blanche Winder.  Introduction by Earle Toppings.  Paperbound.  NY: Airmont.  $1 from an unknown source, Feb., '96.

Here is the $1.25 version of this book, which had a $.50 printing and will go on a $1.50 printing.  As I wrote of the earlier printing, this book is a great example of the basic cheap edition of Aesop, this book does not admit who its illustrator is.  The illustrations tend to be crude and the narratives overly extended. One suspects that this printing was later than the original 1965 printing, but I can find no indication of a later printing date in the book. The color of the strip across the top of the cover has changed from brown to green.

1965 Aesop's Fables.  Retold by Blanche Winder.  Introduction by Earle Toppings.  Paperbound.  NY: Airmont.  $1 from Left Bank Books, St. Louis, Feb., '02.

Here is the $1.50 version of this book, which had $.50 and $1.25 printings.  As I wrote of the earlier printing, this book is a great example of the basic cheap edition of Aesop, this book does not admit who its illustrator is.  The illustrations tend to be crude and the narratives overly extended. One suspects that this printing was later than the original 1965 printing, but I can find no indication of a later printing date in the book.  The color of the strip across the top of the cover remains green in this printing.

1965 Aesop's Fables. Selected and Adapted by Louis Untermeyer. Illustrated by A. and M. Provensen. NY: Golden Press: Western Publishing. Apparently a first edition in mint condition but without dust jacket for $8.95 from Black Star.

This is one of my favorite books of fables. The makeup of the book is lovely and lively, with little signs and comments along the way. The star of the show is the dog in the water on 39 who answers "Now neither of us has anything!" I have copies of four printings of this lovely book, done successively in 1965, 1966, 1967, and 1969.

1965 Aesop's Fables.  Louis Untermeyer.  Illustrated by A(lice) and M(artin) Provensen.  Hardbound.  NY: Scott, Foresman Invitations to Personal Reading Program:  Golden Press: Western Publishing.  $10 from Black Oak Books, Berkeley, July, '15.

Here is a special distribution of a favorite book.  The book is included in Scott, Foresman's Invitations to Personal Reading Program.  That specification is noted on the book's cover, its title-page, and the verso of the title-page.  The whole reading program is outlined on the page facing the title-page.  The category for this book is "Books Too Good to Miss."  The pages are of thinner paper than in the original edition, and the cover is a brighter white.  The back cover has lost its original clever design.  Otherwise, the book has apparently all the same specifications.  As I wrote of the original, this is one of my favorite books of fables.  The makeup of the book is lovely and lively, with little signs and comments along the way.  The star of the show is the dog in the water on 39 who answers "Now neither of us has anything!"  I have copies of four printings of the original, done successively in 1965, 1966, 1967, and 1969.

1965 Aesop's Fables for Modern Readers. Illustrated by Eric Carle. Mount Vernon: Peter Pauper Press. See 1941/55/65.

1965 Aesop's Fables Profusely Illustrated. Hardbound. Cleveland/NY: The World Publishing Co. See 1910?/65

1965 An Essay on Fable. Robert Dodsley. Introduction by Jeanne K. Welcher and Richard Dircks. Publication #112 of the Augustan Reprint Society. UCLA: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. See 1764/1965.

1965 Babrius and Phaedrus. Newly edited and translated into English, with an historical introduction and a comprehensive survey of Greek and Latin fables in the Aesopic tradition. Ben Edwin Perry. Dust jacket. Apparent first printing.  The Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. $10 at the Harvard Coop, Sept., '83.

A valuable book. The index of subjects at the back includes the 700+ fables, here in Babrius' Greek and Phaedrus' Latin. The numeration and division follow his earlier Aesopica (1952). The introductory essay covers a great deal of territory. On a par with things like the Penguin and Daly for getting back to originals.

1965 Bajka: o ptacich a opicich.  Josef Kolmas.  Illustrated by Hermína Melicharová.  Portfolio.  Prague: Nakladatelstvi Ceskoslovenskych Vytvarnych Umelcu.  350 Czech Koruna from Antikvariat Prazsky Almanach, Prague, Sept., '17.

A web translating site tells me that this is "Fables: About Birds and Monkeys."  This piece of Czech artistry will have to remain mostly a mystery, I fear.  There seem to be six pieces or chapters on some 68 pages, each with at least one strong black-and-white print in the same style as the art on the cover.  The fact that the pages are uncut fourfolds is an advantage: one can fold them open to find the prints.  At times, as with the illustration on 53, a viewer is tempted to identify one or other particular object.  Is that a rooster?  A great thing about this collection is that it can include a piece like this.  Though copies are available, as I notice, in bookshops in the Czech Republic now, who knows how long something perhaps deemed ephemeral like this will be available?  I feel lucky to have found it!

1965 Basni. I.A. Krylov. Illustrated by Ye. M. Rachyeva. Dust jacket. Moscow: Detskaya Literatura. $24 from Ashe and Deane, Chevy Chase, Sept., '91.

A splendid book with lively colored illustrations every four pages, probably the best Krylov illustrations I have. The best among them are of the pike and the cat (18), WL (26), the fishes dancing (46), the pike on trial (54), two dogs (62), the cat and the nightingale (66), the ass and the nightingale (78), the cock and the pearl (86), FC (94), the fox and the ass (102), and FG (126). Maybe you can tell that I like this book!

1965 Bewick's Select Fables: With Engraved Illustrations of the Original Woodcuts. Preface by F.E.I. Dust jacket. Hardbound. #158 of 375. Printed at the Hillside Press. Franklin, NH: Hillside. $26 from Tim Hall, Brevard Antique Mall, Brevard, NC, through Ebay, Nov., '99.

Here is the original of the cheaper 1974 edition that I had found earlier. This edition adds the numbering and a dust jacket. I also think the paper and binding are superior. It was done at the Hillside Press itself, whereas the later edition seems to have been farmed out to Hong Kong. As in that edition, there are eleven fables, each with an illustration, plus FC facing the title. The texts and illustrations are taken from Bewick's Select Fables (1784).

1965 Classics Illustrated Junior. Number 521. NY: Gilberton Company, Inc. See 1955/65.

1965 Demian Bedny: Basni.  Illustrated by I. Semenov.  Hardbound.  Moscow: Detskaya Literatura.  $29 from The Soviet Bookstore, Frederick, MD, through eBay, Feb., '14.  

The eBay seller advertised this as "Soviet Era," and that provides a first tip.  A second tip comes on the title-page with a beautiful illustration of a wolf dressed up in formal human clothes and a lambskin over it all.  The fables are dated and illustrated with partial-page illustrations of either two or many colors.  For example, one finds a gorgeous multi-colored illustration on 9 of a female fox having her hand kissed by a formally dressed wolf (?) while a dog looks on in front of a cooked chicken.  The dates run up to 1944, where a final picture punctuates the volume: A Russian soldier in red stands out in front of bombed-out ruins.  His foot is on a snake whose skin is covered with swastikas and whose fangs form a swastika.  The snake's head has the features of Adolph Hitler.  Several of the multi-colored illustrations stand out as exquisite.  A peasant accosts a noble dressed dog (?) on 14.  A primitive man devours in greedy, uncouth fashion a huge banquet on 20.  Poor people pour coins into the poorbox fixed to an orthodox priest's back on 29, while he swings around a golden incense burner.  There is more about Bedny in a fascinating little 1974 Reclam edition of his poems and fables.

1965 Der Blaue Fuchs: Frei nach einer Indischen Fabel.  Nils Werner.  Illustrationen von Hans-Dieter Schwarz.  1. Auflage.  Paperbound.  Leipzig: Dr. Herbert Schulze Buch- und Kunstverlag.  €11.80 from Antiquariat G. Hermann Franke, Lübeck, Feb., '18. 

Here is an East German book that goes back over fifty years.  Unfortunately, it has spent some of that time in someone's musty cellar!  The German is in six-line rhyming strophes.  This version tells the story very well, I believe, until the end.  It has the blue fox lording it over all sorts of animals until rain washes away his blue color.  I am surprised to find the fox, in the last two scenes, with the animals he lorded over earlier.

1965 Der unzufriedene Esel: Fabeln der Antike. Eingeleitet und Übertragen von Ludwig Mader. Mit 97 Bildern des Ulmer Aesop von 1476. Dust-jacket. Paperbound. Munich: dtv #284: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag. DEM 4.50 from Antiquariat Friedrich Welz, HD, July, '01.

This book is a paperback selection made from Antike Fabeln, first published by Artemis in 1951 -- a book I do not yet have -- and also published in 1971 by Buchclub Ex Libris. That book I have. The T of C at the back is helpful in both books, partly because it groups the fables by theme and partly because it gives the source for each. Sections in the larger book that contain five fables contain four here. Six there become five here.

1965 Die Fünfzehn Fabeln. Fridolin Tschudi. Illustrations taken from Johannes Ionstonus, 1650, et al. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. Zurich: Sanssouci Verlag. €3 from Antiquariat Buch-Shop Beate Hollaender, Oberndorf, through eBay, July, '09.

Here are fifteen enjoyable twists on traditional fable themes. The lazy ant Adalbert refuses to work as all the other ants do. He goes off on his own and deliberately does nothing. Then a hungry ant-bear comes and eats all of the other ants. "The lazy man often lives longer than the industrious man." An elephant falls in love and is able to overlook his beloved's lack of love for him. "A blind person often overlooks the things that he does not want to see." A crow decides that he wants to become a singer and does. "Success depends for sure on applause, only maybe on talent." Fable 5 gets into new territory, I think, when it claims that of the thousand black sheep that met on Wolfsberg in the great Partei-Gathering, only one now admits that he was there, "only a little active member.." "Truth does people good, even in this form." Fable 6 gets even touchier: Does an exhausted rooster here declare himself gay? "Instead of complaining, portray yourself as a hero if you ever fail!" The illustrations are copies, among others, of the seventeenth century animal depictions of Johannes Ionstonus, a medical doctor in Frankfurt.

1965 Esopet: Facsimile-Uitgave naar het Enig Bewaard Gebleven Handschrift Deel I. Ingeleid en toegelicht door Garmt Stuiveling. Hardbound. Amsterdam: Ad Fontes: Menno Hertzberger. $12.33 from Straat Antiquaren, Amsterdam, Feb., '98. Extra copy with a plastic dust-jacket for $15 from an unknown source, sometime after Feb., '90 and before June, '02.

Volume I of this two-volume set has valuable lists on 7 correlating the fables of this middle Dutch verse Esopet to Steinhoewel. There is also a valuable listing of the fables' principal characters on 22-25. Facsimile photographs of the manuscript begin on 55 and run for some twenty pages. The good copy happens to include also a little review/advertisement for the book titled "Boekbeoordelingen."

1965 Esopet: Facsimile-Uitgave naar het Enig Bewaard Gebleven Handschrift Deel II. Ingeleid en toegelicht door Garmt Stuiveling. Hardbound. Amsterdam: Ad Fontes: Menno Hertzberger. $12.33 from Straat Antiquaren, Amsterdam, Feb., '98. Extra copy with a plastic dust-jacket for $15 from an unknown source, sometime after Feb., '90 and before June, '02.

Volume II of this two-volume set transcribes the sixty-seven fables into clearer contemporary print, beginning a new page for each new fable. There are vocabulary notes at the bottom of the page and notes on the texts on 82-95. On 96-105 there is an AI of words mentioned in the footnotes under each fable. Finally, there is a very helpful subject list of the Esopet's fables on 106-7.

1965 Fabelhafte Gegenwart: Eine Auslese bemerkenswerter Fabeln. Zusammengestellt von W.F. Karlos. Mit 20 Illustrationen von Grandville 1840. Hardbound. Third edition. Bielefeld: Sonderausgabe der Firma J.D. Broelemann. See 1963/65.

1965 Fabeln aus aller Welt. Ausgewählt und dargestellt von Klaus Winter und Helmut Bischoff. Herausgegeben von Hans A. Halbey. Signed (by both Winter and Bischoff), limited edition of 500. "Beltz Graphik Bücher" 1. Weinheim/Bergstraße: Verlegt und gedruckt bei Julius Beltz. DM 80 from Kulbach, Heidelberg, July, '95.

A beautiful edition, portions of which I had seen in the less satisfying reprint The King and the Parrot and Other Fables (1969). This book contains five fables besides the seven reprinted there. New here are "The Blue Jackal" from Hitopadesa, "The Too Clever Fish" from the Panchatantra, "The Man and the Fox" from Aesop, "The Owl and the Treasure-Digger" from Lessing, and "The Flying Ox" from the Chinese. The last and Sachs' FS somehow are not listed with the other ten on the last page! The colored illustrations are magnificent here; even the center-line in the double-page spread does not seem to bother them. Among the best of the excellent illustrations are "The Blue Jackal," BF, "The Man and the Fox," FS, and "The King and the Parrot." I cannot find mention of this beautiful book in Hobbs, Ashby, or Higton/Ash. (This book was done a year after McKendry and a year before Quinnam.) Do not miss the beautiful imprint of the BF woodcut in green on the woven tan front cover. The dust jacket is slightly repaired with scotch tape.

1965 Fables and Parables from Russia (Hebrew).  Edited and translated by Z. Ariel.  Illustrations by A. Aliaz.  Second printing.  Hardbound.  Tel-Aviv: Masada Publishing.  $20 from an unknown source, Feb., '14.

The T of C at the beginning of this book seems to indicate a number of texts from Tolstoy, but I do not recognize any of them as fables except for the last, which seems to have a frog jumping from a pitcher of cream that the frog has turned into butter.  There are frequent colored and black-and-white illustrations.  80 pages.  7¼"  x 10½".

1965 Fables Choisis de Jean de La Fontaine.  Alberto Ziveri, Arnoldo Ciarrocchi, Alberto Manfredi, Carlo Mattioli, Mino Maccari, & Duflio Rossoni..  #49 of 105 copies; illustrations signed by individual artists; boxed.  Hardbound.  Reggio Emilia, Italy: Libreria Antiquaria Prandi.  $150 from Michael Busick, Glendale, AZ, through eBay, Jan., '16.

Here is a curious find!  It is not in Bodemann, and only 105 copies were printed.  I searched for some cataloguing help and finally found one copy on WorldCat: at the New York Public Library.  This lovely book's 33 pages contain one full-page etching for each fable.  Each etching, about 3⅞" by 4¾" on its own page, is signed by its artist.  Curiously these artists are listed only by family name on the title-page.  The T of C near the end of the book (33) lists them with given names.  The six fables and their artists are: "Death and the Wretched Man" (Alberto Ziveri); "A Will Explained by Aesop" (Arnoldo Ciarrocchi); "The Old Woman and the Two Servant Girls" (Alberto Manfredi); "The Old Man and the Ass" (Carlo Mattioli); "The Two Pigeons" (Mino Maccari);  and TT (Duflio Rossoni).  Ziveri's image has death as a skeleton reaching out for the not very happy man.  Ciarrocchi's Aesop wears glasses and looks like Ben Franklin.  Manfredi's two servant girls get my prize; the one looking up after being awakened is ready to kill something, someone, anyone!  Mattioli's old man riding naked on the ass is another prize-winner.  The ass looks back nonchalantly without moving.  I find Maccari's image for "Two Pigeons" mostly confusing.  A wigged and jacketed male figure -- La Fontaine, perhaps? -- holds a lighted candle and a heart as two pigeons encounter each other in the air.  Rossoni's image for TT shows the turtle on its back, presumably on the ground and shattered.  It is signed both in the etching and on the page.  This rare book's OCLC number is          83821792.  Not in Bodemann.

1965 Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrations de Maraja et Cremonini. Collection Contes et Couleurs. Imprimé en Italie par Fratelli Fabbri Editori, Milano. (c)Copyright 1962 by O.D.E.J., Paris. 50 Francs from Helen Moncourt, on the Quai de Seine, May, '97.

A large-format children's book, now the third distinct set of work I have by Cremonini (see The Fables of Aesop and La Fontaine in 1958 and 1961, both by Fratelli Fabbri). Here Cremonini's first contribution lies in the colorful designs on the pages given to texts. There are also six full-page color illustrations in a distinct style (perhaps Maraja's?). From these latter, I like particularly the sparkling-eyed town and country mice sitting at the country meal. Have I seen some of this Maraja work before? Cremonini's work also includes the monochrome blue designs that appear along the way. Cremonini typically has fun with the figures, like the armed mice on the design next to "Le Cheval et l'Ane" or the insects around the scene of WL. There are also good faces on both main characters in OR. Thirteen fables. T of C at the back. The corners of the book have been bruised and partially repaired with scotch tape.

1965 Fables of La Fontaine (Hebrew).  Translated by Yonatan Ratosh.  Illustrations by Andre Peck.  Hardbound.  Sh. Friedman.  $30 from Baruch Falach, Netanya, Israel, Sept., '23.

"My Own Selection of La Fontaine for Youth."  29 fables on 64 pages, with simple, strong black-and-white illustrations.  Typical of the illustrations is that showing two men pulling on opposed directions on a mule that will not move (12).  6¾" x 9¾".  Printed by the Shem Press.  Most of the fables are easily recognizable from their illustrations.

1965 Fabulas. Rafael García Goyena. Prólogo de Carlos Samayoa Chinchilla. Biblioteca Guatelmalteca de Cultura Popular "15 de Septiembre," Volumen 89. Paperbound. Departamento Editorial y de Producción de Material Didáctico "José de Pineda Ibarra," Ministerio de Educacíon. Guatemala. $2.75 at Arcadian, New Orleans, Dec., '92. Extra copy a gift of Larry Huck, S.J., from a book sale in Antigua, August, ’96.

My first book from Guatemala. Thirty-four fables that I have not yet examined by a fabulist of whom I had not known. García Goyena lived from 1766 to 1823, and the principal edition of these works appeared in 1825: Fábulas y poesías varias. T of C on 203-4. The long (5-40) introduction by Samayoa Chinchilla seems to cover the histories of fable and of Goyena rather thoroughly. This edition was limited to 2700 copies. In the Huck copy, someone has carefully whited out the many circular stamps from the library (libraries?) that formerly owned the book.

1965 Fabulas de Esopo. No author or illustrator acknowledged (but the pictures are signed "Mordillo"). Madrid: Susaeta Ediciones, S.A. $4 in Spain, Summer, '86.

Found early in my time in Madrid. Spirited watercolor illustrations. The one-page-each approach keeps the fables nicely brief, but limits the pictures to one for each fable. I really like these witty illustrations. I would include the book in my "funny" section for expositions. There are four parts, each with its own T of C at its beginning.

1965 Fábulas de la Fontaine. Adaptada para niños por Oldrich Syrovatka y traducida por Marti Soler Vinyes. Ilustradas por Jiri Trnka. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Mexico, D.F.: Maistros del Relato Infantil: Queromón Editores, S.A. $14 from Zachary Cohn, Prague, by mail, Nov., '01.

Here is the Spanish version that fits with those in Czech (1974) and English (1962) and partially with the larger versions with eighty-three fables in English (1985) and French (1974 and 1974/96). This version has only forty-two fables while its parallels have forty-four. There is a T of C at the back. As in the parallel versions, there are ten full-colored full-page illustrations besides nine full pages and numerous initials in black-and-white. What a strange and wonderful world where an American collector gets a Latin American publication from a dealer in Eastern Europe! There is a note on the back of the title-page indicating that the first Spanish edition was done in 1963--perhaps in Spain?

1965 Flowers of Delight. Culled by Leonard De Vries from the Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books. Embellished with some 750 elegant Woodcuts and Engravings on Wood and Copper of which upwards of 125 are neatly coloured. Selected with the greatest Care from Books for juvenile Minds, 1765-1830. Dust jacket. Printed in Holland. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, Limited. $8 at McBurnie & Cutler, Toronto, Jan., '94.

From the Edmonton Public Library. It is fitting that I finally bought this lovely book, which I had seen often, in Toronto itself. Among its many treasures are five nice verse fables on 162-5 with seven black-and-white illustrations. Page 228 nicely identifies the source as Old Friends in a New Dress by Richard Scrafton Sharpe (London: Harvey and Darton, and William Darton, 1820). The verse is unusually clear, and the illustrations good. As you go through the book, enjoy the illustrations for "Dame Trudge and Her Parrot" on 77-8. Also delightful are individual images of a visiting physician attacked by animals on 194 and of a boy shooting his sister on 211.

1965 Food, Fun, and Fable From Meme's on Bon Secour River. Charley and Meme Wakeford, Assisted by Kate and Susie Tucker. Illustrated by Hazel and Richard Brough. Second printing. Paperbound. Bon Secour, Alabama: Charley and Meme Wakeford. Gift of Dr. Timothy Dickel, Sept., '09.

Including this spiral-bound recipe book in the collection is part whim and part protection against bidding on another copy of it on eBay. The recipes look like fun, and the book is well put together. The "fable" part is apparently all the stories behind local institutions and celebrations. "Fable" means many things to many people! 

1965 Het grote boek vol fabels. Bewerkt en berijmd door Ernst van Altena; samengesteld onder redactie van Margaret Green. Met veel kleurige tekeningen van Janusz Grabianski. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Ploegsma. €10 from Antiquariaat Hofman, Utrecht, July, '09.

Here is the Dutch version of the book that seems to have come originally from Ueberreuter in Vienna. I have now versions from Austria, Germany, UK, and Holland. Like the German version, this edition has a dust jacket featuring FG as opposed to Ueberreuter's cat and mouse. For comments, see the Ueberreuter edition. As I wrote of the English edition, I like this book: an impressive array of fables and authors. The art combines some one-colored and some excellent multi-colored watercolors, e.g., of the leopard and tiger on 37, the flying turtle on 197, and the frog on 200. If I was surprised to find the English version, I am even more surprised to have found this Dutch version! The dust-jacket has been repaired with scotch tape.

1965 I.A. Krylov: Basni. Illustrated by A. Laptyev. Preface by N.S. Scher. Canvas-bound. School Library for Non-Russian Schools. Printed in USSR. Moscow: Children's Literature. $2.25 from Victor Kamkin Books, NY, April, '96. Extra copy from the same source at the same time

This book seems to be a predecessor of a book of the same title from the same publisher in 1973. The cover picture here is of "The Monkey and the Spectacles" against a yellow-and-white striped background. The frontispiece of Krylov is larger. The opening essay is not the same. On 25-79 there are twenty-three fables from Krylov, with thirteen of Laptyev's classic illustrations. Then from 81-144 A.I. Rozanov presents prose fables, adorned with simpler designs and perhaps conceived as dramas for children. In the designs, children play the roles of animals in traditional fables, e.g. of the fox and crow on 98 and of the monkey with spectacles on 131. Many, perhaps all, of these are Krylovian fables, but they are presented now in a different form.

1965 Indian Fables. As Told by Ivan Olbracht; Translated by Atya and Ivo T. Havlu. Illustrated by Josef Liesler. Hardbound. No dust jacket. Printed in Czechoslovakia. London: Paul Hamlyn. $6 from Andrea Nickerson, Shelburne County, Nova Scotia, through Ebay, Dec., '99. Extra copy with a dust jacket but in poorer condition, formerly in the Helen M. Plum Memorial Library, Lombard, IL, for $20 from Richard Owen Roberts Booksellers, Wheaton, IL, Oct., '97.

©1964 Artia. Designed and produced by Artia. There are six sections in this engaging book. The prose is punctuated, as is usual in this tradition, with poetic couplets summarizing some wisdom. The first, "The faithless friend," reproduces "Kalila and Dimna," but with less subtlety, I would say, than in Ramsay Wood's version. "Snap" and "Lap" are the two jackal friends (not brothers), the former the villain. The monkeys tail gets caught in the log (13). Snap's plot includes the allegation that Muyaba, the bull, has an army waiting on the border. One of the book's best illustrations depicts the squishing of the louse (46). Here it is a duck, not a cormorant, that becomes cynical after fishing for a star (52). The second story, "Punishment," is the sequel to the first. Snap is winning his trial when the panther tells of the conversation he has overheard between the two jackals after the bull's death. Lap then appears to confirm the story. The six friends in the third section, "Faithful friends," include two pigeons in addition to the usual raven, mouse, turtle, and fawn. Mrs. Mousie had run off romantically with Whisky Greymouse, who leaves her when she fails to reach the hermit's basket. The fourth section, "Pigeonton," describes the long struggle between the lower class pigeons and the predatory evil owls. Cinder is the hero of the former and their eventual king. Another of the best illustrations comes in "The Bewitched Goat" on 145, where the monk is beside himself with people calling his goat a dog. The fifth section, "The monkey heart," sets things a bit differently from other traditional versions. Here an exiled monkey king sits in a tree on the shore of a river. A female turtle from the other side of the river thinks that the monkey loves her dearly because he throws down figs when she is in the river near his tree. He always throws down figs because he likes the "plump" sound and the rings a falling fig makes in the water! Her jealous husband finally tries to kill the monkey but botches it, and the monkey escapes with the usual lie about having forgotten to bring his heart. The last section, "Ilad, Balad, and Irakhta," is almost entirely new to me. It offers conflicting interpretations of King Balad's dream with its eight visions, the first interpretation offered by selfish Brahmins who want to seize power and manipulate Balad. Luckily, the king seeks the advice of the wise Kebarijun, who offers the truthful interpretation. Do not miss the German translation published in 1964, "Altindische Fabeln." Liesler seems to have done the art in 1955, to judge by his signatures on the art work. The German edition indicates that the Czech original was published in 1962. This copy shows wear on the spine and some water damage at the bottom of the front cover but is internally clean.

1965 La Fontaine et le Premier Recueil des "Fables," Vol. I. René Jasinski. Paperbound. Paris: Librairie A.-G. Nizet. $20 from Michael Hackenberg Booksellers, Berkeley, CA, August, '05.

Wow! I just noticed that this pair of volumes is now selling on Amazon for $95. A bookstore in Berlin is selling a copy for $3777.67! My! It would be tempting to work with these two volumes the next time I teach a fables course. This Volume I has two preliminary chapters: "Avant les 'Fables'" and "Genèse du Recueil." Then it starts marching through the six books of the first edition. This volume catches the first two. For each book, he treats each fable. This would be a difficult but fascinating read! There are many uncut pages in this book. There is a minimal T of C at the end. Curiously enough, the book has "1965" on its title-page and "1966" on its cover. I go here with the title-page's declaration, echoed in the colophon at the end of the book. The second volume is listed under 1966 and uses that date throughout its information. 

1965 La Fontaine: Fabeln. Aus dem Französischen übertragen von Martin Remané. Paperbound. 3. Auflage. Leipzig: Reclams Universal-Bibliothek #130: Philipp Reclam jun. DM 2 from Dresdener Antiquariat, Dresden, July, '01.

This is a simple Reclam paperback of about one hundred pages, with Jean Effel's FS on its cover. There is a Tof C at the back. There is an eleven-page Nachwort from Claus Werner.

1965 La Fontaine: Fábulas.  Traducción de Teodoro Llorente.  Illustrated by Romain Simon.  Hardbound.  Buenos Aires: Colección Iridium:  Editorial Kapelusz.  $35 from Christian Tottino, Buenos Aires, through eBay, March, '16.

This book is based on the Hachette edition of 1958.  This book is richly illustrated.  A curiosity is that the book combines colored and black-and-white illustration, sometimes even in the same picture, as in LM on 52-53, where the illustration on the left-hand page is in black-and-white and its continuation on the right-hand page is in color.  MSA on 60-61 is another such combination.  WC on 77 is a typically dynamic illustration.  Meeting Simon here is like meeting an old friend!

1965 La Fontaine: Oeuvres Complètes. Préface de Pierre Clarac. Présentation et Notes de Jean Marmier. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. $15 at Antiquarium, Oct., '90.

A very nice small-print one volume work. The notes on the fables indicate sources and help with some archaic expressions. A careful source to work from.

1965 Le Roman de Renart.  Adapté par Danika.  Illustrations de Jean Giannini et Michèle Beufé.  Hardbound.  Paris: Collection "Super-Luxe": Editions Lito.  €15 from Librairie Bailly, St. Ouen, June, '19.

Four of the cycles of the Roman de Renard are presented here in a large (9" x 12¾") edition for children: the well; fish; the cock; and the lion.  Illustrations touching on fables come up around the well, with the wolf experiencing his tail frozen in the ice; and in several scenes with Chanticleer.  This edition finishes with Renard's public repentance at the court, after which, on the way home to his wife and children, he almost kills some chickens.  He, however, remembers his promise at court and keeps on his way.

1965 Les Fables de La Fontaine. René Hausman. Hardbound. Paris: Terre Entière: Dupuis. $26.99 from Gems by Rochelle, Portland, OR, through eBay, Sept., '15.

I already had found Dupuis' publication of Hausman's work from 2010. When I found this 1965 copy, I presumed that it was the original edition, identical in content. The format of this book is slightly larger, but it turns out to be the first half of that 2010 edition. I see now in Bodemann that the original behind the 2010 edition was a pair of volumes done in 1970 and 1977. This 1965 edition was the original of that 1970 Volume 1. It contains the first 41 fables on some 89 pages. Thus the pagination of those first 89 pages is identical with the pagination in my 2010 edition. Let me include comments from that edition. René Hausman is a celebrated illustrator of comic books in Belgium and France. Here is his La Fontaine, and it is wonderful! In image and after image, I found myself saying either "He has it right!" or "I have not thought of that approach to this fable." Each fable has at least one trenchant illustration. One knows hardly where to start in this explosion of artistry! Look at FS on 10 and 11. Hausman catches the chagrin of the outwitted fox wonderfully. When it comes to humans, look at "The Worker and His Sons" on 16-17. Hausman catches the youth of these three figures. They will learn! I love the dimensions of "The Bear and the Lover of Gardens" (22-23). The rock is about to come crashing down on the insect -- and the head of the bear's own sleeping friend. Hausman is clever to avoid the problem many illustrators have with "The Fly and the Coach" by bringing the insect to the foreground and putting the whole caravan of travelers in the background (30-31). Again in "The Banker and the Cobbler" (56-57), Hausman does an excellent job with the faces of the two protagonists: one small and the other expansive. TMCM on 62-63 contrasts the two phases of the rats' experience brilliantly: the color of the orgy stands out against the black-and-white fear of the flight. Grippeminaud could not be more frightening than he is on 74 as the witless weasel and hare approach. He already recognizes them as victims. The approach to MSA on 86-87 took me completely by surprise, but it fits the piece well. Recognize nature -- yours and his -- and be smart. I notice that the illustrations are sometimes cropped and that the more recent copy is sharper. One could use these two books to show how printing has changed in 45 years. There is a T of C here on 90-91. This early edition turns out to be quite a find!

1965 Les Fables d'Ésope. Traduction de Jacques Lacarrière. Art from a manuscript of Vincent de Beauvais. #764 of 3500. Hardbound. Trésor des Conteurs 15: Club des Libraires de France. €20 from SARL Librairie Ancienne Patrick Laurencier, Bordeaux, through ILAB, Nov., '09.

The page after the title-page describes this lovely edition well: "Les 308 fables ésopique dans une nouvelle Traduction par Jacques Lacarrière suivies d'un essai sur le symbolisme des fables, illustrées de dix miniatures d'un manuscrit de Vincent de Beauvais." The miniatures are miniature -- about 2" square -- but lovely. One of them, a bit larger, is on the front cover depicting the battle of the birds and the animals. The best of the miniatures are "Le Cerf et le Lion" (after #77); "Le Lion et le Renard" (after #155); and "Le Renard au Ventre Gonflé" (after #202). The manuscript containing them belongs to Chester Beatty in Dublin. The book has a lively red cloth cover. The numbered fables are one to a page; pagination picks up at 311 three pages after the last fable. There are 329 pages before the AI listing the fables with their numbers in red.

1965 Les Fables d'Ésope.  Traduction de Jacques Lacarrière.  Manuscript of Vincent de Beauvais.  #HC of 3650.  Hardbound. Trésor des Conteurs 15:  Club des Libraires de France.  €18 from Librairie de l'avénue Henry Veyrier, St. Ouen, Paris, August, '14.  

Here is a second copy of this lovely book.  In keeping with the policy of this collection, I include it, since it is part of a numbered, limited edition.  In this case, 150 copies of the total of 3650 were marked "HC" for those who had collaborated in the project.  It would be interesting to know which collaborator's copy this is.  As I mentioned about copy #764, the page after the title-page describes this lovely edition well: "Les 308 fables ésopique dans une nouvelle Traduction par Jacques Lacarrière suivies d'un essai sur le symbolisme des fables, illustrées de dix miniatures d'un manuscrit de Vincent de Beauvais."  The miniatures are miniature -- about 2" square -- but lovely.  One of them, a bit larger, is on the front cover depicting the battle of the birds and the animals.  The best of the miniatures are "Le Cerf et le Lion" (after #77); "Le Lion et le Renard" (after #155); and "Le Renard au Ventre Gonflé" (after #202).  The manuscript containing them belongs to Chester Beatty in Dublin.  The book has a lively red cloth cover.  The numbered fables are one to a page; pagination picks up at 311 three pages after the last fable.  There are 329 pages before the AI listing the fables with their numbers in red.

1965 Life Sentences for Everybody. By Jerre Mangione. Illustrated by Leo Glueckselig. Dust jacket. Printed in the U.S. London: Abelard-Schuman. $7 from Walk a Crooked Mile Books, Philadelphia, May, '92.

A delightful set of thirty-six "instant novels." "Sentences" works in three senses: (1) each story is one sentence long, though there is some cheating through colons and semi-colons; (2) what is delivered here is a set of apothegms or sententiae about life, specifically about character types (each piece is named after a character or family); (3) we are offered here judgments or condemnations, as though these characters were in a court. The stories deserve to be called fables by any good definition, but they are not exactly Aesopic in type. A bit on the racy, sexist side. Mangione is a reduced George Ade. The caricature drawings are lively. The name-invention game here is a matter of hit and miss, I would say. Among the best stories: "Johanna Ramp Fatutto" (14), "Susan Egg" (24), "Timothy Jezebel" (28), "Adelia Gloss" (40), "Matilda Pry" (47), and "The Ginks" (61). "Brendan Socket" (50) has in it something of the Aesopic story "The Lion in Love."

1965 More Friends Old and New.  Helen M. Robinson, Marion Monroe, A. Sterl Artley, Charlotte S. Huck, and William A. Jenkins.  Illustrators: Richard E. Loehle, Bob Childress, Bob Korta, Rod Ruth.  Hardbound.  Chicago: Scott, Foresman, and Co.  $4 from Sioux Falls Flea Market, Sioux Falls, SD, Oct., '14.  

I have a book of the same title from the same publisher, but it is the Cathedral Edition and is one year earlier.  What a difference those two factors make!  I had written of that book "A great bit of Catholic memorabilia!  The book features great pictures of little kids dressed up as nuns, priests, and crusaders.  Three fables:  "The Hare and the Hedgehog," TT, and TMCM.  Charming illustrations.  The end of an old style."  Here in this book we find a newer and more secular style.  Different are first of all the pictures: the cover and title-page pictures and also the pictures before each section.  There is no Monsignor listed among the authors.  Many of the works have changed in the first two sections, "Neighborhood Friends" and "Animal Friends."  BW is no longer included in the latter.  The final section, "Storybook Friends," substitutes "The Three Little Pigs" for "Brother Alonzo" but is otherwise identical.  It thus includes "The Hare and the Hedgehog," TT, and TMCM.  I had not noticed in the earlier Catholic edition that a fourth fable also occurs here:  "A Foolish Rabbit."  This book is in poor condition.

1965 More Roads to Follow.  Helen M. Robinson, Marion Monroe, A. Sterl Artley, Charlotte S. Huck, and William A. Jenkins.  Illustrated by Richard E. Loehle, Al Stine, and Rod Ruth.  Hardbound.  Chicago: The New Basic Readers Curriculum Foundation Series:  Scott, Foresman and Company.  $4 from Sioux Falls Flea Market, Nov., '14. 

There are four standard Aesopic fables on 202-6 in a section titled "Roads to Make-Believe."  They are DM, GA, AD, and BW.  GA has the grasshopper only watching the ants eating grain.  Then he knows "It is best to prepare in good times for bad times ahead."  BW is a slightly padded verse version by Louis Untermeyer.  The note in the copyright footnote on 2 seems to indicate that this is a third reader.  There was a lot changing and about to change in 1965!

1965 Oshare no Kitsune—Isoppu Dowashu (Chic Fox—Aesop’s Nursery Tale Collection). Edited by Baba Masao. #1 in a collection of 10. Second edition. In an illustrated box. Tokyo: Popura-Sha. 200 yen at Miwa, Kanda, Tokyo, July, ’96.

I see thirty-one listings in the T of C at the (Japanese) beginning, but it seems to me that there are many more fables than that here. The illustrations on the box and cover are simple but nice. The three full-color illustrations at the beginning of the book are only satisfactory. The second of them, like the box (and book?) cover, presents "The Chic Fox," a story like OF, in which the fox tries to stretch himself in the dragon’s cave to be his same length and strength. The fox rips himself apart. The other animals, who have watched from the cave’s entrance, comment that he should not have tried to be a dragon. The story is on 87-92. There are many black-and-white illustrations in the text. Perhaps the best of these is a tree-top view of the dung-beetle rolling an egg out of the tree (29).

1965 Peacock Fables Number Two.  Agnes H. Campbell.  #75 of 350.  Paperbound.  Berkeley, CA: Peacock Press.  $30 from Oak Knoll Books, Sept., '14.  

Here is another sixteen-page pamphlet with stiff-paper covers and a string-tied binding, following upon "Peacock Fables Number One" a year earlier.  It presents "Black Bird/Grey Bird."  The former drops a big, hard crust intro a fountain.  The latter claims it, saying "mine" repeatedly.  When he flies upward with it, a large part of the crust breaks off and falls back into the fountain.  Then the black bird claims -- or better reclaims -- this fragment.  "False claim defeats itself."  The story is set in verse.  No illustrations.  I would say that this story is one degree stronger than the story in the first booklet.

1965 Persian Folk and Fairy Tales. Retold by Anne Sinclair Mehdevi. Illustrated by Paul E. Kennedy. NY: Alfred A. Knopf. $3.50 at Pageturner's, Omaha, Dec., '92.

Most of the eleven stories here are indeed fairy tales, which I have not examined in detail. But one seems clearly developed from Aesop: "Ruba and the Stork" (44). Ruba is a fox, and the story follows the basic pattern of the Aesopic fable, with the following variations. At first, Ruba invites Madam Stork to a meal, thinking of the delightful young storks of hers that he will eat someday. Mr. Stork corrects the misunderstanding after accepting the invitation. Ruba now has no reason to offer a decent meal. In fact, he offers honey on flat plates. For the return invitation, the stork carries the fox up to his nest after the fox turns down a first invitation. There the fox can see all sorts of desirable, edible bird babies before his revenge-meal is served. The story has a second phase. The storks actually entrust their babies to Ruba and lose one to him but then see the feathers on his cheeks. Mr. Stork carries Ruba up to dizzying heights and drops him. There is a good, hairy illustration of the fable on 47. There are good faces in other illustrations (e.g., 37).

1965 Stories to Tell: A List of Stories with Annotations. Revised and Edited by Jeanne B. Hardendorff. No illustrations. Hardbound. Fifth Edition. Baltimore: Enoch Pratt Free Library. $0.50 from Milwaukee Public Library Bookseller, June, '98.

I find it a tribute to Aesop that two versions of his work are mentioned in the appendix here (Jacobs and Artzybasheff). Further fifteen fables are mentioned in this short catalogue of books worth reading out loud: 2 Androcles; 2 Banyan Deer; 3 BC; 9 Crab and Crane; 14 Fox and Bear; 18 Hare and Hedgehog; 27 MSA; 28 Monkey and the Crocodile; 43 The Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal; 44 TMCM; 44 TT; 47 Why the Bear is Stumpy-Tailed; 50 Andy and the Lion; 51 Bundle of Sticks; and 54 Once a Mouse.

1965 Story and Verse for Children. Selected and edited by Miriam Blanton Huber. Black-and-white illustrations by various artists. NY: Macmillan. See 1940/55/65.

1965 Story Wagon. Second Edition. Teacher’s Edition. By Marjorie Pratt and Mary Meighen. Illustrated by Carol Critchfield and Guy Brown Wiser Associates. The Prose and Poetry Series. Syracuse: L.W. Singer. See 1960/65.

1965 Petites Fables.  Joseph-Victor Zaug.  Illustrations de Daniel Sinclare.  Paperbound.  Paris: Éditions  Médicis.  €30.90 from Librairie Thé à la Page, Monboucher Sur Jabron, France, Nov., '15.

Here is an unusual and curious effort.  Zaug has created some 140 30-line poems and arranged them alphabetically, as the closing T of C shows.  The collection is preceded by a dedication, an invocation of La Fontaine, and an avant-propos.  This last element sets out the author's goal and methods in remarkable fashion.  Notice that some poems have commentary added at the very back of the book.  Those that have literary forebears make note of the fact within the fable itself.  I tried several.  Perhaps the clearest to me is "Les Embarras de la Tortue."  What does the tortoise do after her victory over the hare?  Eventually, she has to prove it in another race.  "Réputation usurpée est malaisée à soutenir" (87).  "La Fourmi dans le Malheur" (110) seems to add a phase to La Fontaine's GA.  The ant has seen her home spoiled by a flood.  Grasshopper asks what good all her toil has done.  Ant responds that it has taught her to be less severe with the grasshopper.  When he comes begging, she will open her granary to him.  "Le Lion et le Renard" (154) asks well how one can punish another for the very things one does.  Zaug's eye seems to extend anywhere, to turn experience into a 30-line verse fable.  Sinclare's line drawings occur about every four fables and are quite delicate.

1965 The Best Fables of La Fontaine. Translated by Francis Duke. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. $15, May, '88.

The translations seem to be well done--rhymed and colloquial enough. I am not sure where the "best" of the title comes in; the collection looks complete. The illustrations are few and primitive.

1965 The Big Book of Animal Fables. Compiled and edited by Margaret Green. Pictures by Janusz Grabianski. Printed in Vienna. London: Dobson: Mulberry Books (apparently from an original printed in 1965 by Ueberreuter in Vienna). $3 in Omaha, Jan., '89.

I like this book: an impressive array of fables and authors. The art combines some one-colored and some excellent multi-colored watercolors, e.g., of the leopard and tiger on 37, the flying turtle on 197, and the frog on 200. A surprising find!

1965 The Biggest Pig in Barbados. A Fable by Wolf Mankowitz. Illustrated by Ron Sandford. First edition. Dust jacket. London: Longmans, Green & Company. $16 from Yoffees, April, '92.

Ninety pages of a delightful and well illustrated tale. The characters are great fun. The book is--I agree with its flyleaf--"notably enjoyable and happy." In what sense is this story a fable?

1965 The Fables of Aesop Paraphras'd in Verse. John Ogilby. Illustrations especially by Wenceslaus Hollar, also by Stoop and perhaps by Francis Barlow. Introduction by Earl Miner. Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library: UCLA. See 1668/1965.

1965 The Great Cross-Country Race or The Hare and The Tortoise. An Entertainment for Children. By Alan Broadhurst. Proposed Production Plan by Irene Corey. New Orleans: The Anchorage Press. $6 at Act I, Chicago, Dec., '93.

A good children's play, expanding generously and skillfully on the fable. The tortoise has escaped from the garden of some little girls, while the animals are planning a sports day and cannot find a cross-country opponent for the obnoxiously boastful hare. Reynard, alas, has a hurt paw and cannot compete. In fact, the tortoise has been there throughout their discussions, mistaken for (and sat upon as!) a rock. We in the theater understand animal speech but not human speech. The dog alone among the animals understands human speech. There are plentiful incidents along the way: for example, the tortoise helps extricate the hare from thorns; the hare steals a sleeping fisherman's lunch and gets a bellyache; the hare changes a direction arrow, but ends up himself running the wrong way; and the hare is bagged by some picnickers. So many other things happen that I do not think that the hare has a chance to sleep! There are extensive costume and production tips after the play's text.

1965 The Panchatantra Translated from the Sanskrit. Translated by Franklin Edgerton. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Printed in USA. Unesco Collection of Representative Works. South Brunswick, NJ & NY: A.S. Barnes and Co. London: Thomas Yoseloff Ltd. $20 from Cellar Stories Book Store, Providence, RI, through Advanced Book Exchange, Feb., '01.

This book reprints Edgerton's translation first published in Panchatantra Reconstructed (1924) by the American Oriental Society. His introduction gives a good historical account of the history of the Panchatantra, noting that the 1570 English translation by Thomas North, the first descendant of the Panchatantra in English, "came from an Italian version of a Latin version of a Hebrew version of an Arabic version of a (lost) Pahlavi version of some (lost) Sanskrit version of the original Panchatantra" (13). The introduction notes two individual fables that Edgerton sees as coming from India into the corpus of Greek fables attributed to Aesop, and he discusses them at some length: "Ass in Panther's Skin" and "Ass without Heart and Ears." The first Western instance of the former is in Lucian (second century AD). After that it is found in Babrius and Avianus. The latter story does not occur in Western literature until Babrius, "where it is badly garbled, though still recognizable as a descendant of the same original" (15). Edgerton also traces the frame-story of Book V of the Panchatantra, "The Brahman and the Mongoose." The introduction is also noteworthy for its quotable comment on the "morals" of the fables in the Panchatantra: "The so-called 'morals' of the stories have no bearing on morality; they are unmoral, and often immoral. They glorify shrewdness, practical wisdom, in the affairs of life, and especially of politics, of government" (11). I read Books III-V, a total of some fifty pages, whereas Books I-II (which we know better perhaps through Kalila and Dimna) occupy some eighty pages. The T of C at the beginning lists the stories within each of the five books. Book III takes some thirty-five pages for "War and Peace." It presents the story of the Sinon-like crow Long-Lived, who infiltrates the society of the enemy owls and eventually works their overthrow by fire. The flood of proverb-heavy talk almost drowns the great stories in this version! Book IV, "The Loss of One's Gettings," presents the frame-story of the ape and crocodile. The latter's wife, jealous over the time the crocodile spends with the ape, is said to need an ape's heart, and the crocodile virtually kidnaps the ape through a false invitation to his home in order to get the ape's heart for his wife. Book V is "Hasty Action, or, the Brahman and the Mongoose." The mongoose safely defends the brahman's child from a snake, but the brahman misunderstands the blood on the mongoose's face and foolishly kills him as the murderer before learning the truth that the mongoose had successfully protected the man's child.

1965 The Rabbit and the Turtle. Illustrated by Ann Wolf. Hardbound. Printed in USA. An Early-Start Preschool Reader. NY: Wonder Books: Grosset & Dunlap. $15 from Pam Brown Books, Bakersfield, CA, through ABE, May, '00.

This version of TH has a 66-word vocabulary! The simple, large illustrations--one to a square page--combine brown and gray. The version used here has the rabbit delaying three times: for a nap, a meal, and a conversation with friends. "This popularly priced edition is a reprint in the traditional alphabet of a book originally published for schools in Pitman's Initial Teaching Alphabet." The price of this 50¢ book increased thirty-fold!

1965 The Rich Man and the Shoe-maker: A Fable by La Fontaine. Illustrated by Brian Wildsmith. First edition. Dust jacket. Printed in Austria. London: Oxford University Press. $45 from Judy Gutterman in Atlanta, April, '94. Extra copy for $7.50 from The Lantern, DC, April, '97.

A beautiful large-format hardbound book in excellent condition. The version used here departs significantly from LaFontaine's text. This version adds--and puts special emphasis on--the children who come out to listen to the cobbler's songs. It also adds a number of hiding places which the cobbler actually tries; LaFontaine's cobbler tried just one. This version leaves out the delightful piece of conversation with the financier in which it becomes clear that the cobbler does not reckon up what he makes in a year. I keep finding more of these large-format LaFontaine books done by Wildsmith.

1965 The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse.  Illustrated by Carl and Mary Hauge.  No storyteller named.  Racine: Whitman.  $1 at Delavan booksellers, Dec., '86.

A typical small kids' book version.  It concentrates nicely on the city mouse's upturned nose at one kind of food after another.  And then there is a succession of intruders:  the cook, some dogs, and the cat.  Nice watercolor pictures.  To my surprise, I have found six different versions of this book, distinguished chiefly by the number at the lower right of the back cover, the listing of other "Tell-a-Tales" on the back cover, printing of a price on the front cover, printing of a "Tell-a-Tales" logo, and indication of copyright on the title-page.  Copy A is one of several with the number #2617.  It has a "Tell-a-Tale" mark on both covers, shows no price, lists religious stories as a group on its back cover, and shows on its title-page "Copyright ©1965 by Whitman Publishing Company."  Curiously, it fails to list itself among the members of the series on the back cover.  It has ten "Original Stories" and ten "Stories About Your TV and Movie Friends."  It cost $1 at Delevan Booksellers in December, '86.  Copy B is identical and continues not to list itself on the back cover.  It has eleven "Original Stories" and eleven "Stories About Your TV and Movie Friends."  It cost $.65 at Renaissance in Milwaukee.  Copy C is identical but now lists itself on the back cover among "Old Favorite Stories."  It has twelve "Original Stories" and twelve "Stories About Your TV and Movie Friends."  It cost $1 at Hawthorne Blvd. Books in Portland.  Copy D has #2565 and is alike but does not list religious stories as a group on the back cover, nor does it list this as one of eight "Old Favorite Stories."  This statement now appears on its title-page: "Copyright ©MCMLXV Western Publishing Company.  Whitman is a registered trademark of Western Publishing Company, Inc."  It cost $1 in Milwaukee in August, '96.  Copy E has #2561 and is alike but has no "Tell-a-Tale" mark on its covers, shows a price of 35¢ on its cover, does not list itself as one of five "Old Favorite Stories," and shows on its title-page "Copyright ©MCMLXV Western Publishing Company.  Whitman and TELL-A-TALE are registered trademarks of Western Publishing Company, Inc."  The title-page adds a copyrighted Whitman logo.  It cost $1 at an Omaha flea market in March, '90.  Copy F has #2561 is alike but changes four of the five "Old Favorite Stories" and all five "Educational Stories."  Its title-page shows "Copyright ©MCMLXV Western Publishing Company.  Whitman and TELL-A-TALE are registered trademarks of Western Publishing Company, Inc.  No part of this book may be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from the publisher."  The bottom of the title-page, including the copyrighted Whitman logo, is formatted differently.  It cost $.25 at an Omaha flea market in November, '90.

1965 The Wonderful Worlds of Walt Disney: Fantasyland. Illustrations by the Walt Disney Studio. NY: Golden Press. $4.75 at the Scholar's Book Haven, Roseville, MN, Nov., '94.

Among the fifteen stories-adapted-to-film collected here is Aesop's GA (218-21). The text is that of Margaret Wise Brown, and the pictures are adapted by Dick Kelsey, assisted by Dick Moores. The visuals are thus the same as those featured in Walt Disney's Story Land (1962), but they are presented more crisply. The text is almost the same here as there. I catch one difference in the addition here in the ninth paragraph of the word along.

1965 Trois Fables de La Fontaine. Edité par Karen Dawson. Dessins de Guillaume de Chênais. Pasadena: Imprimerie W.M. Cheney. $11.50 from Tim Hall, Brevard, NC, through Ebay, April, '00.

Certainly one of my smallest books at less than one-and-a-half inches by less than one-and-an-eighth! GA, FC, and FG are each illustrated with a page or two of strong--if small!--brown illustrations. The full-page figures of crow and fox on 12 and 13, respectively, are brought together in slightly smaller format as the frontispiece. There is a T of C at the back on 21. Curiously, there is no mention of the size of the edition, and this volume is not numbered.

1965 Trois Fables de La Fontaine.  Editor: Karen Dawson.  Dessins de Guillaume Du Chênais.  Paperbound.  Pasadena, CA: W(illiam) M. Cheney.  $75 from Oak Knoll Books, New Castle, DE, Sept., '14.  

Here is a fragile, delicate little book of some 21 pages plus a colophon page.  The book presents GA, FC, and FG.  Each has a strong illustration.  The best of these may be the two-page spread for FC at the center of this thread-bound book's central signature.  Are the creators of the book having fun with "Guillaume Du Chênais" as illustrator?   The name is of course William Cheney gallicized.  The colophon page similarly uses French to identify editor, artist, and publisher.  The grasshopper illustration used here is used again in "Cigales, Grasshoppers, and Ants" by Cheney in 2006.  This book is in the running for smallest in this collection.  It is about 1" x 1½".  Don't lose it!  Here is a case where the cataloguing process has just revealed that I already had another copy -- at less than one-sixth the cost!  I will keep the second copy in the collection for two reasons: it is a limited edition -- even though how limited is not made clear in the book -- and it is so small that I will lose it if I do not include it!

1965 Uncle Remus. Joel Chandler Harris. With 79 illustrations by A.B. Frost. Introduction by Stella Brewer Brookes. Paperbound. NY: Schocken Books. $3 at Jackson Street, May, '95.

The first helpful thing about this book is the Brookes introduction. In it one learns something of the publishing history, including the facts that by 1918 nine Uncle Remus books had appeared and that the delightfull Frost illustrations used here first appeared in the second edition (1895) of the first Uncle Remus book originally published as a book in 1880 (the title page gives 1881). Apparently all thirty-four of the stories given here, as well as the "Plantation Proverbs" and songs, come from that book. This version thus naturally uses the heavy dialect that Harris did. Page 137 has become detached from the glue-binding.

1965 15 Fables of Krylov. Translated by Guy Daniels. Illustrated by David Pascal. First printing. Dust jacket. NY: Macmillan. $5 at Time Traveller, Summer, '89. Two extra copies, one with a dust jacket, a red cover, and medallions on the endpapers themselves.

A delightful book. There is good wit in many of the fables: "The Dance of the Fishes"; "The Mouse and Rat"; "The Donkey and the Nightingale"; and especially in "The Cat and the Starling"; "The Elephant in Favor"; and "The Swan, the Crab, and the Pike." A great illustration on the dust jacket also faces T of C: a soldier sees a monkey in the mirror. Other good illustrations include the "portrait plate" pages inside the covers (details from the individual sketches), "The Quartet," and "The Donkey and the Nightingale."

1965 Yo-Ho and Kim. By Ruth Jaynes. Edited by Ida Mulock. Illustrated by Daniel Goozee. Hardbound. Printed in USA. First book in the Yo-Ho and Kim Series. Los Angeles: Lawrence Press. $30 from Susan Blackman at Snowflakes Books, Redondo Beach, CA, June, '99.

Yo-Ho and Kim are Korean boys in Korea. In the book's first five chapters (Section One: Tales of Trouble), they strike up a friendship with an American Sergeant Adams. Their experiences follow the lines of Aesop's fables, at first only in their morals, announced in sayings Sergeant Adams remembers from his father. By the second section (Tales of Success), actual fables are narrated as lessons to the boys. A third section (Tales of Happiness) moves away from fables into Korean customs and holidays. The book was conceived particularly, I imagine, for Koreans learning English in Korea or in the United States. Excellent condition. The last acknowledgement is "To Aesop's fables for providing the truths and morals adapted in the stories of Yo-Ho and Kim." The applications of fables never cease to amaze me!

1965/66 Aesop's Fables.  Louis Untermeyer.  A. and M. Provensen.  Second printing.  Hardbound.  NY: Golden Press: Western Publishing.  $8 from an unknown source, June, '91.  

This is one of my favorite books of fables.  The makeup of the book is lovely and lively, with little signs and comments along the way.  The star of the show is the dog in the water on 39 who answers "Now neither of us has anything!"  I have copies of four printings of this lovely book, done successively in 1965, 1966, 1967, and 1969.  Here is the second printing, from 1966.  The rear of the dust-jacket is torn.

1965/66 The Jackdaw and the Witch: A True Fable. By Sybil Leek. Illustrations by Barbara Efting. Second Printing. Dust jacket. First published in Great Britain in 1965 as Mr Hotfoot Jackson. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. $3.50 at Renaissance, Milwaukee, Sept., '92. Extra copy for $12 from Yoffees, May, '92.

A winning animal story. Mr. Hotfoot Jackson, the jackdaw, makes himself the pet of the family of Sybil Leek, the witch. Leek has a predilection for run-on sentences. Enjoyable reading. A fable? The sub-title is a wonderful provocation for anybody studying fables!

1965/66    The Rich Man and the Shoe-maker: A Fable by La Fontaine.  Brian Wildsmith.  1966 reprinting.  Dust-jacket.  Hardbound.  Oxford: Oxford University Press.  $7.50 from The Lantern, DC, April, '97.

Here is a reprinting, presumably the second printing, of a book of which we have a copy from the first printing.  This is a beautiful large-format hardbound book, this copy in good rather than excellent condition.  The version used here departs significantly from LaFontaine's text.  This version adds--and puts special emphasis on--the children who come out to listen to the cobbler's songs.  It also adds a number of hiding places which the cobbler actually tries; LaFontaine's cobbler tried just one.  This version leaves out the delightful piece of conversation with the financier in which it becomes clear that the cobbler does not reckon up what he makes in a year.  I keep finding more of these large-format LaFontaine books done by Wildsmith.

1965/67 Aesop's Fables.  Louis Untermeyer.  A. and M. Provensen.  Third printing.  Hardbound.  NY: Golden Press: Western Publishing.  $8 from an unknown source, June, '91.

This is one of my favorite books of fables.  The makeup of the book is lovely and lively, with little signs and comments along the way.  The star of the show is the dog in the water on 39 who answers "Now neither of us has anything!"  I have copies of four printings of this lovely book, done successively in 1965, 1966, 1967, and 1969.  Here is the third printing, from 1967.

1965/67 Aesop's Fables. Selected and Adapted by Louis Untermeyer. Illustrated by A. and M. Provensen. Second impression. Hardbound. London: Paul Hamlyn. $19.98 from Paula Newport at Heritage Poultry, Maitland, SA, Australia, June, '04. 

Here is a copy of the wonderful Untermeyer/Provenson edition from a different than usual publisher. My many other copies of this favorite book come from Golden Press, a part of Western Publishing. They are acknowledged here as holders of the copyright. The makeup of the book is lovely and lively, with little signs and comments along the way. The star of the show is the dog in the water on 39 who answers "Now neither of us has anything!" Aesop not only lives. He multiplies! The binding is covered in duct tape.

1965/68/76 Stories from Panchatantra: Book I. No author acknowledged. Illustrated by Pulak Biswas. Second edition (1965), sixth printing. New Delhi: The Children's Book Trust. $2.47 at the Book Shop, Burbank, Feb., '97.

Like Book II (1966/78) and Book IV (1969/78) of the series, this pamphlet-volume collects six good stories, in this case all classics. Included are "The Monkey and the Crocodile," "The Big Lion and the Little Rabbit," "The Stork and the Crab," "The Crows and the Black Snake," "The Musical Donkey," and "The Tortoise and the Geese." There are good two-colored illustrations throughout. I want to watch for the missing Book III.

1965/69    Aesop's Fables.  Louis Untermeyer.  A. and M. Provensen.  Fourth printing.  Hardbound.  NY: Golden Press: Western Publishing.  Gift of Mabel Leiter, Nov., '94.

This is one of my favorite books of fables.  The makeup of the book is lovely and lively, with little signs and comments along the way.  The star of the show is the dog in the water on 39 who answers "Now neither of us has anything!"  I have copies of four printings of this lovely book, done successively in 1965, 1966, 1967, and 1969.  Here is the fourth printing, from 1969.

1965/70 Aesop's Fables. Selected and Adapted by Louis Untermeyer. Illustrated by A. and M. Provensen. Fifth printing. Paperbound. Oversized. Printed in the U.S.A. NY: A Giant Golden Book: Golden Press: Western Publishing. $4.05 from The Prince and the Pauper, San Diego, Jan., '01.

This is the first acquaintance I have had with a paperback version of this wonderful book. I am surprised that I have not run into it earlier. See my comments on the 1965 hardbound edition. I find no differences from the hardbound version.

1965/71 Bewick's Select Fables. With Engraved Illustrations of the Original Woodcuts. One of a boxed set of small books. Printed in Hong Kong. Limited (?) edition of 1971. Franklin, NH: The Hillside Press. $5 in New Orleans, Oct., '86. One extra copy.

Notable as one of the smallest Aesops I have found: about an inch square. The introduction (by "F.E.I.") points out that Bewick's originals were only two inches high. Eleven fables, each with an illustration, plus FC facing the title. From Bewick's Select Fables (1784).

1965/71 Favole di Esopo. Scelte da Louis Untermeyer. Illustrate da A. e M. Provensen. Tradotte da Quirino Maffi. Italian 1971 reproduction of 1965 Untermeyer Aesop's Fables: Western Publishing Co. Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore. 12,000 Lire in Rome, Fall, '83.

A really clever and delightful book, which uses graphics of all sorts in the margins to enjoy what is being related. Full-spread colored pages alternate with black-and-white texts and simple drawings. I could use a number of these in a lecture.

1965/77 Stories for Children. Lev Tolstoi. Illustrated by A. Pakhomov. Translated from the Russian by Jacob Guralsky. Moscow: Progress Publishers. $1.25 at Maelstrom, San Francisco, June, '89.

Thirteen very good stories in a surprisingly good book, really a large-format pamphlet with attractive etchings. Two strict borrowings from Aesop are here: BW (18) and TB (20).

1965/79 Onkel Remus erzählt. . .  Joel Chandler Harris; ins Deutsche übertragen von Eliška Glaserová.  Illustrationen von Ota Janeček.  Zweite Auflage.  Dust-jacket.  Hardbound.  Hanau am Main: Verlag Werner Dausien.  €8 from Hatry, Heidelberg, July, '14.  

Here is my second German Uncle Remus.  It first appeared in Czech from Artia in Prague in 1959.  Here are thirty-six episodes on 137 pages, followed by a T of C.  The book itself is landscape formatted, 9¼" x 9".  On the dust jacket is a long single illustration of four foxes moving right.  The front cloth cover has a clever design of a bird on the nose of a fox.  The same scene is pictured, though differently, in the full-page colored frontispiece.  Besides the frequent colored pictures without printing on their verso, each chapter has one or two simple one-character designs.  Over and over we see the rabbit, angry, worried, or suspicious (18, 29, 119).  The artist enjoys suggesting that a character runs away or escapes by showing just the rear portion of the animal moving off the page (e.g., 20, 42).  One of the best of the colored pictures shows the fox looking down into the well at the rabbit in the bucket (67).  The very last page shows the fox inside the stomach of the bull (137).

1965/82 Aboriginal Fables and Legendary Tales. By A.W. Reed. Illustrated by E.H. Papps. Paperback. Frenchs Forest, Australia: Reed Books. $2.50 from Second Story Books, Rockville, MD, Dec., '02.

Here is an earlier edition of a book I have already listed under 1965/89. The two volumes together give rise to some engaging observations, I believe. The cover art will change from the anonymous illustration here of an older man holding a small statue or person to John Rissetto's "Man in the Mountain" image on the 1989 edition. The printer will change from Shanghai Printing Press in Hong Kong here to Imago Productions in Singapore there. A.W. Reed has written and published four books in the "Reed Books" series by the time of this book; the later edition will list seven on its back cover. I will repeat here some of the comments I made there. The seventy-three stories are alphabetically arranged and direct themselves overwhelmingly to etiology. Three clever tales which are not fables that may strike a contemporary reader are "The Coming of Death" (21), "Dingo and the Native Cat" (23), and "The Spear with the Stingray Spines" (126). The best of what I would call fables is "The Turtle, the Oyster, and the Whale" (133). Otherwise the closest stories to being fables are found on 26, 40, 44, 52, 90, 103, 118, and 137. The art is simple. The best art may be on 44 for "The Frog and the Flies."

1965/84 Babrius and Phaedrus. Ben Edwin Perry. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. Cambridge: The Loeb Classical Library: Harvard University Press. $20 from an unknown source, Sept., '87.

Loeb's original 1965 edition was reprinted in 1975 and 1984. Here is a copy from the latter of those printings. A valuable book. The index of subjects at the back includes the 700+ fables, here in Babrius' Greek and Phaedrus' Latin. The numeration and division follow his earlier Aesopica (1952). The introductory essay covers a great deal of territory. On a par with things like the Penguin and Daly for getting back to originals.

1965/86 The Rich Man and the Shoe-maker: A Fable by La Fontaine. Brian Wildsmith. Paperbound. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Au $2 from Babyboomerbooks, Mount Gambier, Australia, through eBay, Feb., '09.

See the original publication of this book by Oxford University Press in 1965 and my comments there. This copy is part of -- and is kept with -- "Into Books: Literature Pack No. 1: Brian Wildsmith's Fables" listed under "Teacher Literature Units" underneath "Printed Material."

1965/89 Aboriginal Fables and Legendary Tales. By A.W. Reed. Illustrated by E.H. Papps. Paperback. Printed in Singapore. Frenchs Forest, Australia: Reed Books Pty Ltd. $4.50 at Fordham Used Books, March, '93.

Reed also did Maori Fables and Legendary Tales (1964). Here he seems to be both author and publisher. The back cover describes seven other books Reed has done. The seventy-three stories are alphabetically arranged and direct themselves overwhelmingly to etiology. Three clever tales which are not fables that may strike a contemporary reader are "The Coming of Death" (21), "Dingo and the Native Cat" (23), and "The Spear with the Stingray Spines" (126). The best of what I would call fables is "The Turtle, the Oyster, and the Whale" (133). Otherwise the closest stories to being fables are found on 26, 40, 44, 52, 90, 103, 118, and 137. The art is simple. The best art may be on 44 for "The Frog and the Flies."

1965/90 Babrius and Phaedrus. Ben Edwin Perry. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. Cambridge: The Loeb Classical Library: Harvard University Press. $30 from an unknown source, Sept., '94.

Loeb's original 1965 edition was reprinted in 1975 and 1984 -- and then again in 1990. Here is a copy from the last of those printings. A valuable book. The index of subjects at the back includes the 700+ fables, here in Babrius' Greek and Phaedrus' Latin. The numeration and division follow his earlier Aesopica (1952). The introductory essay covers a great deal of territory. On a par with things like the Penguin and Daly for getting back to originals. 

1965? Das Grosse Fabelbuch. Mit vielen Bildern von Janusz Grabianski. Dust jacket. Mit genehmigung des Carl Ueberreuter Verlags, Wein. Stuttgart/Hamburg: Deutscher Bücherbund. DM 15 from Revers, Berlin, Nov., '95.

This book seems to be an undated reprint of the original from Ueberreuter, for which see the adjoining entry. This edition has a different dust jacket, FG as opposed to Ueberreuter's cat and mouse. For comments, see the Ueberreuter edition.

1965? Das Grosse Fabelbuch. Mit vielen Bildern von Janusz Grabianski. Dust jacket. Wein: Verlag Carl Ueberreuter. DM 12 at Daras & Gilbert, Düsseldorf, July, '95.

This book seems to be the original from Ueberreuter; for a German copy see the adjoining entry. For the English version see The Big Book of Animal Fables (1965). This copy, with its dust jacket picturing a cat and mouse, has 1965 on the reverse of its title page. For comments see the English entry.

1965? Das Grosse Fabelbuch. Mit vielen Bildern von Janusz Grabianski. Hardbound. Vienna: Verlag Carl Ueberreuter. DM 5 from an open market in Frankfurt, June, '95.

I have a copy of this book already in the collection with a dust jacket. This copy departs from that in three ways other than not having a dust-jacket. The typeface of the title on the spine has changed to something fitting this book. Secondly, the verso of the title-page has Salzer-Ueberreuter now in one firm and mentions that the book is printed in Austria. Thirdly, this copy substitutes an ISBN number for the other copy's number that includes "1965." I presume that this is a slightly later copy. This book seems to be the original from Ueberreuter; for a German copy see the adjoining entry. For the English version see "The Big Book of Animal Fables" (1965). For further comments see the English entry. 

1965? Ein Mosaik: Lebensweisheiten in Anekdoten, Fabeln, Briefen und Gedichten. No author or illustrator acknowledged. Bonn: Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband. DM 3 at Kulbach in Heidelberg, Aug., '88.

"Fables" takes up one twenty-page section of this gift a bank once gave its customers. It has a nice selection of fables, and a cute frog in a milk bowl on 25. Aesop keeps getting around!

1965? Fábulas de La Fontaine: A Rã e o Boi.  Paula Baptista.  Illustrated by Victor Manuel and Ribeiro D'Almeida.  Paperbound.  Lisbon: Fábulas de La Fontaine:  Colibri.  $4 from Second Story Books, Rockville, MD, Jan., '16. 

There are eight pages inside heavier-stock covers on this 8" x 11" pamphlet found by chance in Second Story's warehouse.  It is one of four books published in a series projected to include eight.  The text is in rhyming verse.  There seem to be no other frogs in sight.  By the third of the double-pages at the center of the book, the frog is expanding.  The final page's illustration, replicated on the cover, is confusing.  The frog seems to be breathing out his last from his mouth as he lies in a contorted position.  If he indeed exploded, it is not clear in the illustration.  The moral is eight lines long.  The back cover includes a large and happy menagerie apparently drawn from all eight of the fables.  The frog is jumping on the ox's horns in this general illustration of characters.  Attempts to find a date or other members of the series online yielded only one helpful result: another member of the series was sold previously on abe.  In this collection, this one copy may have to represent the whole series.

1965? Famous Legends and Fables. Hardbound. London: Golden Pleasure Books. $14.40 from Pinacle Books, Richford, VT, through abe, Feb., '11.

"Robin Hood, King Arthur & His Knights, Aesop's Fables Retold for Younger Readers." "Fables from Aesop" run from 145 to 192 with very nice three-color illustrations (yellow, orange, and black). TMCM features a country meal for the whole mouse family (155). WS has a strong illustration of the two contestants (175). Also good is the illustration of the bustling villagers coming to help defend the shepherd against the wolf (181). Canvas binding. This is a very lucky find! The seller believed the book to be from the 1960's, and that would fit, but was Czechoslovakia printing books for English firms in the 1960's? I would have guessed at a pre-war date because of that question.

1965? Jean de LaFontaine: Sechs Fabeln: Ein Bilderbuch von Koser-Michaels.  Mit Versen von Renate Stein.  Canvas-bound.  Esslingen am Neckar/Munich: J.F. Schreiber Verlag.  $26.24 from Kay Pittman, Baton Rouge, LA, through Ebay, July, '03. 

Full-color pages are enhanced by having their images picked up in duochrome on facing pages.  The text of OF does better than the illustration of the frog's explosion.  I find both illustrations for GGE outstanding.  FC, WS, FWT, and FG complete the line-up.  The verse is made up of lively rhyming couplets.  Yellow boards, with a cover dominated by a suspicious crow.

1965? Tales from M. Saltykov-Shchedrin. M. Saltykov-Shchedrin. Translated from the Russian by Dorian Rottenberg. Edited by John Gibbons. Illustrated and Designed by M.A. Taranov. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Classics of Russian Literature. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. $14.50 from The Book House on Grand, St. Paul, MN, Dec., '95.

Here are nineteen tales, for which the Russian title-page uses the term "Skaski" rather than "Basni." They overlap with a number of stories in the edition of Fables listed under 1941/76. Generally, the stories are five to ten pages long. One might describe them as expanded fables. They are of course wonderfully witty and satirical. On this trip through I tried "Bears in Government" (56), which mocks heavy-handed authorities who think bloodshed solves any problem, and "The Deceitful Newsmonger and the Credulous Reader" (70), which spreads its criticism liberally on both sides of the title's relationship. Though the reader ends up an unfortunate victim, the newsmonger still wonders whether the best way to cheat the reader is to tell him the truth or to tell him lies. The two or three pen-and-ink illustrations for each story are helpful. In fact, they are just right for this kind of literature, which is very close to everyday journalism.

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1966

1966 A Book of Children's Literature. Selected and edited by Lillian Hollowell. Third edition. NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. See 1939/50/66.

1966 A Little Pretty Pocket-Book. John Newbury. Facsimile with introductory essay and bibliography by M.F. Thwaite. NY: Harcourt, Brace & World. See 1744/67/1966/67.

1966 A Selection of La Fontaine Fables (Hebrew).  Translated by Moshe Ben Shaul.  Images by Romain Simon.  Hardbound.  Tel Aviv:  M. Mizrahi.  $10 from Dr. Baruch Falach, Netanya, Israel, May, '12.

Here is the Hebrew version of one of many books Romain Simon illustrated, this one published originally in 1953.  Our collection has three later printings of that French original, one in the year of this book's printing.  This is a 28-page oversized (8½" x 11¾") children's book.  There are eleven fables in all, each allotted one to three pages.  At least five of them are included somehow in the endpieces at both ends of the book.  The stories include GA, FC, FG, LM, TMCM, TH, MM, "The Fox and the Goat," WL, FS, and TT.  Has the lively, skipping rabbit appeared in Simon's work before?  The scarf and shawl on the tortoise make me think I have seen these characters before!

1966 A Selection of La Fontaine Fables (Hebrew).  Translated by Moshe Ben Shaul.  Images by Romain Simon.  Hardbound.  Tel Aviv: M. Mizrahi.  $15 from Samuel Eli, Tel Aviv, Israel, through Ebay, July, '14.

This is a brighter, slightly altered, and perhaps more recent printing of a book already in the collection.  The copies share the same bibliographical data.  What is different in this copy, other than less wear?  What were the endpapers in the other copy come here only after blank pages and a page showing a stack of books and a writing quill.  A further difference is that the back endpapers are poorly printed; the other, perhaps earlier, copy has more distinct back endpapers.  As I wrote of that other copy, it is the Hebrew version of one of many books Romain Simon illustrated, this one published originally in 1953.  Our collection has three later printings of that French original, one in the year of this book's printing.  This is a 28-page oversized children's book.  There are eleven fables in all, each allotted one to three pages.  At least five of them are included somehow in the endpapers at the end of the book and the similar pages near the beginning.  The stories include GA, FC, FG, LM, TMCM, TH, MM, "The Fox and the Goat," WL, FS, and TT.  Has the lively, skipping rabbit appeared in Simon's work before?  The scarf and shawl on the tortoise make me think I have seen these characters before!

1966 Aesop Dress'd or a Collection of Fables Writ in Familiar Verse. Bernard Mandeville. Introduction by John S. Shea. No illustrations. Original: London: Lock's-Head. Reprint: Los Angeles: The Augustan Reprint Society Publication Number 120: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. See 1704/1966.

1966 Äsop Phädrus Babrios Lessing Fabeln.  Bearbeiter: Gunther Grundmann.  Illustrated by Marve Kafka.  Hardbound.  Dust jacket.  Hannover: Verlag Münstermann-Druck.  €12 from Buchhandlung und Antiquariat Paff, Bad Bevensen, Germany, through ZVAB, Jan., '16.

I am delighted to have found this little book, since it was produced in a limited production of only 3000 copies.  Might it have been printed as a gift of the firm for its friends?  A note at the end of the book describes it as a "Privatdruck" of the firm for the "Jahreswende 1966/67."  Bodemann calls the book a "Jahresgabe" and counts sixty-four prose fables.  (Babrios and Phaedrus are actually presented as verse.)  The book has a colorful dust-jacket illustration of the wild apple tree that is pictured in black-and-white late in the book.  Bodemann counts sixteen black-and-white illustrations in the book itself.  The book's specialty, I would say, is pointed, funny, short fables, especially from Lessing.  For me, Lessing is always a pleasure, as when he tells the fable of the owl and the graverobber.  The latter mocks the former for being the philosophical darling of Athene and yet eating mice in a ruined castle.  The owl answers "Do you expect me to live on air?  I notice that that is what you expect of your professors!"  A dramatic composition of owl and human head faces this fable.  Another telling illustration stretches across two pages to highlight Aesop's "The Farmer and His Sons."  Another stimulating illustration presents the old and young women just above the hair that they are pulling out of the man while he thinks they are barbering him.  The book closes with Lessing's "Aesop and the Ass" -- a great choice with a fine illustration across two pages.  What a witty little book!

1966 Aisopos Ezop Masallari.  Tarik Dursun K.  Turhan Selcuk.  Paperbound.  Ankara: Bilgi Yayinevi.  $10 from The Glad Trading through Ebay, Oct., '21.

Here is one of some 38 inexpensive Turkish editions of Aesop bought together.  This paperback offers a beginning T of C, some pages on Aesop, and then sections on specific animals, each introduced through a title-page with a line drawing design.  Engaging line-drawing cartoons occur also with specific fables.  The green colored front cover shows a human at the edge of a forest.  The forest's trees perch many different birds.  200 pages.

1966 A I S O P O U  M U TH O I . Metaphrase Thrasyboulou Staurou.  Paperbound. Thessalonike: Adelphon Konstantinide. 3000 yen at Subunso Bookstore, Kanda, Tokyo, July, ’96.

Imagine my surprise at finding a serious modern Greek presentation of Aesop in Tokyo! There are 358 fables without notes or commentary after a short introduction on Aesop and fables. AI at the back.

1966 Aesop's Fables. Hardbound. Dust-jacket. Printed in USA. Westwood, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company. $27.51 from Scott's Books, Milford, NH, through Ebay, Feb., '00.

Here are forty-three fables in a small-format book with a great silhouette of a wolf on its dust-jacket, cover, and title-page. There are no other illustrations. In FG, the fox claims "I am sure they are sour, and perhaps wormy in the bargain" (7). In TH, waiting for the slow tortoise makes the hare sleepy (10). Here in "The Lion, the Ass, and the Fox" (64), the ass divides into three portions the stag, who was the common prey of the lion, ass, and fox. The lion tears the ass to pieces and then invites the fox to divide the stag into two portions.

1966 Aesop's Fables (Cover: Classics to Grow On). Translated from the Greek by the Rev. Geo. Fyler Townsend. Illustrations designed by Harrison Weir and engraved by J. Greenaway. 1966 printing. Classics to Grow On. NY: Parents' Magazine Press. See 1964/66.

1966 Andy and the Lion. By James Daugherty. NY: The Viking Press. See 1938/66.

1966 Andy and the Lion. A Tale of Kindness Remembered or The Power of Gratitude. By James Daugherty. By arrangement with Viking Penguin. NY: The Trumpet Club. See 1938/66/88.

1966 Andy and the Lion. A Tale of Kindness Remembered or The Power of Gratitude. By James Daugherty. A Puffin Book. NY: Viking Penguin. See 1938/66/89.

1966 Anekdoten und Erzählungen. Retold and Edited by Peter Hagboldt, with vocabulary by Werner F. Leopold. Illustrated by W.T. Mars. Pamphlet. Boston: Graded German Readers: Original Series Revised #3: D.C. Heath and Company. See 1957/66.

1966 Aus dem Reich der Fabel: Illustrierte Sonderausgabe gedruckt als Studienarbeit.  Günter Saur und Horst Weber.  Illustrations by Karin Käuflin.  #33 of 55 copies.  Hardbound.  Stuttgart: Werkstätte der Höheren Fachschule für das Graphische Gewerbe Stuttgart.  €60 from Antiquariat & Buchhandlung Thomas M. Nonnenmacher, Freiburg, July, '18.

This 25-page large-format booklet presents four fables, as the front cover indicates: "Die Eselsbeichte" by Gerhard von Mindin; "Das Tischgebet" by Martinus Montanus; "Vom Undank der Welt" by Abraham a Santa Clara; and "Fische zu den Semmeln" by Ludwig Bechstein.  The pages are folded over rather than cut.  As one might expect from a degree-project, the work is carefully done.  The four fables are well chosen and well rendered.  The stories include well-known fable elements.  The confession story is like La Fontaine's "Animals in the Plague."  "Tischgebet" picks up elements from the Chanticleer story.  "Von Undank der Welt" has elements of "The Brahmin, the Jackal, and the Tiger," as here a farmer convinces a snake to interview a horse, a dog, and fox.  He gets free through the fox's cleverness and invites the fox to a meal the next day.  But the next day the farmer's wife greets the fox with a death-dealing club.  The "Undank der Welt" finds yet another expression!  The final fable has to do with two tricks, "fake roadkill" and "fishing with one's tail."  My prize among the illustrations goes to the final illustration featuring all three main characters of "Fische" on 25.

1966 Basnie z Dalekich Wysp I Ladow. Edited by Wanda Markowska & Anna Milska. Illustrations by Mieczyslaw Piotrowski. Hardbound. Warsaw: Nasza Ksiegarnia. Gift of Piotr Twardecki, S.J., August, '03. 

As the T of C at the end shows, there are here 234 pages of forty-five fables and folktales from around the world. They tend to be identified by country; in Polish even I can recognize "Afryki" and "Wietnamu"! There are perhaps a dozen full-page colored illustrations in the book; their pages are unnumbered, printed on only one side, and outside of the normal pagination I recognize TT facing 174. Might that be the tortoise and hare facing 32? What a wonderful gift! Thank you, Piotr!

1966 Better Homes and Gardens Story Book. Favorite stories and poems for children with original illustrations from famous editions. Selected and edited by Betty O'Connor. Ninth Printing: 1966. NY/Des Moines: Meredith Press. See 1950/66.

1966 Children's Literature: A Guide to Reference Sources. Prepared under the direction of Virginia Haviland. Washington: Library of Congress. $3.50 at Inland Empire, Spokane, March, '94.

I was glad to find something at this store. I had visited there during my tenure as a trustee at Gonzaga some years ago. This is a bibliography of some 1073 items. I find four touching on fable, and three of those are new to me (#43, 711, and 1044). The listing I know already is Jacobs/Heighway, included because Jacobs includes a history of the Aesopic fable, a chart of Aesop's "pedigree," and notes on the provenance of each fable, selected as Jacobs notes out of the more than 700 available in English books (#738). There are Aesopic illustrations from Sorg and Crane, respectively, on 13 and 208, presumably because they are mentioned in Nolen and McKenzie. A lucky bibliographical find!

1966 Come to the Play. No writer acknowledged. Drawings by Carol Moore. Storybook 13. A Sullivan Associates Reader. St. Louis: Webster Division, McGraw-Hill Book Company. $1.50 at Antiquarium, May, '91.

A simple kids' storybook built around staging three fables for summer fun, with texts for all three plays. GA features ant children who want to play with the grasshopper; he eventually converts. The fox outwits the crow finally by saying "The truth must be that you can't sing at all." The sheep is a rabbit fan; the turtle outsmarts the bully rabbit even after the race.

1966 Der Bär als Statthalter: Satirische Fabeln aus dem alten Russland. Michail J. Saltykow. Mit 12 Illustrationen von Werner Klemke. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag. €8.10 from Antiquariat Richard Kulbach, Heidelberg, August, '06.

This book brings together fourteen of Sakltykow-Shchedrin's fables. These are of course longer than traditional fables and are heavily sarcastic of Russian government. I read one again this time and enjoyed it. It is the first of his three "bear" fables mentioned in the book's title. Major Petz the First is sent into the forest to conquer the inner enemy and his own plan to do so is to shed a great deal of blood, but he makes the mistake of getting drunk first. In his stupor he kills a small finch. Everybody hears about it, and this report destroys his reputation. Other pieces I already know here include "The Idealistic Carp," a fundamental debate between two conflicting world-views. "The Really Smart Minnow" shows what a life without risk looks like, eventually even to the person who has refused risk. "The Deceitful Newsmonger and the Credulous Reader" spreads its criticism liberally on both sides of the title's relationship. Though the reader ends up an unfortunate victim, the newsmonger still wonders whether the best way to cheat the reader is to tell him the truth or to tell him lies. Each story gets a half-page illustration, several of which are both insightful and engaging. 

1966 Die Diebe und der Hahn: Fabeln des Äsop und Äsopische Fabeln des Phädrus. Herausgegeben von Hans Marquardt. Mit Tusch- und Federzeichnungen von Josef Hegenbarth. Dust jacket. Hardbound. Berlin: Buchverlag der Morgen. DM 40 from Antiquariat Delibrium, Muenster, July, '01. 

I like this book. It takes up Hegenbarth's work from its 1949 presentation (Äsop: Fabeln) and gives it a livelier and larger format. The format is generous; there is never more than one fable on a page, and there are many full-page illustrations. There are ninety fables in all, presented here on 132 pages. There is a first selection, "Der Dichter," that I think needs to be considered separately from the fables. I think it probably communicates more about Marquardt than about Aesop or Phaedrus. After the fables, there are comments (119); a "Nachwort" from the publisher, including his remarks on Hegebarth (121); and a colophon on the printing of the book. The texts are sometimes prose and sometimes verse. There is a good moral to the fable on the hog and the dog (58): Smart speakers cleverly turn insults from enemies into praise. A number of the fine illustrations are taken from the earlier book, among them those showing the thief and the watchdog (49); the bald man and the fly (68); and the caught weasel (36). Some are newly done, like WC (here 79, there 12); LM (here 95, there 22); and the old hunting dog (well done here on 115 and less well done there on 30). Among the best illustrations here are those of the fox and the mask (21), WL (45), and the thieves and the rooster (dust jacket and 65). I do not understand the illustration for "The Old Shepherd and the Ass" (82). This story is about sacks, not riders. There is a water stain on the top of the pages throughout.

1966 Drei Dutzend Fabeln von Äsop.  Mit ebensoviel Holzschnitten von Felix Hoffmann.  One of 25 including a five-colored woodcut.  Paperbound.  Bern: Angelus/Druck.  €350 from Peter Bichsel, Zurich, July, '23

One of the most precious treasures brought back from a book-buying trip to Europe in 2023.  I have long enjoyed the 1968 trade version of this book published by Flamberg, and I have long hoped we could get an original copy.  I first came to love it when I saw it used for the last illustration in Hobbs.  This copy is not only Hoffmann's original work.  It is one of 25 that includes a five-colored woodcut of stork and owl.  As Peter Bichsel points out, Bodemann #512.1 and Fabula Docet #135 both list only the trade edition.  The book uses Steinhöwel as the basis for its texts for its thirty-six prose fables.  One result is that the point of the fable is announced as a promythium in each case.  Then there are the strong woodcuts from Hoffmann.  Generally, the Steinhöwel texts are on the left-hand page, and the Hoffmann woodcuts on the right.  (The exception is 55, a right-hand page with text.)  Among the best of woodcuts are those for "Two Lobsters" (17); "The Stag at the Spring" (31; front cover); "The Cat-Woman" (41); "The Wanderer and the Satyr" (63); FG (73); OR (77); and DLS (81).  The book has only 81 pages.

1966 Fabeln des Aesop. Rudolf Hagelstange. Illustrationen von A. und M. Provensen. Hardbound. Ravensburg: Otto Maier Verlag. $20 from Coleen Sweeney, Readfield, ME, through eBay, Dec., '11.

Here is the German version of the book written by Louis Untermeyer and published by Golden Press a year earlier in the USA. This version follows the original down to the pagination of each fable. As I write there, this is one of my favorite books of fables. The makeup of the book is lovely and lively, with little signs and comments along the way. The star of the show is the dog in the water on 39 who answers "Und jetzt hat keiner was." This version uses the American dust-jacket for its cover and uses the American cover for its end-papers.

1966 Fables for Enjoyment and Education. Rabbi Isaac Nisenbaum. Paperbound. Published apparently by the author. $10 from Virtual Judaica, Inc., March, '05. 

There are twenty fables here in this twelve-page pamphlet. It measures 8¾" x 6". There is a list of them, with morals, on the first two pages. Apparently all twenty are original fables. I do not think they have the crispness and sharpness requisite for a good Aesopic fable. Some of the texts might be stronger if they were half the length. I have noticed one or two tense errors and some strange use of idioms. A little bird, for example, "was flown out of her nest" (11). Might Rabbi Nisenbaum have been brought up in another language? Many of the fables move beyond two characters or two or three incidents. Maybe the most engaging of the fables is "Birds" on 8. A cat gets used to two birds, but he is not used to a raven that comes to harass them. He kills the raven and never touches the birds. Another fable, rather typically Aesopic, has a hoarding sheep, shunned by the flock, call on a pack of wolves for vengeance against her sister sheep. The wolves come and eat all the sheep, including the hoarder (8). There cannot be many copies of a little booklet like this around forty years later.

1966 Fables from Aesop. Ennis Rees. Illustrations by J.J. Grandville. Dust jacket. NY: Oxford University Press. $13.50 from St. Croix, Stillwater, March, '94. Extra copies for $12 Canadian from S.W. Welch, Montreal, Oct., '95 and for $13 before '81.

Excellent reproductions of Grandville. Index on 207. Rees is liberal in his translations--and often delightful. Do not miss the good (Aesopic?) text of the man in the shower on 181.

1966 Fables from Incunabula to Modern Picture Books. A Selective Bibliography compiled by Barbara Quinnam. Washington: The Library of Congress. $2 at Second Story Books, DC, Oct., '90. Two extra copies, one for $1.98 from Half-Price, Dallas, Sept., '94.

An excellent, careful resource book that ranks with Hobbs and McKendry for precise information on editions' dates and circumstances. Especially strong on Aesop incunabula. Division by source, from Panchatantra to Krylov, with good introductory information on each. It is wonderful to recognize old friends listed here! Good black-and-white illustrations.

1966 Fireside Tales from the North. Phyllis Savory. Illustrations by Jillian Hulme. Hardbound. Cape Town: Howard Timmins. 9 South African Rand from Arnaud Labuschagne at Gandolph's Books, Johannesburg, Jan., '05. 

Mike Lewis, the Jesuit Regional Superior, had just picked us up for our twelve hours in Johannesburg. When I mentioned an interest in old books, he drove us straight to Gandolph's, where we found the owner, Arnaud Labuschagne, just opening up the store. This is the one treasure found there that I did not already have. These eighteen tales come from Kenya and Nyasaland; most are aetiological. Page 13 is badly cut and mostly removed; the lack makes it hard to understand what is going on in the first story. In the second, Hen loses Hawk's razor and is still looking for it as she pecks along on the ground today. A greedy Hyena comes across a tethered Calf but decides to eat all of the leather tether before he enjoys the sumptuous Calf.. "Wanjohi the Hunter" (32) is a version of the fable of getting the capturer to put himself into confinement. Here that is a lion, and Wanjohi has promised the lion the best parts of whatever he traps. Unfortunately, his wife has been caught in one of his traps. He gets his wife free as he gets the lion into the trap. Page 42 is also badly cut. The leopard in "The Leopard and the Baboon" (38) is tricked into eating his own mother. "The Lion, the Hare and the Hyena" (44) features this traditional ploy: the hare, accused of treason against the lion, proclaims that the lion needs as his medicine a strip of the skin of the hare's accuser, the hyena. So hyenas have a strip of hairs that stand on end. The rhino scatters its dung to find the porcupine needle it once borrowed. Mr. Hare crawls into dead King elephant's mouth while Mrs. Hare invites all the animals to visit the supposedly dying King--and to bring along their money (71).

1966 Gobble-Up Stories. By Oscar Mandel. Illustrated by Jack Carr. Dust jacket. Hardbound. Signed by Jack Carr. Boston: Bruce Humphries. $5.95 from Book Buyers, Mountain View, July, '03. 

This book contains 90 pages of clever ironic stories illustrated with humorous drawings. In the main, they are Thurberesque but not as tight as Thurber's. Several parody or work off of traditional fables. Thus FC is given a new moral showing that the crow was satisfied to pay the cheese for a compliment (27). Whereas a fish usually pleads to be thrown back, the minnow here pleads to be kept (30). To throw him back would be an insult! TMCM is replayed on 43: "Freedom.is merely the slavery we happen to enjoy." The last story, "John O'Fountain's Apology" (87), is an eloquent incident from LaFontaine's life in which he argues with Madame de la Sablière that the question is not about the size of the literary kingdom that he rules but whether he rules it happily and well. Other true fables are "The Perfidious Spider" (21) and "Two Blind Men" (62). Do not miss "The Journey of a Cow" (5), "The Rich Ibis and the Pauper Thrush" (13), or "The Flattered Hippopotamus" (25).

1966 Jean de Lafontaine: Ausgewähte Fabeln in Französisch und Deutsch. Jean de Lafontaine/Ernst Dohm. Illustrations after Barlow?. Erste Auflage. Hardbound. Magstadt bei Stuttgart: Horst Bissinger Verlag und Druckerei. €21 from Versandantiquariat Adalbert Gregor Schmidt, July, '09.

This is a pretty and refined book. Bissinger writes that he picked up a lovely illustrated La Fontaine and wanted to put next to it on his shelf a German translation. He learned that no German translation of La Fontaine's fables was available in German bookstores. So why not publish a bilingual edition with the lovely engravings he found in his treasured book? There lies one of the surprises of this lavish book. It never identifies the art. I seem to find individual pieces that are after Barlow or Hollar, but I am unsure. The publisher's sense of La Fontaine in the introductory comment is, I think, very helpful, just because it is highly interpretative. It does communicate a sense of La Fontaine's life and art. I may use it the next time I teach La Fontaine. Some thirty fables are presented in facing centered French (left) and centered German (right). I count fifteen illustrations, the weakest of which is the first, GA. There is a final comment on the genre of fable. High quality paper, binding, and construction. The German translations are taken from Ernst Dohm's edition published by George Bondi in Berlin in 1913.

1966 Jean de La Fontaine: Fables Vol. I. Illustrations by Henry LeMarié. #1365 of 2850 on Velin de Rives. Hardbound. Paris: Les Editions d'Art Les Heures Claires. €186 from Librairie de Père Pénard, Lyon, June, '12.

Here is a spectacular addition to the collection! The illustrations here are breathtaking! The illustrations in this volume are: Le Renard et le Buste (3); GA (7); Les deux Mulets (18); FC (31); Le Savetier et le Financier (42); La Mort et le Bûcheron (55); WL (66); Les deux Pigeons (79); Le Laboureur et ses Enfants (90); Le Berger et la Mer (103); TMCM (114); OR (127); Le Coche et la Mouche (138); Le Singe et le Léopard (151); MSA (162); Le Cochet, le Chat, et le Souriceau (175); CJ (186). I cannot praise these detailed half-page colored illustrations highly enough. They are exquisite! My favorite in this set is Le Savetier et le Financier (42). The banker appears only in part through a second-storey window. The shoemaker is front and center. Much of life goes on around them both. Lovely. From the bookdealer's description I take this: "194 pages, en feuillets sous chemise rempliée illustrée et emboîtages crème illustrés." The printing was done by l'Imprimerie Daragnès in Paris. Jean Taricco engraved some 2200 pieces of wood necessary for the reproduction of the aquarelles of Henry LeMarié for these three volumes. Good condition. Beautifully executed! 

1966 Jean de La Fontaine: Fables Vol. II. Illustrations by Henry LeMarié. #1365 of 2850 on Velin de Rives. Hardbound. Paris: Les Editions d'Art Les Heures Claires. €186 from Librairie de Père Pénard, Lyon, June, '12.

Here is a spectacular addition to the collection! The illustrations here are breathtaking! The illustrations in this volume are: Le Gland et la Citrouille (3); Le Cygne et le Cuisinier (9); L'Oeil du Maître (16); Le Serpent et la Lime (25); L' Ours et les deux Compagnons (32); FS (41); SS (48); GGE (57); Le Charlatan (64); Le Chat et un vieux Rat (73); La jeune Veuve (80); MM (89); Le Cochon, la Chèvre, et le Mouton (96); L' Huître et les Plaideurs (105); Le Villageois et le Serpent (112); L' Ours et l'Amateur des jardins (121); Le Curé et le Mort (128); Le Vieillard et les trois jeunes Hommes (141); Le Héron (152). My favorites among these include Le Cygne et le Cuisinier (9); LeMarié seems to be able to portray a large world full of activities and still let the eye come to the little part of the action that the fable specifies. A second favorite is Le Chat et un vieux Rat (73); here it is not activity but antiques in an old barn that fill the picture. But in one small part, done in exquisite detail, a rat is invited to trust that a cat has also become a relic. A final favorite is La jeune Veuve (80); while others dance and make merry, she peaks out of her door. I cannot praise these detailed half-page colored illustrations highly enough. They are exquisite! From the bookdealer's description I take this: "164 pages, en feuillets sous chemise rempliée illustrée et emboîtages crème illustrés." The printing was done by l'Imprimerie Daragnès in Paris. Jean Taricco engraved some 2200 pieces of wood necessary for the reproduction of the aquarelles of Henry LeMarié for these three volumes. Good condition. Beautifully executed! 

1966 Jean de La Fontaine: Fables Vol. III. Illustrations by Henry LeMarié. #1365 of 2850 on Velin de Rives. Hardbound. Paris: Les Editions d'Art Les Heures Claires. €186 from Librairie de Père Pénard, Lyon, June, '12.

Here is a spectacular addition to the collection! The illustrations here are breathtaking! The illustrations in this volume are: Le Lièvre et la Tortue (3); Le Loup devenu Berger (7); Un Animal dans la lune (14); Le Geai paré des plumes du Paon (23); Le Renard et les Raisins (30); Le Chameau et les Bâtons flottants (39); Le Chartier embourbé (46); L'Ane portant des reliques (55); Les Femmes et le secret (62); Le Bassa et le Marchand (71); Le Rat et l'Eléphant (78); Le Dépositaire infidèle (87); Le Loup et le Chasseur (94); Le Singe et le Chat (103); La Tortue et les deux Canards (110); Le Fermier, le Chien, et le Renard (119); Les deux Chèvres (126); Le Chat, la Belette, et le petit Lapin (135); Les deux Coqs (146); La Matrone d'Ephèse (159); Belphégor (170). My favorites among these include Le Loup devenu Berger (7); what lively action! What a fine blending of animal and human in the running wolf! Les Femmes et le secret (62) has pairs of women all over the scene chatting with each other. The secret is making the rounds! La Tortue et les deux Canards (110) offers a good view of these three but gives us a Breughel-like view of the large world beneath and around. Les deux Coqs (146) again has busy action all over the farmyard, but the predatory bird is already swooping above, waiting to claim the victor in the fight between the two cocks in the center foregroud. I cannot praise these detailed half-page colored illustrations highly enough. They are exquisite! From the bookdealer's description I take this: "209 pages, en feuillets sous chemise rempliée illustrée et emboîtages crème illustrés." The printing was done by l'Imprimerie Daragnès in Paris. Jean Taricco engraved some 2200 pieces of wood necessary for the reproduction of the aquarelles of Henry LeMarié for these three volumes. This volume is accompanied by a reproduced letter from LeMarié to his readers, accompanied with delightful illustrations of a person riding a giraffe and of a lion who has apparently just eaten a human! He admits here that the fables have been a "prétexte aimable pour peindre Florence au XVIe siècle." Good condition. Beautifully executed! 

1966 Jungle Doctor's Fables. Paul White. With Sixty-seven illustrations by Graham Wade. Dust jacket. Exeter, Devon: The Paternoster Press. See 1955/66.

1966 La Fontaine dans ses Fables: Comment l'homme perce à travers l'oeuvre. Gilles E. de La Fontaine. Paperbound. Ottawa: Le Cercle du Livre de France. $4.50 from Daedalus & Daedalus East, Charlottesville, VA, April, '98.

This 252-page paperback has all the earmarks of a dissertation. Its subject is how La Fontaine breaks into and through his own work. It thus deals with "interventions," which I take to be comments from the poet himself. The book's five chapters thus deal with different types of interventions. The first chapter concerns these "objective general interventions": "veritées humaines"; "veritées de la vie"; "passions et vices"; and "diverses catégories de personnes." The second chapter treats particular objective interventions, like personages, ideas, details, words, and expressions. The third has to do with prolonged subjective interventions. The leading topics here are fables and the souls of animals, but the chapter goes on to look at things like love, avarice, and pedantry. "Brief subjective interventions" have to do with the fabulist, the sweetness of life, love and marriage, cupidity, and the stupidity of the crowd. The last chapter has to do with conventional interventions, like dedications. The book seems to me to set out to do what a dissertation ought to do. 

1966 La Fontaine et le Premier Recueil des "Fables," Vol. II. René Jasinski. Paperbound. Paris: Librairie A.-G. Nizet. $20 from Michael Hackenberg Booksellers, Berkeley, CA, August, '05.

The first volume of this pair is listed under 1965, even though its cover shows "1966." This second volume continues to work its way through Books Three, Four, Five, and Six, treating each fable along the way. As I mentioned of the first volume, I would love to work my way through this pair of volumes the next time I teach a fables course! Jasinski's "Conclusion" (398) would be a great place to start. There are again many uncut pages in this book. There is a more extensive T of C at the end than is in the first volume. That is, the T of C here lists each fable. 

1966 La Fontaine Fables. Images de Romain Simon. Hardbound. Paris?: Grands Albums Hachette: Hachette. $5.60 from Betty Newlin, Winchester, VA, through eBay, July, '04. 

My, Romain Simon illustrated many different books! This is a 28-page oversized (9" x 12½") children's book. There are eleven fables in all, each allotted one to three pages. At least five of them are included somehow in the endpieces at both ends of the book. The stories include GA, FC, FG, LM, TMCM, TH, MM, "The Fox and the Goat," WL, FS, and TT. Each story gets from one to three pages. Has the lively, skipping rabbit appeared in Simon's work before? The scarf and shawl on the tortoise make me think I have seen these characters before! This book once belonged to the Shelter Island Elementary School.

1966 La Fontaine Fables. Images de Romain Simon. Hardbound. Paris?: Grands Albums Hachette: Hachette. See 1953/66.

1966 La Fontaine: Selected Fables (Hebrew).  Translated by Moshe Ben-Shaul.  Romain Simon.  Paperbound.  Tel Aviv: Meir Mizrachi Publishing.  $20 from Joshua Jakobovich, Shiloh, Israel, Oct., '21.

Here is a paperbound version of two hardbound books already in the collection.  What were endpapers in one and became interior pages in the other are here pages 2 and 3, following the same "stack of books" as in that copy with the interior pages rather than endpapers.  Also the same as that copy is the final set of pages: the same two-page spread as in the beginning, followed by a geometric floral design.  As I wrote of those two hardbound copies, this oversized (8½" x 12") paperbound book of some 32 pages seems to be a slightly smaller-format Hebrew version of Hachette's book first published in 1953, with reprintings in various series in our collection in 1966, 1969, 1970, 1973, and 1983.  There are eleven fables in all, each allotted one to three pages.  At least five of them are included somehow in those repeated double-pages at both ends of the book.  The stories include GA, FC, FG, LM, TMCM, TH, MM, "The Fox and the Goat," WL, FS, and TT.  As in the two hardbound copies, the back cover presents twelve tiles with individual characters from these fables.  The front cover again has a lively fox tipping his hat.

1966 La Fontaine's Fables Translated into English Verse.  Sir Edward Marsh.  Dust jacket.  Hardbound.  Printed in Great Britain.  London/NY: Everyman's Library No. 991: London: Dent/NY:Dutton.  See 1952/1966.

1966 La Fontaine 20 Fables. Twenty French artists. Jean Cassou. #182 of 440; one of 329 sur pur fil de Lana. Paris: Cristobal de Acevedo. €1300 from Librairie de l'Avenue Henry Veyrier, Saint-Ouen, June, '12.

Here is one of the treasures of this collection! I have yet to establish whether there is any formal tie between this collection of twenty folios and the similar collection done by Andre Gonin in 1950. This edition was done for the French Red Cross, with some connection to its campaign of 1961. There is a publication from that campaign (Bodemann #489.1) that I will be looking for. This collection is the first edition with these illustrations. From the total edition of 440, this is one of 329 on pur fil de Lana. There are twenty fables by Jean de la Fontaine illustrated with twenty in-text half-page color lithographs + twenty full-page color lithographs by twenty modern artists. Thus each fable has a folio of eight pages starting with a half-page colored illustration and including a full-page colored illustration. This ensemble contains an additional suite of the forty color lithographs on pur fil de Lana, each on its own page without text. Contributing artists are: Yves Alix, Calder, A.M. Cassandre, Cavaillès, Clavé, Marianne Clouzot, Paul Colin, Coutaud, Salvador Dali, Hermine David, Dunoyer de Segonzac, Valentine Hugo, Félix Labisse, Jacques Lagrange, André Marchand, Pignon, Dom Robert, Rohner, Marc Saint-Saëns, and Touchagues. My favorites among these are Calder, "The Elephant and Jupiter's Monkey"; Coutaud's "The Battle Between the Rats and the Weasels"; Dali's "The Scythian Philosopher"; Hugo's DW; Labisse's "The Fly and the Ant"; LaGrange's "The Cobbler and the Banker"; Pignon's "The Charlatan"; Rohner's BS; and Touchagues' CW. The selection of fables is slightly surprising, perhaps because the two publications I mention had perhaps already taken better known fables. The twenty eight-page folios are preceded by three-and-a-half such folios with the opening information including "justification" and this copy number (#182) and followed by one folio including tables and information on the printing of the work. This copy is 185 pages. Overall size 17" x 13" x 3.5". Préface by Jean Cassou. All the contents are in excellent condition; the box shows moderate wear and rubbing. If the box was originally hinged, it has separated into two parts. 

1966 La Liebre y la Tortuga. Colección "Amanecer." No author or illustrator acknowledged. Bilbao: Ediciones Boga. $.35 in Spain, Summer, '86.

There are red and black two-color illustrations in this twelve-page booklet. I cannot find much more to say about it!

1966 Language Curiosities. Paperbound. Emmaus, PA: Editors of Quinto Lingo: Rodale Press. $3.95 from Charlene Walling, El Reno, OK, through eBay, Jan., '07.

Here is an unusual magazine, prepared apparently to encourage students of foreign languages, specifically French, German, Spanish, and Italian. After a few pages each of linguistic oddities and word origins, there are three fables, each presented in a two-page spread for each of the four foreign languages. Each pair of pages presenting a different language includes an English translation. The comments on the particular version then highlight important points of grammar. The Italian commentary on WC, e.g., has sections on "stare," on the relative pronoun, on prepositional phrases, on possessive adjectives, on "ficcare," and on "mettersi." The wolf's invitational statement in this version is good: "I would give anything if you would be good enough to take it out." The crane here asks the wolf to lie down on his side and open his jaws "as wide as he could." The moral is "Gratitude and greed go not together." Each of the four versions for each fable has a different simple black-and-white drawing at the top of the two texts. The other two fables are "The Man and His Two Wives" and WL. The moral for the former is "Yield to all and you will soon have nothing to yield." In the latter, the wolf begins the narrative by thinking "There's my supper if only I can find some excuse to seize it." The moral here is apparently gasped out by the dying lamb: "Any excuse will serve a tyrant." The illustrations for WL seem to have been stolen from classic presentations, including Bewick and Heighway. This booklet seems to represent a rather enlightened approach to languages for American students. I wondered what sort of publication "Quinto Lingo" was and searched a bit on the web. I found it! "The famous multi-lingual magazine for language self-learners will be re-born on the Web in the Fall of 2006. Some of the great articles, stories, (and jokes) which appeared between 1964 and 1980 will see the light of day again with downloadable parallel texts in English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Russian." Despite the promises, the major links recommended on the Quinto Lingo page are not operating, and their "Fall of 2006" deadline seems to have come and gone. But they helped me to know more about their great magazine's past!

1966 Les Fables de La Fontaine: Gravures sur Bois.  Henry Lemarié.  Paperbound.  Paris: Lignes et Formes:  Les Editions d'Art Les Heures Claires.  $10 from an unknown source, August, '16.

Five years ago I bought Henry Lemarié's magnificent set of three volumes of La Fontaine's fables.  They came to my attention again this past semester as the student scouts for the upcoming exhibits of the collection were taken with his work.  It is small but so exacting!  Now I have come across this 32-page pamphlet that offers 52 of his illustrations.  Important information on the cover is blacked out.  My best estimate is that it is a piece of advertising for those three volumes.  I find it unusual in that it offers not a few sample illustrations but such a high number of them.  Though not done with the care of the three volume set, the illustrations here suggest the minute care that Lemarié put into the accomplishment of his work.  Consider, for example, the individual sticks of wood that stick out from the bundle in the cover illustration.  Lemarié died in 1991 and was apparently the acknowledged master of wood engraving.  I feel so fortunate to have added a copy of that three volume set to the collection!

1966 Les Fables d'Esópe.  Louis Untermeyer (title-page: L. Untermayer); traduction d'Eugène Courson.  Illustrations de A. et M. Provensen.  Hardbound.  Paris: Un grand Livre d'Or:  Deux coqs d'or.  $17.14 from Versandantiquariat Ottomar Köhler, July, '15. 

Here is a French edition of this wonderful book, which I have already in its English, German, and Italian versions.  The cover here shows a child holding a tortoise and a hare, while a crow sits with a cheese on top of his head.  This remains one of my favorite books of fables.  It has been twenty-three years since I first found the original English version of 1965.  I have also found paperback and British versions and copies of three other printings of the Golden Press edition.  One of the strengths of the English edition is the remarks set next to characters in the illustrations.  One of the joys of this translation is to see how they are rendered.  As I have noted elsewhere, it takes something special for the French to reproduce fables of Aesop rather than of La Fontaine.

1966 Merry-Go-Round. Leland B. Jacobs and Jo Jasper Turner. Illustrated by Richard Scarry? Hardbound. Printed in USA. Columbus, Ohio: Treasury of Literature Readers: Banner Edition: Charles E. Merrill Books, Inc. $15.00 in Charlotte, N.C., June, '96.

Three fables appear: BC, retold by Jacobs (82); "Rabbit's Mistake" (88, about the end of the world), also retold by Jacobs; and "The Donkey and the Dog," here simply attributed to Aesop (92). The art work for BC, as for much else in the book, seems to me to be Scarry's work. The text makes excellent use of repetition of short sentences. Here and throughout, colored pages alternate with those that add one color to black. The rabbit thinks not that the sky is falling but that the earth is cracking. Here an owl (not a lion) goes back to the spot with the timid rabbit and clarifies the situation. The final fable is unusually gentle. The farmer patted him and said: "You are not a lap dog, but you are a good donkey. Do you want me to like you? Then be yourself." There is a one-inch tear on 92.

1966 Mishle Ezopus (Fables of Aesop).  Yerc Yis Re'elit.  Hardbound.  Tel Aviv: L.M. Mizrahi.  $20 from an unknown source, April, '12.  

This book is a lively large-format presentation of Aesop.   The art seems to me to be in the style of Cremonini.  The cover shows a wolf or fox escaping with a rooster, while a farmer is in hot pursuit.  Fables presented here include: FK; "Monkey as King"; The Fox and the Woodchopper"; and "The Dog and the Ass."  Several are hard for me to decipher.  The book has a curious spine that is deteriorating. 

1966 Miss Pickthorn and Mr. Hare: A Fable. By May Sarton. Illustrated by James J. Spanfeller. First edition. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. NY: W.W. Norton & Company. $7.50 from Second Story Books, Rockville, MD, Dec., '09.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first chapter and a half of this 92-paged book's nine chapters. Though called a fable, the book looks like either a short novel or a long short story to me. A retired Latin teacher lives on one side of the road enjoying Horace, Virgil, Catullus and gossip from the mailman. To her surprise a drifter moves into the henhouse across the road. Someday I look forward to reading the rest of this tale. The front flyleaf nicely quotes "Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur." The illustrator seems to be acknowledged only on the front of the dust-jacket, and there his name is written in black against a busy black background. I would never have been able to decipher "Spanfeller" if the name had not also occurred at the bottom of the back flyleaf, where he is credited with designing the dust-jacket. Ex-libris Marjorie A. Sander.

1966 Mivhar Hameshalim meet Z'an deh-Lafonten (Hebrew "Best of La Fontaine's Fables"). Translated by Yosef Rabikov. Various artists. Hardbound. Tel Aviv: Hotsa'at A. Zelkovitz. $65 from Meir Biezunski, Israel, Nov., '06.

176 pages. For me, one of the best features of this book is the wide range of illustrators presented in black-and-white. A list here would get very long. There are some water (?) stains to the outside of some of the early pages. The front cover (reversed, of course, for us) has large pock-marks, as though someone shot beebees at this book. It has no doubt seen some history! 

1966 More Aesop's Fables. No author or illustrator acknowledged. Milwaukee: Ideals Publishing Co. $1.67 at Walnut Antique Mall, Walnut, Iowa, April, '93. Extra copy a gift of Mrs. S. Adamski, Oct., '87.

This is a small-format book, almost a pamphlet. There are companion volumes in 1965 and 1966. The milkmaid carries her pail in her hand. Facing pages, for example in "The Two Crabs" and "The Oak and the Reed," are not coordinated. The effect is strange. There is a good moral to "The Two Pots": "Many times friends can be of the most help by not helping at all."

1966 OSO Fabeln. Aus der Werkstatt der Odenwaldschule. Paperbound. Heppenheim, Germany. €2 at Antiquariat Canicio, Heidelberg, August, '12.

The introduction gives good background. A year earlier, a class designed and published a booklet as a Christmas gift. It contained sayings. This year they are putting together sayings and fables and doing it in fact in a creative way. They were responsible not only for setting type and producing good linocuts. They set themselves a "theme," like "The Rivers and the Sea" or "The Column and the Shadow." Then they create a new story that goes with the theme. The major portion of the 56-page pamphlet then gives one text for each theme. For the theme "Two Candles," we read a good story about one candle that saw how it was being used up and let itself be blown out. The other, glorying in its flame, kept going until it became useless. Probably without knowing it, several students arrive at Aesopic fables. For example, given a fat and a skinny mouse as theme, one student tells of the latter's compliment to the former, who answers modestly that one gets along and works hard. Just then the cat comes and the skinny mouse escapes into her hole but the plump one is caught. These are good fables! Wolf asks lamb why he always does what others do. Lamb is insulted with this accusation that he acts out of a herd mentality and so goes into the woods with the wolf. There the wolf devours the lamb. An elephant meets a mouse and boasts of his size and strength. The mouse leads the elephant into a swamp and says to him as he is sinking "You are getting smaller and smaller." There is a good linocut illustration for this fable and for many others. What fun! "Die Bilder wurden von der 8. - 10. Klasse in Linoleum geschnitten." "OSO" is all over the school's website, but I have not figured out yet what the last letter stands for. 

1966 Otto Michael Knab's Fox-Fables. Translated by Bernard M. Knab. Illustrations by James Brunsman. First U.S. edition. Signed by Bernard Knab. Paperback. Printed in USA. Pullman, WA: Washington State University Press. $16 from Hawthorne Blvd. Books, Portland, OR, Feb., '00. Extra copy in less good condition for $1.95 from Powell's, Portland, March, '95.

This book has introduced me to the writing of Otto Knab. Chapters cover his history, an introduction to his fables commentary, the fables themselves, notes on each fable, and two appendices. Knab was a Catholic who fled Nazi Germany in 1934 and spent the next four years in Switzerland writing as a journalist against Nazism for Catholics in Germany. His healthy reaction to the surprising turnabout of the Catholic hierarchy when Hitler came to power gives a sense of his values. One of the things he wrote was a series of twenty-one Fuchsenfabeln, which he published in the newspaper Deutsche Briefe. The fables are heavy on parody, satire, and irony, as his son Bernard, the translator, points out in the second chapter. "Otto Knab planned to show by means of his fables how the Third Reich began and secured its power base, and how the various levels of society reacted to the totalitarian thrust" (8). I find the fables well done. They are more from La Fontaine than from Aesop; they can at times also remind one of Reynard and of Krylov. The first fable is an excellent parody, a long speech by the Hitleresque Fox. "I am your leader! I am your future! I am you!" (21). The second does a fine job of satirizing von Papen as an ostrich, whom the fox uses and then discards. One of my favorites is "Stewings and Doings among the Feathered-Folk" (24), which comes perilously close to home against pacifists who let the ranks of the sane be divided and so only promote the insane. Fable 4's satire on Monsignor Kaas and the clergy is bitter and very effective! The next establishes that feeding comes from chirping "Zeeg!" "First 'Zeeg!' then feed; first bow, then chow" (27). "The Weasel" (28) is about Hitler's treatment of the Church in terms of the Concordat of 1933; for now the weasel may only suck the eggs dry, but later he will slit throats. It is not hard to see Goebbels in Jako, the parrot, who starts parrot schools everywhere (31). "How the Fishes Were Rewarded" (33) is an excellent comment on the silent majority. "The Wise Owls" displays ferociously the caving-in of the intellectuals (36). A first appendix gives a translation of Knab's article written July 14, 1934, the night before Knab escaped Germany. A second appendix gives the two fables that antedated the Fuchsenfabeln, with brief comments by Bernard Knab. This book has been an educational experience for me.

1966 Russian Fables. (Russian.) Edited by N. Stepanov. Pictures by Vitali Statzinski. Hardbound. Printed in Moscow. Moscow: Artistic Literature Publishing House. $18 from Szwede Slavic Books, Palo Alto, CA, March, '96.

This book is unusual first of all in its lively designs imprinted in various colors on the gray cloth cover. They are of a piece with the extensive art work inside the book. These include a two-sided introductory page for each of the twenty-seven Russian fabulists represented, a tailpiece for each of the twenty-seven, and designs for almost every fable along the way. The fabulist featured just before Krylov receives this treatment for his one fable on 305-8. The introductory art for Krylov is typical: it includes various characters on the page giving his name and a strong illustration for FC on the verso. Krylov has the largest number of fables. Others with a significant representation here include Sumarokov on 43, Khemnitser on 141, Sukanov on 261, Izmaylov on 429, and Michalkov on 509.

1966 Selected Fables & Tales of La Fontaine. Translated by Marie Ponsot. Afterword by Wallace Fowlie. No illustrations. Paperback. Signet Classic. NY: New American Library. $.38, Summer, '89. Extra copy for $1 from the Antiquarium, Oct., '97.

About half the fables are translated here. The translation is different from Ponsot's shorter versions for the 1955 Baudoin version from Grosset and Dunlap. Besides the afterword, there are appendices giving LaFontaine's chronology and a sketch of fable history and comparing four versions of FC. A surprisingly rich little book!

1966 Still More Aesop's Fables. No author or illustrator acknowledged. Milwaukee: Ideals Publishing Co. $1.67 at Walnut Antique Mall, Walnut, Iowa, April, '93.

This is a small-format book, almost a pamphlet. Surprise! I had thought that the companion volumes in 1965 and 1966 were the whole set. Perhaps the most entertaining illustration here features a gigantic ant biting the dove-catcher's toe. I like the moral given for "Mercury and the Sculptor": "If you look for a compliment, you will oftentimes find the truth."

1966 Storyland Favorites.  Harold G. Shane and Kathleen B. Hester.  Illustrated by Mary Miller Salem.  5th printing.  Hardbound.  River Forest, IL: Gateways to Reading Treasures Co-Basal Literary Readers:  Laidlaw Brothers: Doubleday & Company.  See 1960/66.

1966 Sungura Mjanja (Hare Is a Rascal). kimetungwa na Frank Worthington. kimetafsiriwa na D.E. Diva. Paperbound. Nairobi: Oxford University Press East Africa. See 1963/66.

1966 Svetla z Kanopu aneb Triatricet moudrych nauceni. Jan Vladislav. Teheran miniatures, photographed and edited by Werner Forman and Bedrich Forman. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Printed in Czechoslovakia. Prague: Odeon, Nakladatelstvi Krasne Literatury a Umeni. $8 from Zachary Cohn, Prague, by mail, Nov., '01.

Here is a Czech version of the English Persian Fables listed under "1950?" See my extensive comments there. See also the German version from 1959: Lichter des Kanopus: Dreiunddreissig Fabeln aus dem Morgenland. Is this a republication of a book done earlier? That is, can one presume that there was an original Czech publication that would have been as early as the German and English? Though its dust-jacket is torn and repaired, the book itself is in good condition.

1966 The Fables of Aesop. Selected, Told Anew and their History Traced by Joseph Jacobs. Illustrated by Richard Heighway. NY: Schocken Books. See 1894/1966.

1966 The Fables of Aesop. Edited, told Anew and their history traced by Joseph Jacobs. Done into Pictures by Richard Heighway. (c)1966 Legacy Press. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, Inc.: Xerox. See 1894/1966.

1966 The Fables of Aesop: Selected, Told Anew and Their History Traced by Joseph Jacobs. Illustrated by David Levine. Afterword by Clifton Fadiman. NY: Macmillan. See 1964/66.

1966 The Fables of Avianus. Edited with Prolegomena, Critical Apparatus, Commentary, Excursus, and Index by Robinson Ellis. Original Oxford edition of 1887 photographically reproduced by Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, Hildesheim. See 1887/1966.

1966 The Fables: Zeitgeist Supplement, Book One, Volume I. Ken Lawless. First printing. Paperbound. East Lansing, MI: Zeitgeist. $11.25 from Alibris, Dec., '02. Extra copy for $11 from Iliad Bookshop, North Hollywood, through choosebooks.com, Feb., '03.

Portions appeared in the summer, 1966, issue of Zeitgeist. There are thirty-three texts after an Editor's Preface and a Dedication. The editor's preface sets the tone for this typewritten pamphlet. It is vintage 1960's: brash, outspoken, crude, self-important, and in your face. Both Lawless and the editor, Gary Groat, were fired--Lawless from Michigan State University--and seem to be proud of it. Three more volumes of Lawless' work were planned and announced inside the back cover. "The Fabulist" (7) is Lawless' introduction to the work: he told absurd and ridiculous tales to children in return for drinks stolen from their daddies' liquor cabinets. "Nurse Rhymes" (18) finishes "This story has no moral. At this point, how could it?" Those wanting to try a couple of the short stories here might try "Puking Beauty" (30) and "Rapunzel" (40). There are also offerings on "Hansel and Gretel" (64), "Jack and Jill" (65), and "Humpety-Dumpety" (67).

1966 The Golden Treasury of Children's Literature. Edited and Selected by Bryna and Louis Untermeyer. Illustrated by various artists, A. & M. Provensen for Aesop. NY: Golden Press. See 1947/66.

1966 The Hare and the Tortoise. A Père Castor Book. By R. Simon and P. François. Illustrated by Romain Simon. Translated by Constance Hirsch. (c)1950 by Flammarion. NY: Golden Press. See 1950/66.

1966 The Jackdaw and the Witch: A True Fable. By Sybil Leek. Illustrations by Barbara Efting. Second Printing. Dust jacket. First published in Great Britain in 1965 as Mr Hotfoot Jackson. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. See 1965/66.

1966 The Man Who Was Magic: A Fable of Innocence. Paul Gallico. Garden City: Doubleday & Company. First edition. Dust jacket. $12.60 from Greg Williams, Spring, '95.

I found this a perfect story for reading on the train. It captivated me, and I had no trouble enjoying it to the finish. It is really a novel-length parable that sometimes tends toward allegory. In brief, this man is magic, while all the professional magicians are just tricking people. The story touches on the central question of what is real and on competition, wonder, and affection.

1966 The Style of La Fontaine's Fables. Jean Dominique Biard. First printing. Hardbound. Oxford: Language and Style Series: Basil Blackwell. $12.50 from an unknown source, May, '89.

This is, in one respect, a strange book. It is on the one hand immensely helpful to someone like me. It will be a rich resource on any number of stylistic questions about La Fontaine's fables the next time I can teach them. It is unusual to have such a helpful book published in English. That is the other side of the conundrum here. A reader of this book needs good French; that is not an unusual demand, since the reader will need good French to understand La Fontaine's style in the fables in the first place. Why, then, was this book written in English? Any number of stylistic devices are considered here. Biard's introduction puts the case for the book well: the "almost unanimous acknowledgment of La Fontaine's stylistic merits has given rise to a relatively small number of serious studies of his style" (xi). His conclusion has this simple affirmation: "The rich and intriguing style of the 'Fables' constitutes their most durable merit" (184). For Biard, what others have seen as stylistic failures in La Fontaine are often, even regularly, misunderstandings where the fault lies with the critic's ignorance of seventeenth-century language and syntax, or his lack of appreciation of imagery, or his rigid conformity to the letter of the rules of composition. The flyleaf's overview of the book is not bad: "The aim of this study is to give a general and comprehensive assessment of La Fontaine's style in the Fables. Chapters are devoted to each of the most striking aspects of this style: richness, vigour and freedom; familiarity; humour; elegance; poetry. Reconstruction of seventeenth-century stylistic values has been attempted with reference to the theorists of the time. This method has proved rewarding since it reveals, in the language of the Fables, implications and ambiguities, sometimes lost for the modern reader but probably obvious to the poet's contemporaries, and used for a variety of effects: humour, poetry, etc. These implications and ambiguities fit in well with what is known of La Fontaine's taste and skill, and represent yet another aspect of his tendency to combine fullness and diversity of meaning with exacting relevance, which is one of the most pleasurable features of his style." 

1966 Town Mouse Country Mouse: A Book of Story Pictures. By Aldren Watson. Hardbound. Printed in USA. A Young Owl Book. NY/Toronto/London: Holt, Rinehart and Winston Inc. $6.50 from M. Hollis, West Baden Springs, IN, through Ebay, August, '00.

I was fooled by two facts: The title is that of a fable, and the artist is one whose excellent work I have known: Aesop's Fables for the Peter Pauper Press in 1941. Alas, this book has nothing to do with fables. It presents scenes from town and country life. I put it into the collection to stop myself and others from trying to find fable material in this book in the future! It once belonged to the Springs Valley Community Elementary School Library.

1966 Two Fables of Aesop With Designs on Wood. By Thomas Bewick. Taken from The Fables of Aesop printed by Ward in London in 1885. Menomonie, WI: 75 hand-set books printed and bound at Vagabond Press of Lloyd Whydotsk. Signed; #42. See 1818/85/1966.

1966/76 Stories from Panchatantra: Book II. Retold by Shivkumar and illustrated by Reboti Bhusan. Tenth printing. Paperbound. New Delhi: The Children's Book Trust. $2.48 at The Magnolia Park Book Shop, Burbank, Feb., '97. Extra copy of the 1978 printing of the hardbound version for $2.95 at Powell's, Portland, March, '96.

I have enjoyed this book. It is quaint in its orthography and its "not for prime time" bookmaking. Where else can one find an address label pasted onto the back of the title page to indicate the American distributor of the book? That is just what you find in the hardbound edition. Five of its six fables are familiar to me and well told here. New to me is the last, "The lion-makers" (57), a fine story about common sense. "The Ass has no brains" has on 14 a strong if simple illustration, in the book's orange-and-brown style, of the ass with his head cut open. "The mice that ate iron" (25) is about a beam that is hidden, not sold. (Notice the typo on 28: "Beam of that kind are difficult to get....") "The Brahmin's dream" (41) is a delightful elaboration of the basic MM motif, climaxing with the dreaming Brahmin's beating his children and so breaking his atta bowl. This book and its companion volume (Book IV under 1969/78) are among those things that may have wandered a long way to come into this collection.

1966/82 Isoppu No Ohanashi (Aesop’s Tales: Japanese). Apparently #1 in a series. Printed in Japan. Shogakukan Co., Ltd. 500 yen at Miwa, Tokyo, July, ’96.

This book smells like an antiquarian bookshop! The illustrations are simple, lively, colorful, and varied in style. Often there is a nice monochrome symbol in the upper right echoing the colored illustration on the left. I have seldom seen such fun in the battle of the birds against the beasts (6-7)! The ants in GA (25-7) deal in refined food! A Protestant minister chides the pair of riders in MSA (48). The story on 52 is new to me: a bossy, selfish monkey sits on a porcupine and pays for it! There are two good illustrations for TMCM (63-5). Five images tell the story of SS well (68-71). There is a T of C at the book’s front (which would be the back of the book in the West). One of many lovely finds in Tokyo!

1966/88 The Hare and the Tortoise. Based on the fable by La Fontaine. Brian Wildsmith. Printed in Hong Kong. Oxford: Oxford University Press. $3.00 at Hooked on Books, Colorado Springs, March, '94.

Lively pictures in the Wildsmith style. The story is much expanded (even from la Fontaine): the fox and the owl debate, and the rooster starts the race. I could well use a picture or two from this edition. See 1982/85 for the paperback version.

1966? The Twilight Hour: Legends, Fables and Fairy Tales from all over the world. Retold by Vladislav Stanovský and Jan Vladislav; translated by Jean Layton. Illustrated by Stanislav Kolíbal. Hardbound. Printed in Czechoslovakia. ©1961 by Artia. London: Paul Hamlyn. $1.60 from Constant Reader, Milwaukee, Dec., '98.

In each of twelve parts there are fifteen selections. Often the second, third, or fourth selection in each part is a fable. Here is a listing of those not otherwise noteworthy: "The Camel and the Ant" (14); "The Crow and the Fox" (16; not the traditional FC); "The Raven that cheated the Snake" (53); "The Monkey and the Lentil" (55); "The Cunning Fox and the even more Cunning Cock (137; Chanticleer); "The Lion, the Wolf, the Jackal, the Raven and the Camel" (246; from KD); "The Carpenter and the Monkey" (248); "The Sinful Donkey" (331); "The Wolf, the Fox and the Otter" (333); "The Hare, the Quail and the Clever Tom-cat" (368); "The Clever Donkey" (399); "The Monkey and the Tortoise" (402); "The Three Fishes" (405); "The Tiger, the Cat and a Man's Strength" (442); "The Little Man who wanted to grow Tall" (444); and "How the Mice went to War with the Mosquitoes" (445). "The Lobster and the Crow" (15) is like FC: flattery gets the crow to open his mouth and release the lobster. In "The Wolf and the Stag" (96) the bear recommends to the wolf freed by the stag "Let us go back and show me just how it happened," as usually in the story of the Brahmin and the tiger. Here the stag finally says he cannot for the third time today lift the tree that has again pinned the wolf. In "The Stupid Wolf and the Cunning Hare" (133), the hairy ends of corn cobs in baby hares' mouths seem to the stupid wolf to be tails of wolves which these baby hares have just eaten! In "The Clever Tom-cat and the Foolish Monkeys" (135), the cat directs the bothersome monkeys to a "bell" which is really a wasps' nest. I do not understand "The Weaver and the Ploughman" (138). "The Leopard, the Elephant and the Goats" (205), a very good fable, is new to me: when the outraged father leopard asks who killed his son and hears that it was an elephant, he considers for a moment and then decides that the goats must have done it!. "The Hare and the Tortoise" (249) is not our traditional TH. "The Mouse and the Elephant" (370) is the traditional LM. Not a fable but lovely is "The Mother who Lost her only Son" (30). T of C at the end.

 

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1967

1967 A Camel in the Tent. Retold by Katherine Evans. Illustrated by Katherine Evans. Second printing. Dust jacket. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Chicago: Albert Whitman & Company. See 1961/67.

1967 A Choice of Emblemes. By Geffrey Whitney. Edited by Henry Green. Hardbound. Printed in USA. NY: Benjamin Blom. $35 from Second Story Books, Bethesda, MD, Dec., '98.

First published in Leyden in 1586 by Geffrey Whitney. Reissued in London in 1866, edited by H. Green. Introduced in 1967 by Frank Fieler. This book is a facsimile of the 1866 edition. The first collection of emblems was Andreas Alciati's Emblemata published in Augsburg in 1531. Apparently, some three hundred emblem books were published between 1531 and 1700. On lxxxv one finds Whitney's helpful index of motives, Latin and English. His work was an anthology culled from a number of emblem books. For good examples of both text and image see "The Goat and the Wolf Whelp" (49) and "Anellus' Wife" (80). I have been amazed at how many fable motifs and fables show up in this work. In all, I find some fifty-three of these emblems using fables and fable-motifs. Typical non-fables are on 172, where a candle, book, and hour-glass help to warn us to use the time, and 181, which shows the traits of "occasio," which I take to indicate especially opportunity. Horace, Ovid, and Livy seem to be the ancient authors most frequently referred to. The second part (beginning on 105) seems to offer famous Romans as subjects up to 117. This is, I believe, the first emblem book in this collection. It shows some white staining at the base of the spine.

1967 Aesop, Selected Fables: A Cat and a Cock.  Roger L'Estrange.  Illustrations by Joseph Low.  Signed, #62/150.  Single signature.  Eden Hill Press.  $35 from First Folio, Brentwood, TN, May, '22.

Here is a single signature.  Through the dealer, I quote Colophon (22921): "In its original form this was one of a number of signatures prepared by various artists and printers for the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company's portfolio, 'Homage to the Book.'  With the sponsor's permission, 150 extra signed and numbered copies have been run off on Rives paper for friends of the printers and of the artist in December, 1967."  There is a brown seal on the cover and a large presentation of a cat's head with open jaw in brown and green inside.  There is also a wicked claw -- or is it a cock's bones? -- on the backmost side with a long comment from the publisher.  L'Estrange's version of the story is as good as that final comment makes it out to be.

1967 A Little Pretty Pocket-Book. John Newbury. Facsimile with introductory essay and bibliography by M.F. Thwaite. NY: Harcourt, Brace & World. See 1744/67/1966/67.

1967 Aesopic. Twenty Four Couplets by Anthony Hecht to Accompany the Thomas Bewick Wood Engravings for Select Fables. With an Afterword on the Blocks by Philip Hofer. Signed by Leonard Baskin. Limited edition of 500. #14 of one hundred copies set aside for The Society of Printers, Boston (and so bearing the Society's mark and containing an additional engraving, "The Bird, Cat, and Sow"). Northampton, MA: The Gehenna Press. $150 from David O'Neal, July, '92.

A magnificent little book. Next to Bewick's own work, these are the best representations of Bewick's work that I have. They are from the 1776/1784 first editions of Select Fables. Hofer writes aptly of them in the afterword: "they have a lively freshness that some of his later, more technically proficient, and labored, engraved woodblocks lack." Among the best of the illustrations are DS, CP, and FC. Hecht's two-liners are lively but often tangential; among the better are "There's no Tomorrow," "Two Young Men and the Cook," GA, FC, and "The Fox and the Buddha." Easily worth the price. The extra copy from Z-rosity seems to be a printer's reject from the limited run of one hundred.

1967 Aesopic. Twenty Four Couplets by Anthony Hecht to Accompany the Thomas Bewick Wood Engravings for Select Fables. With an Afterword on the Blocks by Philip Hofer. #327 of a limited edition of 500. Hardbound. Northampton, MA: Gehenna Press. $20 from The Iliad Bookshop, Burbank., Feb., '97.

Here is a second copy of a book already in the collection. Its cover is green, and it has neither the Printer's Society mark nor the extra engraving, but it is numbered #327 of 500. I am amazed to have found it for this price! A magnificent little book. Next to Bewick's own work, these are the best representations of Bewick's work that I have. They are from the 1776/1784 first editions of Select Fables. Hofer writes aptly of them in the afterword: "they have a lively freshness that some of his later, more technically proficient, and labored, engraved woodblocks lack." Among the best of the illustrations are DS, CP, and FC. Hecht's two-liners are lively but often tangential; among the better are "There's no Tomorrow," "Two Young Men and the Cook," GA, FC, and "The Fox and the Buddha."  

1967 Aesop's Fables. First printing. Pamphlet. Printed in USA. NY: A Little Paperback Classic: Pyramid Publications, Inc. $6.49 from Daybreak Enterprises, Albany, GA, through Ebay, Jan., '01.

Here is a small (5¼" x almost 3¾") pamphlet of 64 pages with a fable for each page starting on 5. Three fables (TMCM, MSA, and "The Hare and Her Many Friends") extend over two pages. A sample of three texts finds them word-for-word true to Jacobs. There are no illustrations except for the peacock on the cover. This volume is LP21 in a series that runs through 28 volumes on the back cover. The booklets are, except for the cover's picture, similar in form to Little Blue Books.

1967 Aesop's Fables. Selected and Adapted by Louis Untermeyer. Illustrated by A. and M. Provensen. Second impression. Hardbound. London: Paul Hamlyn. See 1965/67. 

1967 Animal Party: A Fable of Aesop Set for Piano.  By Raphael Valerio.  Illustrations by Daphne K. Storey.  Pamphlet.  Printed in USA.  Halesite, NY: Pianoventure 12: Camu Press.  $5 from Riitta Lemay, N. Uxbridge, MA, through Ebay, Nov., ‘01.   

There are four pieces for the piano here to express the party the animals had in which the monkey danced, the camel danced, and the other animals reacted.  As the beginning T of C makes clear, the four pieces are "The Party," "Monkey Dance," "Camel Dance," and "Riot."  I notice that there is a suggestion just above the first staff for each piece.  These are, respectively, "merrily"; "smooth and agile"; "humorous, not fast"; and "with fury."  Each piece has a large black-and-white illustration.  The pieces are wordless, but there are a couple of prose lines before each song.  The third of these four prose passages includes an extra "as" that confuses a sentence.  The "riot" involves the other animals throwing things at the camel and chasing him out of the ring.  By contrast with several other booklets in this series, there is no mention here of a record available for purchase.

1967 Beauty and the Beast/The Art of the Story-Teller/Jataka Tales/The Dancing Kettle/The Magic Listening Cap. Junior Great Books. Series 1, Volume 3 in a boxed set of three books. Chicago: Great Books Foundation. $2 at The Antiquarium, July, '89. Extra set for $1 at The Antiquarium, Oct., '97. (Shelved with Volume 1 below, Fables/Chimney Corner Fairy Tales.)

The Jatakas here are seven well-known tales taken from Ellen C. Babbitt's 1912 The Jatakas: Tales of India (Century). Here it is the crocodile's mother that wants a monkey-heart. The quails who have succeeded in lifting the net together ultimately fall to quarrelling and are captured. "The Elephant Girly-Face" (16) is new to me: he acts on what he has heard.

1967 Best Loved Fables of Aesop. Joseph Jacobs. Engravings by John Tenniel and Joseph Wolf. Paper. NY: Grolier Society. Four copies, including one from Powell's in Portland in '85, one from Skidmore Village in Portland in '87 for $.30, and one with a white cover for $3, Summer, '89.

Identical with the Crown/Avenel hardbound book (1967?).

1967 Best Loved Fables of Aesop/Nonsense Alphabets. Joseph Jacobs. Engravings by John Tenniel and Joseph Wolf. Dandelion Library. NY: Grolier Society. $3 in San Francisco, Aug., '88. Extra copy for $2 from Constant Reader, Spring, '87. Another copy for $3 from Logos in Santa Cruz, Aug., '89. Another copy for $1.25 from Left Bank Bookstall in Oak Park, Sept., '91, and an excellent copy for $2.50 from Left Bank in Oak Park, Dec., '92.

This book is identical (in larger format with enlarged and relatively good illustrations) with the Avenel edition (1967?) of the same name, except that it also contains Edward Lear's Nonsense Alphabets upside down and going in the opposite direction. A double book, curiously produced.

1967 Best Loved Fables of Aesop/Nonsense Alphabets..  Joseph Jacobs.  Illustrated by John Tenniel and Joseph Wolf.  Hardbound.  NY: Read Me A Story Program: Grolier Society.  $0.98 from Thrift World, Omaha, April, '18.

Here is a book utterly identical with another in our collection except for the indication on both covers and the spine of the collection to which the book belongs.  Instead of "Dandelion Library" we have here in all three places "Read Me A Story Program."  The interior of this copy also happens to be exceptionally clean.  As I wrote of the "Dandelion Library" copy, this book is identical (in larger format with enlarged and relatively good illustrations) with the Avenel edition (1967?) of the same name, except that it also contains Edward Lear's Nonsense Alphabets upside down and going in the opposite direction.  A double book, curiously produced.

1967 Caxton's Aesop. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by R.T. Lenaghan. Illustrations from Augsburg (1477) and from Caxton. First edition? Dust jacket. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. $12.50 at Broadway, San Diego, Aug., '93. Extra copies for $25 from The Book House on Grand, St. Paul, July, '94, and, including a facsimile of an advertisement by Caxton, for $29 from Dawson, Kent, Jan., '91.

A valuable book for which I sought a long time. I was amazed to find it in this downtown San Diego store whose owner thought he had nothing for me. The introduction gives a clear picture of the provenance of Caxton's version, a translation-plus-additions of the 1480 French translation of Steinhöwel's German/Latin of the 1474 (Ulm) and the 1477 (Augsburg) edition. Caxton's woodcuts are rough reworkings of the French, which were traced from Steinhöwel's. Lenaghan presents the Augsburg woodcuts as superior; the five Caxton illustrations in Appendix II are clearly inferior. There are vocabulary words at the bottom of the page and in a glossary, notes especially comparing Caxton with the French source, and a valuable table of Perry numbers. Now in 1996 I have worked through the texts thoroughly and want to note briefly here how often Caxton’s versions take turns I did not expect from having worked with earlier and later versions. These include, in his numbering, 3, 7, and 14 in Book I. The rat is a pilgrim who asks the frog for help across the river, the sun’s breeding is related only to humans and not to frogs, and the snail that cannot be cracked has become a nut, "betrayed" by a raven. In Book II, 5, 12, and 14 cause me hesitation: are we not to fear roaring mountains? Are we to learn from this fly’s bite only that we should not laugh over others’ misfortunes? Does the fable still work when the fox and the mask have become a wolf and a skull? In II 20, I am surprised when the ox steps on the mother frog as she puffs herself up! Check III 2, 8, 11, and 12. In 2, it is hard for me to sort out the "physician" and "sore foot" gambits of lion and horse. Caxton demurely breaks off the "scratching" story of 8—and lets clerics read it in Latin--because he does not want to offend women. I believe that 11 mixes up who does what between father and son. The last lines of 12 move into surprising claims that evil men cannot hurt each other. In Book IV, I find unusual turns in 1, 3, 10, and 15. In the first, the fox does not even leap for the grapes and is praised by Caxton. Fable 3 becomes a new and better fable with a wolf for a fox and a shepherd for a woodsman; for once the hunter understands the shepherd but the wolf takes off as soon as he sees the shepherd betraying his presence. In 15, the lion moves on from the statue to subdue the man and throw him into a pit! In V 11, there is no manger for the dog to bark from, and in Rinnucio 2, the beetle becomes a weasel. Instead of the dung beetle’s flying over Jupiter’s lap, the weasel builds a dung heap and jumps smelly into his lap, just to get brushed out of it with the eggs because Jupiter cannot stand the smell. Overall this collection shows its moralistic medieval roots, and Caxton is very concerned with the good people against evil people and particularly with the little people against those who have power over them.

1967 Chinese Fables. Edited by Kathy Ch'iu. With illustrations by Irene Aronson. Dust jacket. Mount Vernon, NY: The Peter Pauper Press. $1.98 at Half-Price, Des Moines, Sept., '93. Extra copy with slightly torn dust jacket for $3.95 from Donaldson Book Store, San Antonio, August, '96.

A highly heterogeneous collection of short Chinese materials. Many are more properly anecdotes, wise sayings, or "Confucian quips." Among the best: "Blessing in Disguise" (5), "A Compassionate Man" (21), "One Thousand-Li Horse" (30), "The Fox Who Profited" (37), and "The Tricky Hunter" (37). Two stories typical of the collection are "Cooking the Goose" (40) and "Self-Contradiction" (41). Several stories look like Aesopic material nicely adapted. The tortoise in "The Stupid Tortoise" (14) felt hurt to hear that people were finding the egrets (not ducks) carrying him clever. The scholar in "The Wolf and the Scholar" (31) gets the wolf back into a bag (not a trap or cage). "A Bundle of Arrows" (39) replaces the Aesopic bundle of sticks. Finally, "The Fox and the Raven" (43) adapts references nicely to Chinese history and etiquette.

1967 Country Mouse and City Mouse: A Fable of Aesop Set for Piano. By Raphael Valerio. Illustrations by Daphne K. Storey. Pamphlet. Printed in USA. Halesite, NY: Pianoventure 10: Camu Press. $5 from Riitta Lemay, N. Uxbridge, MA, Nov., ‘01.

There are nine pieces for the piano here to express the phases of TMCM, as the beginning T of C makes clear. They include "Country Mouse," "City Mouse," "Phooey!," "Come with Me," "Sssh! Quiet," "Fiesta," "Help!," "Scamper!," and "You Can Have It." I notice that there is a suggestion just above the first staff for each piece except the very short "Scamper!" These are, respectively, "with a hop," "with a slight strut," "disgusted," "gracious," "on the alert," "with great fun," "with alarm," and "disgusted." The pieces here tend to be shorter than in the other pamphlets of this series that I have seen. Each piece--again excepting "Scamper!"--has a full-page black-and-white illustration. The pieces are wordless, but there are a couple of prose lines before each song. In this version, people and dogs enter the dining room simultaneously. The City Mouse wears a monocle. The last page features a picture of Raphael Valerio below a printed signature.

1967 Creatures of Arcadia and Creatures of a Day. Alexander Eliot. Illustrated by Eugene Berman. Dust jacket. NY: Bobbs-Merrill (subsidiary of Howard W. Sams). $6 at Shakespeare, Berkeley, Dec., '87.

A weird mixing of fable, myth, and dream--with apt illustrations. Fables provide the backbone of several stories, and Aesop is the central character in the sixth tale.

1967 Cuentos de El Conde Lucanor.  Don Juan Manuel; Marta Gallo.  Illustrations by Aniano Lisa.  Paperbound.  Buenos Aires: Selecciones Juveniles Atlántida 15:  Editorial Atlántida.  $28 from Christian Tottino, Buenos Aires, through eBay, Oct., '13.

Here is very large (10" x 13¾") paperbound book of stories, with some of its 48 pages coming loose.  Among its stories are a number of fables that I can recognize.  There may well be some that I do not recognize.  The art is big, bold, and strong.  Among the best illustrations are several for MSA, which picture four different phases (6-7) after a beginning conversation on 5.  Crow and fox are cleverly separated by text on 9.  The "Truhana" story on 10 is a form of MM, I remember.  The encounter of lion and bull from KD is strongly pictured on 21.  If I understand correctly, the illustration for the fox imitating being dead (31) is on 33, while the text for the next story starts on 32: "The Emperor's New Clothes."  The story on 37 is, I believe, about the man who has just married a high-strung wife.  He kills his dog, cat, and horse for not serving him water when he asks, and she becomes docile for life.  The horse-killing is well illustrated on 39.  This book spent too long in someone's musty basement!

1967 Der Räuber und die Liebe: Märchen und Fabeln aus Marokko. Harry von Graffenried. Mit 38 Illustrationen von Felix Hoffmann. Hardbound. Zurich: Flamberg Verlag. €36 from Antiquariat Richart Kulbach, Heidelberg, August, '06.

I have had to wait six years to catalogue this book! Of the twenty-five stories listed in the final T of C, about the last fourteen are fables. "Ein sehr menschlicher Esel" (75) presents a clever switch: a thief switches himself for a weary traveler's trailing ass and then proclaims that he was cursed and then uncursed by his mother. Of course the man frees him. His wife demands that he buy another ass, and he is surprised to find his old ass for sale. He approaches him and tells him that he must have offended his mother again and that he will not buy him again. "Der Löwe, der Igel und der Schakal" (79) follows the form of a popular fable: How did you learn to divide so well? "The jackal taught me." "Wer den Richter zum Gegner hat…." is like La Fontaine's fable of the two men who find an oyster; here it is two children who find a nut. Of course their "judge" consumes it (91). "Der Schakal und der Jäger" is right out of Kalila and Dimna. The jackal finds three dead bodies and decides to eat the strung bow first (91-2). That is always a mistake! The Hoffmann illustrations help to make this so valuable--and there are so many of them! Among the fable illustrations, "Ein sehr menschlicher Esel" (76) may be the most complex and engaging. 

1967 Emblematum Libellus. Andreas Alciatus and Wolfgang Hunger. Hardbound. Paris/Darmstadt: Christian Wechel/Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. See 1542/1967.

1967 Esopo y Fedro: Fábulas Morales. Pilar Guibelalde. Introductory remarks by Emiliano M. Aguilera. Nueva edición. Hardbound. Barcelona: Obras Maestras: Editorial Iberia. $14 from Joseph Reyes, San Juan, PR, through eBay, June, '12.

Here is a good, simple, solid edition of Aesop and Phaedrus for Spanish readers. As the closing T of C shows, there are thirty-six fables from Aesop on 27-45, followed by two pages of notes. The fables of Phaedrus follow, in his five books plus Perotti's appendix (51-150), followed by three pages of notes. There is a final section offering five or six fables each from four fabulists who "translated Aesop's fables or were inspired by them" (157-199). These include Jean de La Fontaine; F. de Salignac de La-Mothe-Fenelon; Félix María de Samaniego; and Tomás de Iriarte. This book was sold earlier by Libreria Minerva in Santurce, PR. 

1967 Ezop Masallari.  Gani Yener.  Pamphlet.  Istanbul: Yasayan Unlu Masallar: Inkilap ve Aka.  $10 from The Glad Trading through Ebay, Oct., '21.

Here is one of some 38 inexpensive Turkish editions of Aesop bought together.  This is an earlier and better publication of a pamphlet already in the collection from 1977 from the same publisher.  Like that, this is also a simple one-staple 32-page pamphlet offering first several fox fables and then several mouse fables with appropriate black-and-white illustrations, here more distinct than there.  A young hand -- or the publisher? -- has offered green coloring to the grapes on 10, 11, 12, and 13.  The cover illustration is similar but further cropped, differently colored, and framed with a dentil pattern.  Again the stork has plunged its head into an enormous cone.  The price is 100 kurus rather than the later 200.

1967 Fabeln/Abhandlungen über die Fabel. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Illustration only of title pages to Lessing's 1759 edition of fables. First printing? Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam Jun. Gift of Franz Kuhn, Aug., '88.

Here are the thirty prose fables that Lessing published in 1759 as Fabeln in three books, along with three from other writings and four others left behind. There are also five of Lessing's discussions of matters related to fables.

1967 Fabler for Børn. H.V. Kaalund. Med tegninger af J.T. Lundbye. Hardbound. Gyldendal. $30 from Alibris, Oct., '02. 

This work was first published in 1845 (Bodemann 305.1). Unpaginated. The reproductions here of the hand-colored original are very good. Bodemann gives a sense of the texts' subjects: "Neudichtungen, Protagonisten meist Haus- und Hoftiere." The fifty rhymed verse-fables are unfortunately opaque to me in their lovely Danish! For three good sample images, try the picture of two horses and a wagon (#3); the boy master trying to teach the dog (#19, also on the cover); and the two kids playing with a top (#31). I have trouble with the shorthand in Bodemann's comments; #305.1 may be describing an 1866 second edition of the book that first appeared in 1845.

1967 Fables.  Ish Yair. Signed, with additional letter.  Pamphlet.  Haywards Heath, Sussex: Breakthru Publications.  $17.12 from Hourglass Books, Vancouver, BC, through Abebooks, August, '24.

This 35-page pamphlet is, as I suspected, not really fables.  From my reading of the first offering, it seems to be more in the area of fantasy and legend in verse with plentiful rhyme.  The surprising thing about the booklet is the letter it contains, written in Montreal in 1968 by Ish Yair.  It is written to Professor George Bowering of Sir George Williams University in Montreal, Editor of Imago.  The letter starts "Almost two years ago I sent you some of my poems for IMAGO, which you rejected."  It concludes with this hope: "Here is hoping that you will read it, and perhaps like it."  What a fascinating touch of history!  I wonder if Prof. Bowering ever took him up and made further contact.  5½ x 8".

1967 Fables. Jean Anouilh. Illustrées par Jean-Denis Malclès. Inscribed and signed by Anouilh. Hardbound. Paris: La Table Ronde. See 1962/67.

1967 Fables. Jean Anouilh. Illustrées par Jean-Denis Malclès. Hardbound. Paris: La Table Ronde.  See 1962/67.

1967 Fables. John Gay. Introduction by Vinton A. Dearing. Facsimiles of 1727 Fables and 1738 Fables: Volume the Second. Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, UCLA. See 1727/38/1967.

1967 Fables and Transfigurations: Poems by Howard McCord. Limited edition of 400. Paperbound. San Francisco: Kayak Press. $15 from Wessel and Lieberman, Seattle, Feb., '10.

This is a beautiful pamphlet of 52 pages. The poetry touches on Dora, on travels around the world, on McCord's brother, Greek, Jesus, liquor and dope, and Native Americans, who are frequently pictured here. I do not find anything that can be called a fable. A piece of the poetry that I can relate to particularly is this on 41: "I had never met anyone I had not invented until Dora."

1967 Fables for the Fair. Cautionary Tales for Damsels Not Yet in Distress. By One of Them. Illustrated by Robert Tallon. First edition. Dust jacket. NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. $3.50 in Bay View, Oct., '94. Extra copies for $3 from Antiquarium, Oct., '97, and—without dust jacket—for $2.95 from Blake, June, '92.

A small book of twenty-five fables. (The second extra copy is missing nine, as 29-60 are repeated where 61-92 should be.) The fables are harmless and enjoyable, in the direction of Ade's having fun with the whole institution of capturing a man. The best of them seem to me to be "The Woman Who Made a Conquest" (43), "The Woman Who Took Advice" (55), and "The Woman Who Talked Well" (117). Is the publisher's note ironic when it claims that these were first published at the turn of the century by A.H. Bullen? Lively contemporary illustrations.

1967 Fables: Nine Pieces for the Young for Piano. Robert Muczynski. Paperbound. NY/London: G. Schirmer. $6.99 from NYCMusicAtVerizonNet through eBay, Jan., '12.

The advertisement on the back page of this 12-page oversized (9" x 12") pamphlet quotes Clavier saying: "This set of nine untitled pieces is a charming and superior addition to easier contemporary teaching literature." And Musart comments: "Nine excellent little teaching pieces.Good for developing musicianship, styles as affected by tempo, and phrasing." therea are no texts with the double-staffed musical notations. Some of the nine pieces run longer than one page; in that case, the next piece starts up on the same page without a break. On YouTube, one can hear and watch as Sarah Tuan at age 5 plays MUCZYNSKI Fables in her winner recital in 2009.

1967 Fables of a Jewish Aesop. Translated from the Fox Fables of Berechiah ha-Nakdan by Moses Hadas. Illustrated with woodcuts by Fritz Kredel. Dust jacket. NY: Columbia University Press. Gift of Linda Schlafer, Aug., '93. Extra copy for $25 from Bill and Barbara Yoffee, Nov., '91.

A curious but disappointing book. The 119 Hebrew fables come from France of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries and seem to be based chiefly on those of Marie de France. They are bleak about the fickleness of fortune's turning wheel. They are also rhetorically fulsome, using Biblical phrases to expand on (and sometimes obfuscate) simple action and speech. A favorite insult seems to be "My little finger is bigger than your loins." These fables become "parables" squeezed for moral meaning, like those in Rodriguez' Christian Perfection. The fables regularly have an application afterwards and often a bit of poetry. Kredel's few illustrations are nice reinterpretations of the Ulm woodcuts: 7, 33, 51, 68, 90, 109, 135, 157, 184, 214 and the frontispiece reproduced on the dust jacket. The point of many fables seems to be simply missed in the search for meaning: #12, 18(?), 22, 33, 64, 94, and 112. The rhetoric becomes unconsciously funny when the lamb hopes he will not fulfill the prophecy that the wolf will lie down with the lamb (45). Differently told: the eagle gets the frog but not the mouse, who survives; the sheep argues that children should not die for their fathers' sins; the frogs ask the tree to be king; the crane stores food in a tree's holes; the fox apportions whole beasts to the lion, lioness, and cub; the covetous and the envious become apes before king lion (the story is repeated with human characters in #119); the shepherd gives the wolf away with his eyes, though no one notices; an osprey fills a pot with stones; a man is besieged by flies; and the father ape comes to love his hated son. Some stories are new to me and delightful: #26, 32, 36, 38, 40, 46, 49, 71, 77, 91, 113, and 115. "The Apes' King" (#78) is particularly well told.

1967 Fables of Aesop according to Sir Roger L'Estrange.  Alexander Calder.  Paperbound.  NY: Dover.  $4.80 from Barbara D. Hall, Kennett Square, PA, through eBay, June, '04.

I have already listed versions of this book under the same date.  Those copies, I noticed, have a wide price range starting at $1.50.  Here is an earlier copy from Dover with a price of $1.25.  A confirmation of its early time is that its ISBN number does not start with a zero.  As I mention there, Calder's drawings are lovely and lively.  I have some records of various prices of this book, but this is the cheapest of them all!

1967 Fables of Aesop according to Sir Roger L'Estrange.  With fifty drawings by Alexander Calder.  Reprint of the 1931 limited edition of 665 copies, designed by Monroe Wheeler and published by him and Barbara Harrison under the imprint of Harrison of Paris.  NY: Dover.  $15 from Bookman's Alley, Evanston, IL, Sept., '93.

Lovely stuff.  The drawings really are excellent.  I saw the first edition of this book from Harrison in Paris in 1931 for sale in Atlanta at too high a price but have since found it.  I have eight different versions of this Dover reprint.  The earliest, which sold for $1.25, is listed separately.  The seven other copies, all of which I will gather under this listing, show differences in price and some slight differences in the format of their covers.  Copy A, for $1.50, I found at Stillwater Book Center for $3 in January of 1997.  Copy B, for $1.75, comes from an unknown source and seems to have been the Calder Aesop I used personally as I began this collection.  Copy C, for $2, cost $1 from an unknown source.  This copy moves the price from the front to the back cover.  This version also consolidates the book's first eight pages into two by eliminating four blanks and a page with nothing other than title and author.  Now the title-page starts the book.  Its verso combines the Publisher's Note, with its date 1967, and the bibliographical material previously on a separate page.  This version is unique for listing a price in Canada.  Copy D, which sold originally for $2.25, is inscribed by Monroe Wheeler, designer and co-publisher of the original edition of the book by Harrison in Paris. It comes from Bookman's Alley, Evanston, IL, in September of 1993.  I paid $15 for it.  Copy E, for $2.75, cost $2.40 from Cartesian Bookstore, Berkeley, in August of 1994.  This version adds an ISBN number on its back cover.  Copy F, for $3.50, adds an offer of the complete Dover catalog on the back cover.  Copy G, for $4.95, adds a bar code on and changes the format of the back cover by removing all red except a stripe along the spine.  It was a gift of Mary Pat Ryan from Vail, CO, in September of 1997.

1967 Fables of La Fontaine. Retold by Roberta Sewal. Illustrated by Gustave Doré. NY: Grolier Society. $2 at Gryphon Bookshops in NY, May, '89. One earlier copy extra.

The illustrations are rather poor runs of Doré for the thirteen fables included. Two of them are found seldom elsewhere: "The Rat and the Elephant" and "The Two Doctors." This is a companion volume in red to the blue Aesop with the text of Joseph Jacobs and the illustrations of Tenniel and Wolf.

1967 Fables/Chimney Corner Fairy Tales/Winnie-the-Pooh/English Fairy Tales. Junior Great Books. Series 1, Volume 1 in a boxed set of three books. Chicago: Great Books Foundation. $2 at The Antiquarium, July, '89. Extra set for $1 at The Antiquarium, Oct., '97.

Three of LaFontaine's fables make up the very beginning of the Junior Great Books Program: SW, "The Lion and the Rat," and "The Rich Man and the Shoemaker." In fact, the first is taken as the subject for the introductory session, but unfortunately it has the bet centering over who can blow the cloak off the man's back. No translator is acknowledged.

1967 Five Fables of La Fontaine. By Roberta Sewal. Illustrated by M. Boutet de Monvel. Paperbound. NY: Grolier Society. $2.50 from Powell's on the web, June, '99.

Surprise! When I bought this, I thought it was the 1967 Grolier edition that I already have, "The Fox and the Stork And Other La Fontaine Fables," with its illustrations by Boutet de Monvel. Of course, when I found that book, I had thought it was another copy of La Fontaine illustrated by Doré! This little paperback presents five fables different from the five in that Boutet de Monvel edition. Here we have TH, TB, FWT, OF, and MM. For each, there are many illustrations one to a page rather than the several illustrations grouped on one page in the original Boutet de Monvel book (1871). Do not miss the exploding frog on 53. This book adds a "Dear Reader" page just after the T of C. Two things strike me here: The translation is not very faithful to La Fontaine. The milkmaid Perrette here returns not to her husband but to her father, and he tells her that she must not count her chickens before they are hatched. La Fontaine's own comments on daydreaming are dropped in favor of these additions. Finally, I must confess that when I reported on that book, I wrote this in error: "The very last page lists books from Grolier, including the red Doré edition mentioned above, the blue 1967 Aesop by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by Tenniel and Wolf, and this brown volume, listed as Five Fables of La Fontaine. It is strange that the publishing company does not follow its own title, as it is printed on the title page, cover, and spine!" Now I must confess that their list was referring to a different book, and they got its title right.

1967 Furry Fables. By Johnne Burnett. Illustrated by Emilie Touraine. Hardbound Dust jacket. Printed in USA. Phoenix, AZ: Lincoln Publishing Company. $10 from Bookman's, Tucson, Nov., ‘01.

Here are seven short stories named after their central animal characters. Thus the first is about "Tuppence," a young mouse who cannot wait to go places. He meets a cat, begs for some time to go places, and ends up making a long-time friend. The cat says he will eat him after three years but later admits, when pressed, that he cannot count. Further stories present respectively three small burros, two dogs, a red fox, a palomino, an otter, and a chickadee.

1967 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: Ein Dutzend Fabeln.  Pamphlet.  Heidelberg: Brausdruck.  €7.95 from Hassbecker, Heidelberg, June, '23.

This pamphlet of twelve fables was a New Year's 1968 gift from the publisher.  Lessings "Abschied an den Leser" is fun: "If you, my reader have found nothing worthy of thanks from all that fills these pages, at least be bound to me for what I have retained."  For this reading, I enjoyed several of his shorter fables.  Monkey to fox: name an animal I cannot imitate.  Fox back to monkey: name an animal that would choose to imitate you!  Bull to stag: when the lion comes, let us stand together.  Stag back to bull: why would I fight an animal I can outrun?  Bull to stallion: I would never let a boy ride me.  Stallion back: what honor could it bring me to throw off a boy?!  As always, lively stuff!

1967 Hans Christian Andersen I.  Abridged by P. Bolsover.  Illustrated by Carlo Tora.  Hardbound.  London: Children's Classics:  Litor Publishers Ltd.  $4 from the West Coast, July, '15.

This book, almost 8" x 8½", contains three of Andersen's stories: "The Tinder Box"; "The Emperor's New Clothes"; and "Thumbellina."  I include it in the collection because of the second story.  It is told in traditional fashion.  This emperor changes clothes every hour.  The cloth supposedly made by the two rogues posing as weavers is invisible to everyone either stupid or unfit for the office he holds.  The emperor sends first one and then another and then comes himself to behold the cloth.  All go through the same mental process including "It will never do for me to say I can't see it."  The parading emperor here wears a crown, a sash, a sword, lower long underwear, and high heels.  After the child's statement "But the Emperor has nothing on at all," people whisper to one another and then all the people cry "But he has nothing on."  The emperor is angry because the people are right, but he thinks that the procession must go on.  As in many traditional versions, the last line of the story is about the attendants who take "greater pains than ever to appear to be holding up his train, through there was no train to hold."  This version is wise not to give the emperor's motivation for wanting new clothes of this cloth.  Does the emperor learn anything?  And do those rogues get away with it?  Tora's emperor is suitable, slightly portly, and much taken up with himself, even when naked.  OCLC WorldCat gives the date of 1967; there is no date in the book.

1967 Hare and the Tortoise: A Fable of Aesop Set for Piano. By Raphael Valerio. Illustrations by William Hoest. Pamphlet. Printed in USA. Halesite, NY: Pianoventure 14: Camu Press. $5 from Riitta Lemay, N. Uxbridge, MA, through Ebay, August, '01.

There are nine pieces for the piano here, as the beginning T of C makes clear. They include "Poky Tortoise," "A Foot Race," "Fanfare," "Fssst!," "Plodding and Plodding," "Hare Dance," "K-k-k-k S-s-s-s," "On and On," and "Goofed!" Each piece has a large or even full-page black-and-white illustration before it. The pieces are wordless, but there are a couple of prose lines before each song. There are two surprising turns to the story as it is told here. "By and by all the animal friends of the field got the tortoise to challenge the hare to a foot race" (7). Later, the hare intends to nap (28). There is one particularly effective illustration after the last piece; it shows the hare creeping away from the crowd ashamed of himself (36). Originally, there was a record made to accompany this book. I paid only one-third of the book's original price!

1967 I.A. Krylov: Quartet: Basni (Russian). Edited by G.I. Gusev. Illustrated by A. M. Laptyev. Pamphlet. For the Youngest School Age. Printed in the Soviet Union. Moscow: Children's Literature. $1 from Szwede Slavic Books, Palo Alto, CA, March, '96.

Here are fourteen of Krylov's fables in a pamphlet of 32 pages. Each gets one of Laptyev's full-page black-and-white illustrations, with the illustration always on the left page and the text always on the right. One can find twenty-four of Laptyev's illustrations in my 1973 canvas-bound edition from the "School Library" series published by Children's Literature. See my comments there. Here there is a T of C at the back.

1967 Juan Ruiz: Arcipreste de Hita: Libro de Buen Amor I. Edición, Introducción y Notas de Julio Cejador y Frauca. Décima edición. Paperbound. Printed in Spain. Clásicos Castellanos 14. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, S.A. See 1913/67.

1967 Juan Ruiz: Arcipreste de Hita: Libro de Buen Amor II. Edición, Introducción y Notas de Julio Cejador y Frauca. Novena edición. Paperbound. Printed in Spain. Madrid: Clásicos Castellanos 17: Espasa-Calpe, S.A. See 1913/67.

1967 La Fontaine: Fables.  Odette de Mourgues.  Dust-jacket.  Hardbound.  London: Studies in French Literature #4:  Edward Arnold.  See 1960/67.

1967 La Fontaine: Fables (Outside title: Le renard et la cigogne).  Illustrated by Romain Simon.  Paperbound.  Paris: Mon premier album hachette: Hachette.  €10 from a buchinist, Paris, July, '17.

My, Hachette has so many different series!  This is our fifteenth book by Hachette and Romain Simon, but seems to belong to a series we otherwise do not have.  From the list on the back of this 20-page pamphlet, it seems that this may be the only fable book in the series.  The first copyright for the book was in 1954.  One of the book's surprises is that its front cover announces only FS.  Its title-page then mentions FS, GA, and "The Heron" in that order.  The book presents in fact GA, then FS, and finally "The Heron."  This pictorial representation of GA puts the grasshopper inside the ant's winter home.  The best image in GA is of the scowling ant at her stove.  The book's central pair of pages in FS has the fox winking to the reader, while the stork is dripping soup from her beak.  About a dozen children's literature characters adorn the endpapers.

1967 La Fontaine: Fables choisies. Beverly S. Ridgely. Paperback. Printed in USA. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Masterpieces of French Literature Series: Prentice-Hall, Inc.. $15 from Snowflakes Books, Redondo Beach, CA, Jan., '98.

Here is a very helpful book for those who have some French and want to read a good portion of La Fontaine in the original. There are about fifty-five fables presented, with good vocabulary/grammar notes in French and ten or twelve reflective questions on the literary structure and strategy of each fable. Introduction at the beginning and a very short bibliography at the end. I hope to team-teach a course on La Fontaine, and this would be my book for that semester!

1967 Les Fables de Jean de la Futaille.  Commentées par Gabriel Macé.  Paperbound.  Paris: :  Le Canard enchaîné.  €16 from pha84 on Ebay, Sept., '23.

The cover's title is actually "Le Canard de poche vous présente Les Fables de Jean de la Futaille."  This paperback of 144 pages is apparently a special double-number from October-November of 1967 of the magazine "Le Canard enchainé," a satirical magazine that has been published regularly since 1915.  "Canard" means variously "duck," "a demeaning trick," "a newspaper," or, perhaps more familiarly, "a hoax" or "a fabrication."  There is of course plenty of slang operative here in the book's fables.  These are organized under six headings in the final T of C.  I picked three fables for closer inspection."Le Renard et le Corbeau" (23); "Le Ratichon de ville et le Ratichon des champs" (29); and "La Mouche et le Coche" 53).  The first has the crow persuading the fox to drop a coin into the collection trunk at his tree.  "Ratichon" is pejorative slang for a priest.  The fly involved in the third fable is a tse-tse fly.  When he has accomplished all his hard work, apparently everybody falls asleep!  The accompanying designs help this reader.  I bet that they have delighted many!

1967 Mazoezi na Mafumbo (Swahili "Riddles and Exercises").  A(rthur) S(elwood) Walford.  Nairobi: Oxford University Press.  See 1951/67.

1967 Mie Bok of the lieon and the mous and uther faeblz.  Jane Carruth.  Nardini.  Hardbound.  London: Initial Teaching Publishing Co. Ltd.  $8 from Walnut Antiques Weekend, June, '18. 

This book has a fascinating history.  I suspect that there was first an Italian edition.  An English edition of "My Book of Aesop's Fables," still copyrighted by Fratelli Fabri in Milan, was published in either 1961 (as the colophon here claims) or 1962 (as our copy claims).  The publisher was Follett.  A second English form of the book was published with the same date of 1962 by Maxton.  The book also appeared, wit the same date, as "My Book of the Lion and the Mouse and Other Fables" by Odhams in London.  Now this new 1967 publication appeals back to that Odhams book as its source.  The big changes are that it uses the "Pitmans Initial Teaching Alphabet" and that it is published by Initial Teaching Publishing Co. Ltd.  Our collection includes four other books using Pitman's system of phonetic shorthand.  The others all fall in the second half of the nineteenth century.  For a standard reader of English like me, the experience of reading this orthography is weird and curious. LM, TH, and TMCM.  This copy belonged to someone's curriculum center.in 1965 and had, according to the library card, only one reader.

1967 One Good Deed Deserves Another. Retold by Katherine Evans. Illustrated by Katherine Evans. Second printing. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Chicago: Albert Whitman & Company. See 1964/67.

1967 Peacock Fables Number Three.  Agnes H. Campbell.  Edition of 350 (unnumbered).  Paperbound.  Berkeley, CA: Peacock Press.  $30 from Oak Knoll Books, Sept., '14.  

Here is another sixteen-page pamphlet with stiff-paper covers and a string-tied binding, following upon "Peacock Fables Number One" and "Peacock Fables Number Two" in 1964 and 1965.  It presents "Peacock Chan."  Peacock Chan says that the peacock of whom he has heard, a peacock who publishes books and sets type, must be a myth, since he is not here.  A mocking bird answers that that peacock lives across the sea and is both handsome and wise.  Chan answers haughtily that his ancestors "graced this Emperor's garden" and that he must find what he wants here and now.  The mocking bird answers that "Values, Lord Chan, are where they are."  The story is set in verse.  There is an illustration of a peacock facing the title-page.  It surprises me that this volume is not numbered, since the first two are numbered.  Enclosed with the booklet is the original sales slip.  The booklet cost $1.50!

1967 Pebbles from a Broken Jar: Fables and Hero Stories from Old China. Retold by Frances Alexander. Illustrated with scissor-cuts. Dust jacket. (c)1963, 1967 Frances Alexander. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. $6.50 from Louis Kiernan, Hyde Park, Oct., '94. Extra copies for $4 at Joe's Books, Oak Park, IL, Dec., '92, and for $4.50 from Red Bridge, Kansas City, May, '93.

Another unusual find! Eighteen stories. One of them is the Aesopic TB: "Chi and Yi" (22-23). Many are etiologies, especially of animal sounds. Several involve clever solutions (11, 14, 16, 18, and 28). The best of the stories are found on 9, 18, 19, and 23. The excellent scissor-cuts were done by grade school children in Cheefu, China, about 1920. The best of them are on 9 (mosquitoes), 13 (tiger), 18 (ice), and 22 (bear).

1967 Quatre Fables de La Fontaine. Paperbound. Paris: Hachette Mini-Livres #144: Hachette. See 1953/67.

1967 Reader's Digest Fairy Tale Coloring Book. With outlines adapted from the illustrations by Fritz Kredel. For use with The World's Best Fairy Tales (1967/77). Pleasantville, NY: The Reader's Digest Association. $.50 at Tales Retold, Silver Spring, MD, Oct., '91. Extra copy of the ninth printing, a gift of Roger Carlson of Bookman's Alley, August, '96.

Lucky finds! The last page gives an outline of Kredel's illustration (297 of my 1967/77 edition) which shows the two unusual features of this telling: the beer keg and the cat catching the mouse. The good copy shows some crayon coloring and some staining. The extra copy is done sometime in or after 1977.

1967 Reynard the Fox: A Study of the Fox in Medieval English Art. Kenneth Varty. Designed by Arthur Lockwood. First edition. Dust jacket. Leicester: Leicester University Press. $37.50 at Black Oak, Aug., '93.

This is a magnificent large-format book, and I am delighted to find such a clean copy. Varty is painstaking, orderly, and careful in reporting the variations found in literature and iconography. Varty gives the book's purpose clearly at the end of the introduction: "The chief object of this book is to prove, from iconographical evidence, that Reynard was much better known in England than extant literary evidence suggests" (24). This is such a human book! There is a tipped-in colored frontispiece plus 169 black-and-white photographs. I would love to have the opportunity to have Kenneth sign this book!

1967 Reynard the Fox and Other Mediaeval Netherlands Secular Literature. Edited and Introduced by E. Colledge; Translated by Adriaan J. Barnouw and E. Colledge. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Bibliotheca Neerlandica: Sijthoff Leyden/Heinemann London/London House & Maxwell New York. $15 from Sam: Johnson's Bookshop, Los Angeles, June, '04. Extra copy without dust jacket for $15 from Clare Leeper, July, '96.

Adriaan J. Barnouw is the translator for the Reynard section of this book. That section includes an introduction by Barnouw (47-53), the verse text of the translation (55-157), and a bibliography (159-64). I read the first several hundred lines of the translation and enjoyed it. Grimbert the badger is doing his best at Noble the Lion's court to defend the much-maligned Reynard in his absence. Of course, Reynard has a lot to answer for!

1967 Sour Grapes: A Fable of Aesop Set for Piano. By Raphael Valerio. Illustrations by William Hoest. Signed by Valerio. Oversize pamphlet. Pianoventure 9. Printed in USA. Halesite, NY: Camu Press. $17.05 from Riitta Lemay, N. Uxbridge, MA, through Ebay, August, '01.

This oversize pamphlet is in a series with The Hare and the Tortoise by the same authors in the same year. There are four pieces for the piano here, as the beginning T of C makes clear. They include "Hungry Fox," "Vineyard," "Oopla!," and "Sour Grapes." Before each piece is a full-page black-and-white illustration. The pieces are wordless, but there are a few lines with each illustration. The fox here does plenty of jumping, as both text and illustration make clear. Originally, there was a record made to accompany this book. This copy is signed by Valerio on the last page.

1967 Tales and Fables/Yugoslav Folk-Tales/The Jack Tales. Junior Great Books. Series 2, Volume 2. Chicago: Great Books Foundation. $1. Extra copy for $1 from Librairie Bookshop, New Orleans.

The Jacobs translation of 1894 of a surprising number of fables makes up the second of four parts taking up twenty-eight pages of this little paperback. No illustrations; no mention of the translator; no mention of an overall editor.

1967 The Country Mouse and the Town Mouse. Drawings by Wendy Watson. Paperbound. Lunenburg, Vermont: The Stinehour Press. $25 from Barbara Farnsworth, Bookseller, West Cornwall, CT, through ILAB, April, '04. 

This is a small (4" x 6") booklet of 32 pages, with pictorial blue cloth covers on flexible cardboard. Some of the fifteen black-and-white drawings are tinted in a warm brown. The telling approximates Horace's. The mice are bothered first by a party of revellers returning home, and then by the barking of dogs. Designed by Edith McKeon. I am surprised that I had never before heard of this publication.

1967 The Donkey Ride. A fable adapted by Jean B. Showalter. Illustrated by Tomi Ungerer. First edition. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company. $.50 at the Milwaukee Public Library Book Cellar, Nov., '95.

I had had this book on my want-list for some years and never heard a peep about it. Then I found it sitting in the public library's cast-off store for fifty cents! Lucky me! This is a delightful book. Showalter expands the fable's details considerably. Thus the man and his son spent most of their time growing tomatoes, peas, and cucumbers. The donkey was carrying a huge load of their produce to sell; there was never a suggestion that he was to be sold himself. Ungerer takes a page to illustrate the farmer's ridiculous fears, e.g., that the son would melt in the hot sun and, later, that he would become a lonesome old man if he did not raise his son right. Colored and brown-toned pages alternate. I like the colors! Some pencil marks on the pre-title page.

1967 The Faber Storybook. Edited by Kathleen Lines. Illustrated by Alan Howard. Hardbound. London: Faber and Faber. See 1961/63/67.

1967 The Fables of Avianus. (Taken from the translation of J. Wight Duff and Arnold M. Duff, not acknowledged.) "About 100 copies of this keepsake were printed by George Sas at the Marble Hill Press, New York City." $25 by mail from Oak Knoll Books, August, '97.

The dedicatory letter and six fables, all taken from the Loeb edition of Minor Latin Poets II. The fables include "The Nurse and her Child," OR, "The Wolf and the Kid," "The Crab and its Mother," The Ploughman and his Oxen," and "The Lion and the Goat." The pamphlet is attractively bound in gold flecked paper and tied with a gold ribbon. My, the things that the fable tradition includes!

1967 The Fox and the Stork: A Fable of Aesop Set for Piano. By Raphael Valerio. Illustrations by Richard Nostrand. Pamphlet. Printed in USA. Halesite, NY: Pianoventure 11: Camu Press. $5 from Riitta Lemay, N. Uxbridge, MA, Nov., ‘01.

There are five pieces for the piano here to express FS, as the beginning T of C makes clear. They include "The Fox," "Auk! Auk!," "The Stork," "G-R-R-R," and "Oh, Well!" I notice that there is a suggestion just above the first staff for each piece. These are, respectively, "wily," "frustrated," "coaxing," "confused," and "philosophically." Each piece has a full-page black-and-white illustration. The pieces are wordless, but there are a couple of prose lines before each song. The fact that both are male here can make the pronouns confusing. Here the fox holds out the soup platter for the stork to eat from. At the stork's place the next day, there are two tall jars. The fox is highly stylized in this art's approach.

1967 The Fox And The Stork And Other La Fontaine Fables. Retold by Roberta Sewal. Illustrated by M. Boutet de Monvel. NY: Grolier Society. $2.50 Canadian at Russell Books, Montreal, Oct., '95. Extra copy for $2.50 from Powell's, Portland, March, '96.

Surprise! When I bought this, I thought it was the 1967 Grolier edition that I already have (Fables of La Fontaine), with illustrations by Gustave Doré. Now that I have brought it home, I see that it contains the lively colored illustrations of Boutet de Monvel. There are five fables: FS, FG, WS (with a crane), LM, and TMCM (the latter two with rats, of course). For each, there are many illustrations one to a page rather than the several illustrations grouped on one page in the original Boutet de Monvel book (1871). There are here, e.g., nine illustration-pages (matched with nine text-pages) for FS, whereas Monvel originally had twelve illustrations and all the text on two pages. The very last page lists books from Grolier, including the red Doré edition mentioned above, the blue 1967 Aesop by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by Tenniel and Wolf, and this brown volume, listed as Five Fables of La Fontaine. It is strange that the publishing company does not follow its own title, as it is printed on the title page, cover, and spine!

1967 The Greedy Host.  J.K. Njoroge.  Illustrations by Adrienne Moore.  Paperbound.  Nairobi: East African Readers Library No. 11:  East African Publishing House.  $19.88 from bookfever.com, Nov., '15.

Here is one of a series of introductory readers for primary school.  It presents six stories, listed on a beginning T of C.  Most are animal stories.  The first tells of a practical joke gone bad, I believe.  Cock has hare believing that he sleeps better because he has his head cut off every night.  Hare goes home and tries it.  Bad idea!  "Zebra Soup" uses an old fable motif.  A man tied to a tree gives a passing hyena a false story about why he is tied: he says that he will not eat zebra soup with a fly in it.  He gets the hyena to take his place tied to the tree.  That is not at all the reason why he was tied there, the hyena learns after he gets a whipping.  And the man escapes!  "The Wise Tortoise" features tortoise as umpire in a traditional fable motif.  Asked to judge a case against the dastardly hyena, he gets the hyena back under the rock and leaves him pinned there, while the victim antelope can go free.  I fail to get the lesson in "Two Foolish Friends" about two humans, but it has a lovely two-color image of one of the friends riding a zebra.  "The Hungry Nurse" has a fable motif in it, when the dastardly hyena is proved guilty of eating the lion cub she was to bury: the lion mother and her sister look in the hyena's mouth and find fragments of the dead cub.  The last of the six is a "pourquoi" on why hyenas limp.

1967 The hare's blanket. By Asenath Odaga. Illustrations by Adrienne Moore. East African Junior Library Number 3. Nairobi: East African Publishing House. $.75 at Adams Avenue Book Store, San Diego, Aug., '93.

This series of four booklets may be my first find from East Africa. This volume has four folktales with one illustration apiece and a frontispiece. The tales are not fables in the Aesopic sense. If anything, the four manifest the two differences I find separating African tales from Mediterranean fables. "Set a thief to catch a thief" develops several phases of the story, which thus risks becoming episodic. The other stories have, for us, inconclusive "Eh! So what?!" endings.

1967 The Hitopadesa of Narayana. Edited with a Sanskrit commentary "Marma Prakashika" and notes in English by M.R. Kale. Paperback. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. See 1896/1967.

1967 The Lion and the Mouse and other stories. Text by Purnell and Sons, Ltd. "Lion and Mouse" retold by J.M. Godfrey. Illustrations by La Sorgente, but signed by Santa da Bella (?). London: Purnell. $2 at Caledonia Books, Glasgow, July, '92.

A large-format book for children containing lively and unusual versions of LM, TMCM, and FC. The first features an occasionally blue lion who smokes a pipe, drinks cocktails from coconuts, and wears a bow tie. The mouse swings on the lion's tail to initiate the encounter. Others--butterfly, elephant, and giraffe--come by when the lion has been hoisted in the net, but they cannot help. TMCM features a grasshopper with a gun in its first illustration! Elaborate visual contrasts. The town mouse smokes at the country meal. The country mouse escapes from the cat by throwing a sausage at him! There are five paragraphs after the city mouse's goodbye. The female fox in the third story has a charming array of ploys; at one point, for example, she says she is looking for a dance partner.

1967 The Maid and Her Pail of Milk. Retold by Katherine Evans. Illustrated by the author. First Cadmus Edition. Eau Claire, WI: E.M. Hale. $.50 library discard at Book Cellar, March, '88.

Crayon drawings. The book is not well preserved. An example of a whole book given to what is normally a short fable. The series of purchases is foreshortened to milk, eggs, chickens, and clothes. Somehow the milkmaid comes out smiling on the last page!

1967 The Nude Aesop: Camera Fables for the Modern Man. By Casey Allen. Dust jacket. South Brunswick/NY: A.S. Barnes and Co. (London: Thomas Yoseloff Ltd.) $30 from Walk a Crooked Mile Books, Sept., ’96. Extra copy without dust jacket for $12 from Frost Pocket Farm, La Plume, PA, Jan., '98.

How can it be that I have been collecting for seventeen years and never even knew that this crazy book existed?! Hats off to Greg Williams for finding it for me! Aesop serves as a kind of coat rack for hanging your latest nude photographs, just as one could do a nude Shakespeare or a nude Mother Goose. Overall, there are five fables, two folk-tale parodies, and one group of photos that did not work into the fables. In WS, Allen cleverly (1) chooses the poorer version, so that the story is about taking off clothes and (2) makes the subject a girl, so that the bet is about making her "drop her cloak completely." In "The Dancing Lamb," the wolf, playing the lamb’s flute, begins to enjoy himself as the lamb dances. "The Stomach Rebellion" is done in color. The choice of its last illustration raises questions. MM, which uses a wine-jar, makes the most effective use of the medium. "Lazy Elizabeth" works off the Aesopic "The Boy and the Filberts." The dust-jacket blurb says that this book "breaks new ground in a well-worn field."

1967 The Sun and the Wind. By Anne Matindi. Illustrations by Adrienne Moore. East African Junior Library Number 7. Nairobi: East African Publishing House. $.75 at Adams Avenue Book Store, San Diego, Aug., '93.

This series of four booklets may be my first find from East Africa. This volume has five stories with one illustration apiece. The first tale is SW told in the poorer form. The second, "The girl who teased her parents," is Aesop's BW with a sad ending: the girl dies from a snake's poison while her parents in bed nearby refuse to believe that she is in trouble. "The lazy wife" locks up the guard dog and pays for her stupidity. In the fourth, "Animal troubles," the wild animals convince the domesticated to turn against their masters but spoil their agreement by attacking the domesticated that night. "The zebra's stripes" come from a costume for an animals' feast; compare this version with that in The Elephant's Heart (1968) in this series.

1967 Tierfabeln der Antike.  Zeichnungen von Ute Ahlswe.  Introduction by Walter Brudi. Paperbound.  Stuttgart: Institut für Buchgestaltung der Staatlichen Akademie der Künste.  $30 from an unknown source, August, '19.

Here are three black-and-white and four colored illustrations brought together in what is apparently a production by a graduating student of this school of arts.  Walter Brudi in his foreword has this to say: "Die Zeichnungen wurden von der Künstlerin selbst in einem fast schon in Vergessenheit geratenen Verfahren unter Ausschluß der Reproduktionsphotographie in vier Farben einzeln auf Folien gezeichnet; dadurch blieb die persönliche Handschrift - ähnlich wie bei einer Original-Lithographie- erhalten."  The fables chosen here make a fascinating group.  In the first, tamed doves are used to lure wild doves into nets.  The latter complain but the former respond that they need to look more to their owners than to their relatives.  The second has two fish arguing over rank.  The closing remark is "Which of us will draw a greater price when we are caught?"  In the most dramatic illustration, a crow means to feast on a snake and instead receives a deadly bite.  A less reality-bound illustration has a wise rooster claim "I have seen many sacks but none ever bit like a marten!"  14" x 19".  This volume, one of the largest-formatted in the collection, had to wait years to be catalogued.

1967 Two Friends: A Fable of Aesop Set for Piano. By Raphael Valerio. Illustrations by William Hoest. Signed on the last page by Raphael Valerio. Pamphlet. Pianoventure 13. Printed in USA. Halesite, NY: Camu Press. $5 from Riitta Lemay, N. Uxbridge, MA, Nov., ‘01.

This is the story of the rooster and dog who were friends. The fox tries to lure the rooster down, here ostensibly to sing some hymns together! The rooster recommends him to the "sexton" below, who will toll the bell. The poor fox does not realize that he will encounter a dog! The latter chews off his tail. There are six pieces for the piano here, as the beginning T of C makes clear. They include "The Friends," "Hum! A Meal!," "Fox Serenade," "Ask the Sexton," "Ouch, My Tail!," and "Sad Fox." Each piece has a full-page black-and-white illustration. The pieces are wordless, but there are a couple of prose lines before each song. This version does a good job of sustaining the church imagery introduced by the reference to hymns.

1967/68 A Harvest of Russian Children's Literature. A Treasury for All Ages. Edited, with introduction and commentary, by Miriam Morton. Foreword by Ruth Hill Viguers. Various illustrators. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hardbound third printing (1968) with dust jacket for $18 from Powell's, Hyde Park, Dec., '97. Paperbound fourth printing (1970) for $2.95 at "17," San Francisco, Jan., '91.

A huge and well-presented collection. It includes three non-Aesopic fables by Krylov (331) and five Aesopic fables: MSA (41) is done in excellent short-verse, and ends with "Old ass has put a young ass on his back!" Also "The Two Friends" (67), DW (72), "The Frog [not the turtle] and the Ducks" (75), and "The Father and the Sons" (155). The paperbound represents a nice find at a second-hand department store. The hardbound is in even better condition.

1967/68/75 Son of Raven, Son of Deer: Fables of the Tse-shaht People. George Clutesi. Illustrations by the author. Paperback. Sidney: Gray's Publishing Ltd. $17.50 Canadian through Interloc from Burton Lysecki Books, Winnipeg, Sept., '97. Extra copy for $6 from Green Apple, San Francisco, Nov. 98.

These are not really fables at all. Rather, they are twelve folklore tales from the native peoples of the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. The introduction is a simple presentation of differences between the use of folklore among Indians and among white people. The author contrasts what his father's generation experienced and what he and his children experience.

1967/68 The Monkey, the Lion, and the Snake. Retold and Illustrated by Kurt Werth. Hardbound. Printed in USA. NY: The Viking Press. $.55 from Karen Thiessen, Wheat Ridge, CO, through Ebay, Oct., '02.

This delightful story comes from the Gesta Romanorum. Though it is labeled a fable here, I am not sure I would call it that. It is a "noble beasts" story. Niccolo, a Venetian nobleman, has fallen into a pit. He screams for help. Tomaso the peasant eventually comes by and lowers a stick into the pit. First a monkey, then a lion, and finally a snake use the stick to emerge from the pit. Finally, Niccolo comes out. He has promised Tomaso a fine gift for his bride and his own palace in Venice besides. When Tomaso comes to collect the gifts, Niccolo cruelly drives him away. The animals are waiting for him at home, console him, and give him gifts. The snake's gift is a large diamond. When Tomaso tries to sell the diamond, the jeweler suspects him as a thief. Taken to trial, Tomaso makes true claims, but Niccolo denies ever having known him. As Tomaso is about to be taken off to jail, his three animal friends appear in court as witnesses. In a happy ending, the judges confiscate Niccolo's property because he lied, and they give it to Tomaso. Simple, lively art enhances the book. The canal picture on 20-21 may be the book's best. It reminds me of Dufy.

1967/73 75 Fabeln für Zeit-genossen. Den unverbesserlichen Sündern gewidmet. James Thurber. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. Printed in Germany. Hamburg: Rowohlt Verlag. DEM 11,20 from Antiquariat Richart Kulbach, Heidelberg, July, '98.

I do not believe such a handy fable-book of Thurber's exists in English. This is a typical small-format nicely-made Rowohlt book, containing the fables of "Fables for Our Time" and "Further Fables for Our Time" and their illustrations. The dust-jacket even shows Thurber's great illustration for "The Lamb in Wolf's Clothing" nicely colored in. Apparently Germans like this book. This 1973 printing raises the total to 85,000 copies!

1967/76 75 Fabeln für Zeit-genossen. Den unverbesserlichen Sündern gewidmet. James Thurber. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. Hamburg: Rowohlt Verlag. Gift in Heidelberg, August, '07.

I wrote earlier that the 1973 printing raised the total to 85,000 copies printed. This 1976 printing raises it now to 97,000 copies. Let me add my remarks from there. I do not believe such a handy fable-book of Thurber's exists in English. This is a typical small-format nicely-made Rowohlt book, containing the fables of "Fables for Our Time" and "Further Fables for Our Time" and their illustrations. The dust-jacket even shows Thurber's great illustration for "The Lamb in Wolf's Clothing" nicely colored in. Apparently Germans like this book. I love it!

1967/77 The World's Best Fairy Tales. A Reader's Digest Anthology. Edited by Belle Becker Sideman. Illustrated by Fritz Kredel. Pleasantville: The Reader's Digest Association. $3 at Capitol Hill Books, Denver, March, '89. Extra copies of the third printing (1983), a gift of Bonnie Shuman, and of the ninth printing (1990), along with the second volume, for $8 from Clark's in Spokane, March, '94.

This large collection of stories includes TMCM on 294, described as an old Scandinavian tale. The Town Mouse gets drunk on Christmas beer, is caught by the cat, and offers to tell a tale to get free. A door slammed shut surprises the cat and allows the town mouse to get free. The second volume of the extra set contains no fables, but the match of spine designs with the first volume makes the pair delightful enough to keep in the collection. The children in the woods (I) meet the witch at her cottage door (II).

1967/79 Fabeln/Abhandlungen über die Fabel. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Paperbound. Printed in Germany. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam Jun.: Reclam. $1.50 from Powell's, Portland, March, '96.

Here are the thirty prose fables that Lessing published in 1759 as Fabeln in three books, along with three from other writings and four others left behind. There are also five of Lessing's discussions of matters related to fables. This 1979 printing adds a bright yellow cover.

1967/83 The World's Best Fairy Tales. Belle Becker Sideman. Illustrated by Fritz Kredel. Third printing. Pleasantville: Reader's Digest Association. Gift of Bonnie Shuman, Nov., '93.

My first printing of this book is under "1967/77." Here is a third printing, apparently of the two volume edition. For the second volume, see "1967/90." This large collection of stories includes TMCM on 294, described as an old Scandinavian tale. The Town Mouse gets drunk on Christmas beer, is caught by the cat, and offers to tell a tale to get free. A door slammed shut surprises the cat and allows the town mouse to get free. 

1967/87 Frederick. Leo Lionni. Part of Frederick and His Friends, a set of four books and a tape. NY: Dragonfly Books: Alfred A. Knopf. $1.25 at Heartwood, Charlottesville, VA, April, '92.

There are more pictures here than in my Frederick's Fables (1985), but the colors are not as lively. This is a wonderful tale of the poet mouse. In the dreary winter he gives the mouse community words and colors. They need it and love it--and him!

1967/90 The World's Best Fairy Tales. Belle Becker Sideman. Illustrated by Fritz Kredel. Ninth printing. Hardbound. Pleasantville: Reader's Digest Association. $8 at Clark's, Spokane, March, '94.

My first printing of this book is under "1967/77" and my second "1967/83." Here is a ninth printing, apparently of the two volume edition. This copy comes with the second volume. This large collection of stories includes TMCM on 294, described as an old Scandinavian tale. The Town Mouse gets drunk on Christmas beer, is caught by the cat, and offers to tell a tale to get free. A door slammed shut surprises the cat and allows the town mouse to get free. The second volume of this set contains no fables, but the match of spine designs with the first volume makes the pair delightful enough to keep in the collection. The children in the woods (I) meet the witch at her cottage door (II). 

1967? An Alphabestiary. John Ciardi. Illustrations by Milton Hebald. Hardbound. Philadelphia/NY: J.B. Lippincott Company. $7 from Paper Moon Books, Portland, OR, August, '11

Ciardi's opening "Author's Note" starts "Fablers have always known that every animal is a moral waiting to be identified. Watch any animal: before long it will let you know something about mankind." I also like his other comment in that note: fablers "never really know which moral they are going to get to, but only that they will eventually get to one. Then, when it does come up, they think they knew it was there from the start." Though Ciardi's text on the fox makes no mention of the fable, the illustration shows the fox under some grapes. Use of fables or even reference to fables is rare here. Under "N" we find "N is for NANNYGOAT--the silly/who finds her loved one in a Billy;/while he, poor fool, without demur/finds all his dream of love in her./ With this much said, my fable ends./Go look at your own married friends,/or look at your own wife at home,/and write your own end to my poem." One learns in this book that the ox was originally named from root words meaning to make wet the female, that is, to beget. "What? Humor in the alphabet?" Fable figures strongly again in Ciardi's play with the turtle. This book is fun to read!

1967? Best Loved Fables of Aesop. Joseph Jacobs. Engravings by John Tenniel and Joseph Wolf. Hardbound. Dust jacket. NY: Avenel Books: Crown Publishers. $1.69. Two extra copies.

The engravings are unfortunately quite indistinct.

1967? Cisarovy Nove Saty.  Hans Christian Andersen; Hannelore Wegener, translated by Oldrich Liska.  Illustrations by Hannelore Wegener and Adolf Schmidt.  Canvas bound.  Niederwiesa, GDR: Verlag Karl Nitzsche.  90 Czech Crowns from Valenska Jan Schick, June, '18.

I wrote of a book catalogued earlier "I am convinced that I have seen this book before in some language, but perhaps that is only an indication that I have had to delay so long to catalogue it. Its particular gift is that it uses puppets to present the story, including a Kaiser with a strangely green face. This Kaiser wears something like a full-length nightshirt. When he makes his realization in the parade, he thinks "Nun muss ich die Prozession aushalten." He carries himself yet more proudly. The two happiest people in this book are the crooked "tailors," and they get away. "Das Volk jedoch freute sich über die unverzeihliche Dummheit des Kaisers and seines Gefolges und jubelte." Like the fable books we have from the same publisher, this is a simple, pleasant book. Canvas bound."  Now here is the Czech version that I had found, published by the same East German publisher.

1967? Des Kaisers Neue Kleider.  Hans Christian Andersen.  Illustrated by Hannelore Wegener u. Adolf Schmidt.  Hardbound.  Niederwiesa: Verlag Karl Nitzsche.  €8 from Hassbecker's, Heidelberg, August, '17.

I am convinced that I have seen this book before in some language, but perhaps that is only an indication that I have had to delay so long to catalogue it.  Its particular gift is that it uses puppets to present the story, including a Kaiser with a strangely green face.  This Kaiser wears something like a full-length nightshirt.  When he makes his realization in the parade, he thinks "Nun muss ich die Prozession aushalten."  He carries himself yet more proudly.  The two happiest people in this book are the crooked "tailors," and t hey get away.  "Das Volk jedoch freute sich über die unverzeihliche Dummheit des Kaisers and seines Gefolges und jubelte."  Like the fable books we have from the same publisher, this is a simple, pleasant book.  Canvas bound.

1967? Fables de La Fontaine. Illustrations are signed "Chader."  Hardbound.  Printed in Belgium.  Editions Hemma. $4.99 from Colette Kienzie, through Ebay, Feb., '03. 

This oversize (12" x 9") book seems internally identical with Fables Choisies printed in Belgium and published by M.A. Hemmerlin in 1969.  The two differences I can establish without having that book in hand are these: that was a pamphlet, and it did not mention La Fontaine.  This hard-covered, canvas-bound book has La Fontaine in its title on the cover; it does not have a title-page.  I find what may be a 1967 date of publication here on the second-to-last page.  As I mention there, the book presents TMCM, FC, GA, FG, GGE, LM, OF, and WL in La Fontaine's versions with suitably simple illustrations for children.  The artist is identified as "Chader" in many but not all illustrations.  The best of these may be the sausage-and-cold-cut dinner with wine and napkin in TMCM.  This is one of the few times that I have seen the wolf's seizing of the lamb pictured.  This book was well used, apparently by "Commission Scolaire, VAL - David," and shows both some small tears and some repairs.

1967? Nove Szaty Cesarza.  Hans Christian Andersen; Hannelore Wegener, translated by Ewa Illustrations by Anna Borkowska.  Hannelore Wegener and Adolf Schmidt.  Canvas bound.  Niederwiesa, GDR: Verlag Karl Nitzsche.  $8 from an unknown source, March, '24.

Here is our third language for what is otherwise the same book.  All three were produced, perhaps in a way typical of the former Soviet block in Eastern Europe, by the same publisher in the same place.  The Polish title here is so similar to the Czech title, Cisarovy Nove Saty!  The gift of this book, whose cover illustration is the same in the three cases, is that it uses puppets to present the story, including a Kaiser with a strangely green face. This Kaiser wears something like a full-length nightshirt. When he makes his realization in the parade, he thinks, as the German says, "Nun muss ich die Prozession aushalten." He carries himself yet more proudly. The two happiest people in this book are the crooked "tailors," and they get away. "Das Volk jedoch freute sich über die unverzeihliche Dummheit des Kaisers and seines Gefolges und jubelte." Like the fable books we have from the same publisher, this is a simple, pleasant book. Canvas bound."

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1968

1968 Äsopische Fabeln. Älteren Überlieferungen nacherzählt und herausgegeben von Gotthard de Beauclair. Mit achtzehn von den Originalstöcken gedruckten Linolschnitten von Imre Reiner. Erschienen im Verlag der Trajanus-Presse zu Frankfurt am Main. Gift of June Clinton, Aug., '93.

A lovely book! Careful and excellent printing of the eight linoleum blocks. The best of these are of "Der Adler und der Rabbe" and "Der Schatz im Weinberg." This book has double-paper pages. Eleven fables well told. T of C at beginning featuring lovely "oder" phrases after each beast-character-title, e.g., "Die Ameise und die Grille oder Brotlose Kunst." I doubt that I would ever even have known of this book had June not sent it to me!

1968 Aesops Fabler.  Oversatt av Hanna Wiig.  Illustrasjoner og bokutstyr ved Solveig Kalvenes.  Limited to 300 copies.  Hardbound.  Bergen: Bergen Faktorforening.  150 NK from Eikens Antikvariat, Bergen, August, '14.  

This slim book of some 24 pages was apparently a Christmas gift of the Bergen Faktorforening.  In fact, Wiig had done a 1951 translation of Aesop 106 pages in length, illustrated by Johan Berle Reidar and published by J.W. Eides.  I have found a copy available and have ordered it.  I am delighted to find this book from Bergen and from a Bergen bookseller because I did not have time to seek out booksellers during our short stay there this summer.  Strong endpapers offer a forest with a lion attacking, a squirrel (?) fleeing, and a donkey prancing.  The Aesop of the cover and title page look to me as though they were in India.  That cover has a background of green and gold for its line-drawing of the seated fabulist.  In the book's first illustration, miller and son both are bent in dejection.  I need a good Norwegian to tell me what happened to their ass!  There are two strong, highly interpretative illustrations for OR and three for FG.  Similarly, the artist takes two moments to picture in AD.  The second pictures quite dramatically and minutely the ant biting the big toe of the hairy hunter.  Is that Androcles in the last picture?  Is there a text to accompany this picture?  It is a feather in the cap of this collection that a rare book like this becomes available here.  Online I could find only four copies.  Two are in Denmark, one is in China, and the last is at the University of Southern California.  This copy has a slightly musty smell.

1968 Aesop's Fables.  A new translation by V.S. Vernon Jones with an introduction by G.K. Chesterton and illustrations by Arthur Rackham.  NY: Franklin Watts.  $7 at Allen's, Baltimore, Nov., '91.

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

1968 Aesop's Fables. Verse by Stanton A. Coblentz. Drawings by Henry Syverson. Boxed. Norwalk, CT: C.R. Gibson Co. $15 from Delavan booksellers, Dec., '86. Extra boxed copy for $4.50 from Harold's Book Shop, St. Paul, June, '95 and without the box for $4.95 from Kieser, Omaha, June, '91.

Delightful both in its verse and its drawings. Worth looking over for something that can be used. The text and the drawings are well integrated. The texts have some spice. The hare ends up holding up the fox reaching for the grapes--while the tortoise plods by. Several of these drawings might be used with an audience.

1968 Aesop's Fables. (Cover: A Selection of Aesop's Best Loved Fables.) Stories for pictures by Fiona Carmichael. Paul Hamlyn. Illustrations (c)1967 Kodansha, Tokyo. Printed in Belgium. Middlesex: Hamlyn House. $4.50 from Yoffees, April, '92. Extra copy for $3 from Greg Williams, Feb., '92.

An unpretentious kids' book with a surprising variety of illustration styles and an unusual selection of stories: "The Greedy Fox," GA, "The Bee and the Honey," TMCM, "The Boastful Frog," SW, LM, "Going to Anywhere" (about the rooster, the dog, and the fox), and "The Honest Woodcutter." Here the father frog tries to imitate the ox's size. The water fairy brings all three axes at once. The last few pages are loose; the extra copy is in poor condition.

1968 Aesop's Fables.  Based on the translation of George Fyler Townsend.  Introduction by Isaac Bashevis Singer.  Illustrated by Murray Tinkelman.  Doubleday: Garden City, NY.  Gift of Jerry McKevitt, S.J., with Tinkelmann's original dust jacket. 

Use the AI at the back.  Table of illustrations on 19.  The illustrations have a simple charm, but I think that one of them is enough for a good illustrated lecture.  Do not miss Tinkelman's dust jacket illustration up and down the spine.  This presumably earliest edition has a blue background dust-jacket designed by Tinkelman and sold originally for $4.95.

1968 Aesop's Fables.  Based on George Fyler Townsend.  Murray Tinkelman.  Book Club Edition.  Dust-jacket.  Hardbound.  Garden City, NY: Doubleday.  $5 from an unknown source, June, '98.

This copy is internally identical with another in the collection, a gift of Gerry McKevitt, S.J.  This copy has a red dust-jacket labelled, on its inside front flap, "Book Club Edition."  It uses gold ink on the front cover and spine.  Use the AI at the back.  Table of illustrations on 19.  The illustrations have a simple charm, but I think that one of them is enough for a good illustrated lecture.

1968 Aesop's Fables.  Based on George Fyler Townsend.  Murray Tinkelman.  Book Club Edition.  Dust-jacket.  Hardbound.  Garden City, NY: Doubleday.  $5 from an unknown source, June, '01.

This copy is internally identical with others in the collection.  This copy has a red dust-jacket labelled, on its inside front flap, "Book Club Edition."  It uses white ink on the front cover and spine.  The back dust-jacket includes "05266."  Use the AI at the back.  Table of illustrations on 19.  The illustrations have a simple charm, but I think that one of them is enough for a good illustrated lecture.

1968 Aesop's Fables. Based on the translation of George Fyler Townsend. Illustrated by Murray Tinkelman. Garden City, NY: Junior Deluxe Editions. Gift of Marion Adamski. And a second identical copy, but in a dust jacket belonging to the Book Club Edition before Singer's introduction was added, for $4.75, Oct., '90.

The same material one finds in the standard Doubleday editions (1968) with the exception of Singer's introduction and the AI at the back. The print is larger, the order of fables is rearranged, and there seem to be fewer of them.

1968 Aesop's Fables. Based on the Translation of George Fyler Townsend. Illustrated by Murray Tinkelman. Introduction by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Garden City, NY: International Collectors' Library. $4, August, '83. Extra copy with the Library's blurb and gilt page tops for $7.50 from Logic and Literature, Dec., '91

See my comments on the Doubleday edition of the same year. This edition is expensively bound with goldwork on the cover. It has a bookmark. And it lists as its publisher the International Collectors Library. The extra copy has even nicer cover work, or perhaps it is just less rubbed.

1968    Aesop's Fables.  No author.  No illustrations.  Magnum Easy Eye Books.  Paper.  NY: Lancer Books.  $.75 at Recycle Book Store, San Jose, Aug., '92. 

I see only two things that justify the existence of this book:  its slightly larger than average print (advertised as at least 30% larger) and the great question on its first page:  "Can you guess the moral?" I am keeping three copies in the collection, reflecting the book's three prices of $.95, $1.25, and $2.95.  The first cost $.75 at Recycle Book Store in San Jose in August, '92.  The second cost $.50 at Inland Book Store in Spokane, Spring, '86.  The third is from Pat Donnelly, S.J., in Jan., '88.  On this last copy, "Easy Eye" has dropped in favor of "Masterpiece Library," and a bar code is added to the back cover.

1968 Animal Folk Tales. By Barbara Ker Wilson. Illustrated by Mirko Hanak. Dust jacket. Printed in Czechoslovakia. Middlesex: The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd. $10 at the Antique Society, Sebastopol, Sept., ’96.

See my comments on the later Grosset & Dunlap reprint (1968/71). The illustrations--an unusual combination of highly defined black ink with less defined color masses—are, if anything, even more striking here. It is amazing what you can find in Sebastopol!

1968 Antike Tierfabeln. Übersetzung von Ludwig Mader. Mit 48 Federzeichnungen von Monika Laimgruber. Nachwort von Christian Voigt. Signed by Laimgruber; limited to 1500 copies. Hardbound. Hamburg: Maximilian-Gesellschaft. DM 35 from Antiquariat Matthias Loidl, Unterreit, Germany, May, '99. 

Bodemann 511.1. The eighty-five texts are taken from the 1951 Artemis publication Antike Fabeln, with translations by Ludwig Mader. They include prose from Aesop and verse from Phaedrus, all of course here in German. The pen drawings have a psychedelic character. I sense that someone could date them to the sixties without knowing this book's date of publication. A viewer may see this art at its best on 14-15, where images of the lion and the fox on separate pages are joined to each other by the images of footsteps between them--all of course going in the lion's direction! Two strong and typical pieces show the daw first in borrowed feathers and then in none (34-35). Occasionally, the illustrations are simply difficult to read.

1968 Basni B Prose. Sergei Michalkov. Illustrated by Evgenia Racheva. Izdatelstvo "Detskaya Literatura." Signed by author. Dust jacket. Moscow. $15 at Second Story, DC, Oct., '90.

Delightful colored illustrations of contemporary animals. I have fought with the Russian bibliographical data of this book for several hours! T of C on 47. I wish I knew what these stories say, because the illustrations are spirited!

1968 Beastly Folklore. Joseph D. Clark. Hardbound. Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. $8.50 from an unknown source, July, '02.

This book is a folksy poor man's "Motif Index." As Clark writes in the foreword, "These sketches are presented in a popular and folksy manner" (iii). He mentions Stith Thompson's "Motif-Index" and "The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore" specifically and provides two pages of bibliography at the end. The thirty-one "sketches," listed in a T of C on v, start each with a prose summary of several pages, followed by "Derivative Names," "Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases," and "Superstitions and Motifs" in two sections using references first to Brown and then to Stith Thompson. The prose summaries are written in lively fashion. Here is a paragraph from the chapter on the fox. "Well! Well! This legendary son of a bitch! What can you do about his treachery toward the innocent, the helpless, the unsuspecting, the foolish, and the gullible? Sermonize all you will concerning his quick-wittedness and derpravity, the fox retains his foxiness" (52). The "derivative names" for fox run for two-and-a-half pages and include such things as "foxglove," "foxhole," "foxtail saw," and "fox and geese." Proverbs on the fox include "The fox smells his own stink first"; "The fox may grow grey, but never good"; "set a fox to keep one's geese" (not a good idea!); "At length the fox turns monk"; and references to Aesop's FWT and FG. "Superstitions and Motifs" include "When fox shams death, he catches a crow" (K827.4); "Fox leads an ass to the lion's den, but he himself is eaten" (K1632); and -- new to me but delightful -- "Fox confesses to the cock and then eats him" (K2027). There is good stuff here! 

1968 Beasts: An Alphabet of Fine Prints. Selected by Catherine Leuthold Fuller. First edition. Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown and Company. $6.50 at The Book House on Grand, July, '94.

I am probably cheating by including this lovely sideways book in this collection. The letter "R" is given here to rabbits who are roasting a hunter and his dog in an engraving by Virgil Solis. I have some recollection, which I cannot confirm, that there was an old (German?) joke-fable that turns the tables and has rabbits roasting men. Otherwise the best of the illustrations here is, I believe, Dürer's lion with St. Jerome. There is some creative alphabet work here: "Nonesuch Beast," "Queer Bird," and "eXtraordinary Animal."

1968 Children's Literature in the Elementary School. Charlotte S. Huck. Third Edition. NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. See 1961/68/76.

1968 Chinese Fairy Tales. By Isabelle C. Chang with drawings by Shirley Errickson. (c)1965 Barre Publishers. First paperback edition. NY: Schocken Books. $5.95 at Blake, June, '94.

Twenty-six stories with bold red and black designs. The best art may be 38-39's collection of animals and the good TT on 43. There are many good fables here. In "The Tiger's Teacher" (30), the cat does not teach the tiger her one last trick, how to climb a tree. Some of the fables are traditional, but add unusual details. Thus "Thud" (38) has many bunnies experiencing the original "thud" that they take to be the end of the world. In TT (42), the tortoise talks to claim falsely that the idea was his. In "The Pretender" (66), there is an indigo fox. "The Revenge of the Rabbit" (44) is Kalila and Dimna's "The Lion and the Hare." Other good fables are "Story from Tibet" (48), where the corrupt guard gets half of the "reward"; "The Wisdom of the Water Buffalo" (53), who instead of duelling lets the tiger bite him three times if he may then butt three times; and "The Sparrow and the Phoenix" (70) about getting indirect revenge. There is a misprint on 22: "IV" should be "VI."

1968 Da sprach der Fuchs zum Hasen: Die schönsten Tiergeschichten von Äsop bis Lorenz. Herausgegeben und mit einem Nachwort versehen von Siegfried Schmitz. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. Munich: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung. €8 from Antiquariat Richard Kulbach, Heidelberg, July, '09.

This is a typically hefty 300-page anthology. There are probably a number of fables to be found in the other four major sections, but one section is explicitly given to "Mythen, Märchen, Fabeln," and that is "Als Noch die Tiere Sprachen" (217-47). Fables here find representation from Aesop, Luther, Shakespeare, La Fontaine, Gellert, Lessing, Ramler, Claudius, Kleist, Bechstein, Keller, Scheerbart, Kafka, and Seidel. The selection of pieces from these authors seems to me to be excellent. There are no illustrations.

1968 Der Blick vom Turm: Fabeln von Günther Anders. (Günther Stern). Mit Bildern von A. Paul Weber. Hardbound. Frankfurt am Main/Vienna: Büchergebilde Gutenberg. €6 from Antiquariat Wirthwein, Mannheim, July, '08.

Here is an edition for the Büchergebilde Gutenberg, who acknowledge the original publication by Verlag C.H. Beck in 1968. This is the copy in which I wrote my own comments as I worked my way through Anders' fables in Mannheim in the summer of 2007. I have also a copy printed by Beck in 1988. I will repeat some of my remarks from there. I find Anders' fables very good if often a step or two away from Aesop. Anders was born as Günther Stern in 1902. This book of 104 pages has ninety-six fables a la Anders, with twelve black-and-white illustrations from lithographs by Weber. Weber is the right illustrator for Anders. His pictures are often perfect, as in the case of "Kainz und das P.P. Publikum" (12). Besides traditional fables, there are all sorts of genres here: didactic narratives, satires, aphorisms, and mixed prose forms. Anders composed these pieces between 1932 and 1968. The titles often give a clue as to the perenniel problems of those difficult times: freedom, truth, progress, betrayal, solidarity, common sense, humanity, faithlessness, and grounds for war. Characters in these fables a la Anders include animals, men, figures from Greek mythology, and everyday objects like a can, a pebble, coal, or a diamond. In the very first fable, "Der Blick vom Turm" (7), a woman looks down and sees her son run over in the street. She refuses to go down. "Down there I would be in despair!" Distance gives her the ability to resist tragic reality. In the second story, a mosquito says to a rooster about the lion "He buzzes strangely." The rooster responds "Buzz? He cackles, but he cackles strangely." Everyone translates experience into his or her own terms. "Auch er" (13) tells of one of the captives in the cave of Plato's "Republic" who believed he was bitten by the shadow of a mouse. He broke free into reality. This was not a noble path to truth, but what counts is whether or not one arrives. Anders' last fable gives a sense of how he sees Aesop working. For him, Aesop starts not with an insight but with a picture. "The picture betrays that it means something, but it never -- at least not immediately and not to me -- reveals what it means." Aesop then sets himself to the task of figuring out and translating what it means. The allegorist turns an insight into a picture. Aesop transforms a picture into an insight.

1968 Deutsche Fabeln des 18. Jahrhunderts.  Ausgewählt und mit einem Nachwort von Manfred Windfuhr.  Paperbound.  Stuttgart: Universal-Bibliothek #8429/30:  Philipp Reclam Jun.  €5.80 from Hatry, Heidelberg, July, '17.

This is an earlier copy of a book already in the collection.  The front cover lacks the picture of our 1997 printing.  Internally the two books are almost completely identical.  The identifying number of this copy in the Reclam Universal Bibliothek adds a "30" after the #8429.  I will repeat some comments from that edition.  Copyright 1960.  This is a typical Reclam edition.  It includes nineteen fabulists.  Those appearing here who appear less frequently elsewhere include Triller, Stoppe, Meyer von Knonau, Kästner, Schlegel, Zachariae, Moser, Nicolay, Claudius, Merck, Pestalozzi, Bürger, and Heinse.  There is a T of C at the back.  I tried one fable each from five of these lesser known fabulists.  First came Triller's "Day and Night."  The two argue over which is greater.  Triller's own conclusion is that God made all things to praise Him and to serve us.  I tried Stoppe's "The Valley and the Mountains."  The two mountains hate the valley and decide to overwhelm it with water in the next rainstorm.  Alas, the valley comes out deeper and larger!  Those who try to hurt us often help us.  From Von Knonau comes the best so far, "The Cow and the Fox."  Each wishes things for the other for the coming year.  Thus the cow wishes the fox things like grass, cabbage, salt, and hay.  The fox wishes the cow good things like ducks, chickens, rabbits, and fish.  Kästner's "The Gardener and the Butterfly" has the former--apparently wisely--punish the butterfly for the caterpillar's sins.  Schlegel's WL seems to follow traditional patterns closely.

1968 Drei Dutzend Fabeln von Äsop. Mit ebensoviel Holzschnitten von Felix Hoffmann. First edition. Hardbound. Zurich: Flamberg. DM 85 from Versand Antiquariat, Wörthsee, August, '00. Extra copy with chip out of the bottom of the spine for DM 40 from Versand Antiquariat, Wörthsee, Germany, August, '00. 

Bodemann #512.1. I had hoped for this book since I saw it used for the last illustration in Hobbs. The book is remarkable first of all for using Steinhöwel as the basis for its texts for its thirty-six prose fables. One result is that the point of the fable is announced as a promythium in each case. Then there are the strong woodcuts from Hoffmann besides. Generally, the Steinhöwel texts are on the left-hand page, and the Hoffmann woodcuts on the right. (The exception is 53, a right-hand page with text.) Among the best of woodcuts are those for "Two Lobsters" (15); "The Stag at the Spring" (29); "The Cat-Woman" (39); "The Wanderer and the Satyr" (61); FG (71); OR (75); and DLS (79). The book has only 81 pages. It looks as though I bought this book twice from the same bookstore, and the two purchases seem to have happened within just a few weeks of each other.

1968 Ein Fuchs fährt nach Amerika: Fabeln aus aller Welt, für Kinder gesammelt und neu erzählt. Hans Baumann. Mit vielen Bildern von Erika Klemme. Hardbound. Recklinghausen: Die Kinderbibliothek: Paulus Verlag. €8.30 from BuchBruder Antiquariat, Büllingen, Belgium,, Sept., '12.

This small format (4¾" x 6¾") book belonged, apparently at various times, to the St. Peter Library in Essen and to Klaus Giepmann of Essen. Baumann did two other later works that I have, Affengeplapper in 1972 and Der Grüne Esel in 1989. Versions of both those title fables appear among the hundred fables here. There is a T of C at the end, which identifies the source of each fable. Klemme's art is one step above printer's designs, I would say. These designs are most helpful when they apply to the fable, like the illustration of the crab holding onto the fox's tail (20), the ass jumping on his owner (35), or the mouse churning up butter (60). The repeaters, like the frequent identical illustration of the fox (title-page, 6, 23, 55) or the large fish ready to eat smaller fish (37, 51), may lose their impact along the way. New to me is the Japanese fable "Der Goldochse" (12). One man sells another an ox on the basis of the ox's producing gold excrement. When the buyer returns the next day to complain that the ox is producing normal excrement, the seller asks what he has been feeding him. "Normal hay." "That is the reason. You need to feed him gold!" I am not sure of the bearing of the title-fable on 25. The three truths the fox tells are useless to the captain, and each fox truth complements the captain's assertion by giving attention to the contrary force. 

1968 Elisabeth Frink: Aesop's Fables. Texts by Thomas James, not acknowledged. Pamphlet. London: Waddington Galleries. $5 from William English Rare Books, London, through abe, August, '00.

This is an exhibition catalogue. The exhibition comprised forty-six drawings. Ten are illustrated here on twelve pages. Among the best are perhaps "The blind man and the whelp" (1), "Venus and the cat" (24), and "The lion and the dolphin" (42). Is the cover-picture "The lioness" (16)? It seems not to be identified, as the others are, in the beginning T of C. Texts are taken from Murray's 1897 edition and are thus those of Thomas James, though curiously he is not mentioned while Tenniel and Wolfe, the illustrators, are mentioned here.

1968 Fables & Vaudevilles & Plays: Theatre More-or-Less at Random. By Norman D. Dietz. First edition. Paperback. Printed in USA. Richmond, VA: John Knox Press. $2.75 from Jeff Maness, Tulsa, OK, through Ebay, Feb., '99.

This paperback presents six scripts for travelling theater featuring two actors. The author and his wife created these plays and traveled with them. Though the author labels several of the pieces fables, they seem to be more and less than that. They are more in that they are larger and more elaborate than fables usually are. They are less in that they seem to lack the focus I look for in fables. Maybe they are more mythic than fabulous. I read "The Apple Bit" again and find it presenting enjoyable repartee based on Genesis. Eve presents the cynicism of the serpent well as she and Adam prepare for the awful moment when God discovers what they have done. The two do a good job of finger-pointing. Everything about this book and the venture it represents speaks of the sixties.

1968 Fables de la Fontaine. Illustrations de Romain Simon. Hardbound. Printed in France. Paris: Les Albums Merveilleux: Gautier-Langereau. $5.53 from Pierre Cantin, Chelsea, Quebec, through Ebay, April, '00.

A 20-page children's book of intermediate size (7½" x 6") with stiff covers. The four fables enclosed are pictured on the endpapers: FC, OF, "Le Heron," and TH. As far as I can tell, this little edition does not coincide--or even overlap--with the several other Simon editions I have. My favorites here are the illustrations of the rascal fox in FC, who has a wonderful time! The second-to-last image of the picky heron is also excellent. The texts are straight La Fontaine. Excellent condition. ©Gautier-Langereau in 1962. Formerly in the library of Ecole Marguerite Bourgeoys, Ottawa, Ontario.

1968 Fables de La Fontaine.  Paperbound album.  La Madeleine-lez-Lille: Imperial Flan Pudding Entremets.  €20 from brocdussac on Ebay, Dec., '20.

Here is a lovely landscape-formatted booklet, 12" x 9⅜".  Its 30 pages contain 96 cards, many of which I had collected as individual trade cards, without knowing that they were meant to fit into an album.  The images are colorful and well executed.  #76, "The Lark and Her Children," is a good example of a colorful image that communicates its fable theme well.  This album is a perfect example of one strength of this collection, since it is a piece of ephemera brought together with others and saved from the trash bin!  Two more personal comments.  First, I had to pay €30 to ship this album that cost €20!  Secondly, as I researched on the web to find its date, which is reported to be 1968, I learned that Imperial Flan published a second volume album with an equal number of fable images.  I have not yet found it available, but I will be watching for it!  A collector's work is never done!

1968 Favorite Stories: A Collection of the Best Loved Tales of Childhood. Design by Walter Brooks. With illustrations by Don Bolognese, Betty Fraser, and Kelly Oechsli. Racine: Whitman Publishing Division: Western Publishing Company. $2 at The Book Ped'lar, Denver, March, '94.

A large-format book on cheap paper with sixteen previous copyrights mentioned on its T of C page. There are two fables in here, both with lively, pleasant colored drawings. I only wish I knew which of the three illustrators was the artist for the two fables. TMCM (45) features a female country mouse and a male town mouse. There is a good deal of effort called for and put in in the country: soup and bread are made; there is a tunnel to get through; this house, by comparison with that in the city, is both small and dark. The cook, two dogs, and a cat respectively cause three interruptions. In TH (202), the hare calls the tortoise a "talking stone." The straight course set for them includes swimming a brook. The hare wakes up once, mistakenly looks behind him for the tortoise, and goes back to sleep. The book apparently bears no relation to the two earlier books of the same title done by Whitman in 1944/48 and in 1947.

1968 Fried Onions, Marshmallows, and Other Little Plays for Little People. Plays by Sally Melcher Jarvis. Pictures by Franklin Luke. Parents' Magazine Press. $7 at Alley Books, Highland Park, August, '96.

"I Think I Know" (18) is the story about hiring the donkey’s shadow. The donkey’s departure is well motivated by his comments about their failure to think of him when they have stopped for water. "Why the Turtle Does Not Talk" (29) has a single bird giving rides with the use of a stick held in the rider’s mouth; the turtle falls into water. "The Lion and the Birds" (39) is really CP, only the lion is holding a contest to find the wisest bird. "Free Bacon" (46) is TMCM, where the well-presented city-difficulties include competitor mice! Simple black-and-orange illustrations.

1968 Greek Fairy Tales. Retold by Barbara Ker Wilson. Illustrated by Harry Toothill. First printing. Dust jacket. First published in 1966 by Frederick Muller Ltd., London. Chicago: Follett Publishing Company. $7.50 from Louis Kiernan, Hyde Park, March, '93.

Fourteen of the thirty-seven stories told here are fables. They are well told, with a certain fullness. All fourteen match closely versions that Wilson uses in her Animal Folk Tales (1968/71). The foreword has two good comments. Fairy tales like these have no fairies in them; the mark of fairy stories is that they have some quality of magic. And though most stories here come from the oral tradition of modern Greece, Wilson wants to include animal stories for children, and so she turns to Aesopic fables. The fables "are now accepted as well-loved first cousins to the `fairy tale'." Well told: "The Ass and the Wolf" (#8). Differently told: "The Ant and the Beetle" (#2). Both this beetle and the ass laden with sponges (#15) die. In #18 the fox eats the dead deer's brains. In #30 the lamb grabbed by the hungry shepherd happens to be the wolf.

1968 Happy Days in the City. Kathleen B. Hester, Barbara T. Mason, Harold G. Shane, and Manuel H. Guerra. The Urban Reading Series. (c)1968 Laidlaw: Doubleday. Sacramento: California State Department of Education. $2 at the Sebastopol flea market, Dec., '96.

This early kids' reader announces three Aesop stories: FG, AL, and BC. All are told in rebus, as they are in Laidlaw/Doubleday's Tales to Read (1964) by Hester and Shane. The handling of AL shows some curious decisions. The Androcles-figure had worked for the king but run away. He and the lion are caught together, and the king specifically asks for them to be together in the circus. This approach to a rebus story involves lots of "This is what the king did" sentences for events that would take long words to express. A fourth story presented here as a Slavic folk tale, "The Wolf and the Cat," shows up in fable collections. The cat suggests many places where the pursued wolf can ask for help, but it turns out that the wolf has robbed every one of them in the past!

1968 Happy Hours in Storyland. Volume 2 of The Bookshelf for Boys and Girls. Prepared under the Supervision of the Editorial Board of the University Society. NY: The University Society, Inc. See 1963/68.

1968 India Folk Tales. Edited and Translated from the Sanskrit by A.L. Herman. Illustrations by Maggie Jarvis. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Mount Vernon: The Peter Pauper Press. $3 from Shakespeare & Co. Books, Berkeley, Dec., '96.

Here is a great starter for someone wanting to read a few excellent tales from India. There are eighteen well-chosen and well-told stories here, along with nine lively and even gaudy illustrations featuring purple and orange. Several stories include stories. Thus TT (22) includes "Three Fish" and "The Heron and the Mongoose," while "The Cobra and the Crows" (36) includes "The Hare and the Lion." Particularly well told are "The Mouse Who Became a Tiger" (13) and "The Donkey, the Dog and the Thief" (19). The title-character in "The Purple Jackal Who Became King" (5) goes first to the jackals after his color has changed; that scenario seems hard for me to believe. Why would they accept him as a ruler? Among the best of the illustrations are "The Purple Jackal" (4), "The Cobra and the Crows" (37), and "The Blind Vulture and the Cat" (45). There is a nice twist in this last tale: When the other birds find the bones of their eaten children, they destroy not the cat, who has moved on at the first suggestion of suspicion, but the blind vulture who listened to the cat's "I have got religion" lies.

1968 Jean de la Fontaine: Selected Fables. Translated by Eunice Clark with forty-eight illustrations by Alexander Calder. Dover (NY) reprint of original 1948 edition by Braziller. See 1948/68.

1968 Le Roman de Renart: Joyeuses aventures des compères Renart et Ysengrin.  Mad H.- Giraud.  Illustrations by A. Pécoud.  Hardbound.  Paris: Librairie Delagrave.  €58 from Librairie Alexis-Raphael Antoine, Paris, July, '22.

There is a decided style to this artist's approach.  The monochrome illustrations are deliberately sketchy, suggestive.  Typical and strong is the illustration on 66 of Belin delivering to King Noble a sack that he thinks is an important message.  This "message" is of course the head of Lamp.  As I look through this version, I am struck by the plasticity of the Renard tradition.  Some events are included or not in each version, but -- maybe even more importantly -- the order seems also quite changeable.  I wonder if that does not mean that different versions lead to quite different views of clever Renard.  This was one of the few books I was able to identify before travelling that I wanted to acquire while I was in Paris.  I am not sure what to make of the "cute" cover picture.  Is that not Renard sizing up his soon to be victim, who looks like a simple cuddly cat?

1968 Let's Fight! and Other Russian Fables. Sergei Mikhalkov. Translated by Guy Daniels. With Pictures by Michael Foreman. NY: Pantheon Books: Random House. $8 through Bibliofind from Teresa Wilson, Bakersfield, Sept., '97.

The title-fable is a strong opener: after many had turned down the goat who wanted to butt heads, the dog simply bit him in the leg and said that that was what he wanted to do! I like these stories. They are pithy and unpredictable and often involve a category leap. When the ram gave his daughter in marriage to a tiger, other animals remonstrated with him, saying "The Tiger will tear her to pieces!" "'You don't know my daughter,' the Ram said serenely." Other good examples include "Foolish Questions," "The Python and the Heron," and "Cherries in Brandy." Brown-and-white and several-color illustrations alternate. The best is that of a slinky young deer in "The Fox Who Was Not Up To Date." This book was formerly owned by the San Bernadino Country Library.

1968 Mother, Please Tell Me: Legends and Fables (Hebrew).  P. Orbach.  Illustrated by Nahum Gutman.  Fifth edition.  Hardbound.  Tel Aviv: Yavneh Publishing House.  $25 from an unknown source, August, '20.

There are sixteen stories here, as is clear on the closing T of C.  They seem to be largely "pourquoi" stories, like the first: Why Is the Rabbit Short-Tailed?"  91 pages.  6¾" x 9½".  The front cover shows a collection of animals dominated by a bull.

1968 Please Pass the Salt: A Collection of Modern Fables.  Robert L. Shreffler.  Signed by Schreffler.  Pamphlet.  Shelby, Ohio: Privately published.  $1.72 from Zubal Books, April, '23.

This is a 33-page pamphlet, 6" x 9", offering the wisdom of its author.  The book's only illustration is the front cover's illustration of a giant salt-shaker on a table between two stick-men.  There is a repeated printer's device above the introduction and before each fable.  The fables are highly reflective but they tend to be preachy.  A good example may be "The Fable of Beggar Man Thief" (11) with its good moral "Nothing succeeds or fails like success" (11).  Shreffler ties up to the world of fable wisdom nicely in his first fable's moral: "You better think, brother, or you are thunk" (2).  Other morals are also nicely challenging: "Violence is the ignorant choice of apathy" (4) and "What you do not know will hurt you" (18).  The last fable is in dialect that I cannot quite make out.  There is a T of C at the beginning.

1968 Reynardus Vulpes: De Latijnse Reinaert-vertaling van Balduinus Iuvenis. Critisch uitgegeven en vertaald door R.B.C. Huygens. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. Zwolle: Zwolse Drukken en Herdrukken voor de Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde te Leiden, Nr. 66: N.V. Uitgeversmaatschappij: W.E.J. Tjeenk Willink. €65 from Antiquariaat Forum, Houten, Netherlands, March, '07.

Apparently first printed in 1473 or 1474. It seems to have been a thirteenth century translation of the Dutch original. The Latin on the left faces the Dutch translation on the right for the 1850 verses of this poem. I tried the Latin in one of my favorite sections of "Reynard." Reynard welcomes Tiburt the cat, who asks for a mouse to eat if he is to stay the night. Reynard brings him to the priest's granary. Reynard knows that a trap has been set there for him, since he had been there last evening. He leads Tiburt right to the spot, and the cat is taken. I wanted to see how explicit the Latin is about the cat's interaction with the priest. The Latin reads easily and is not only quite easy to understand. It is quite explicit! After a 35-page introduction and a list of abbreviations, the text runs from 38 to 170, apparently with variant readings and numberings noted in footnotes. I believe that what follows includes a vocabulary, a grammatical commentary, a list of verses with pages on which comments are made about them, a list of proper names, and a T of C. This would be the perfect book for me to study deeply if I ever got involved in a seminar studying Reynard.

1968 Richard Scarry's Best Story Book Ever. Pictures by Richard Scarry. NY: Golden Book/Racine: Western Publishing Company. $6, Summer, '89.

Includes FC, TMCM, and DS, all told by Patricia Scarry. Compare with Country Mouse and City Mouse (1961) and My Nursery Tale Book (1961). A few illustrations are dropped (but not always the same ones that are dropped for My Nursery Tale Book). Do not miss the T of C picture of the rabbit reading the Daily Carrot with the headline "Tortoise Wins Race"--even though this story is not in this book!

1968 Son of Raven, Son of Deer: Fables of the Tse-shaht People. George Clutesi. Illustrations by the author. Paperback. Sidney: Gray's Publishing Ltd. See 1967/68/75.

1968 Spiritual Stories of India. Compiled and edited by Chaman Lal. Illustrations by P. Khemraj. Paperback. Printed in India. New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India. $10 from Ann Wendell, Bookseller, Oroville, CA, through ABE, Dec., '98.

This is a stiff-paper-covered paperback with twenty-six stories gathered chiefly from the great Indian epics. The preface speaks of the stories' specific relation to faith. There is one naïve line-drawing for each story, and an attribution of its author after each text. Most of these stories are not even close to being fables. They are often mystical or mythical. They offer, if you will, enlightenment rather than perception. Closer than most to being a fable--and funnier besides--is "The Disbeliever" (59). A good anecdote is "Each in His Place Is Great" (71). A typical story is perhaps "Yayati" (82), in which a father asks each of his five sons to give--or at least to lend--him his youth in exchange for his age. The father returns after years to the one son who generously agreed and tells him that sensual desire is never quenched by indulgence. Another is "The Story of Shibi Rana" (106). Shibi Rana, a king, wants to protect a dove pursued by an eagle. The king offers the eagle any food he wants in compensation, including his own flesh. The eagle demands that the flesh be taken only from the king's right side. When the dove is weighed on the scale with the king's flesh, the dove keeps getting heavier, until the sacrifice of Shibi Rana himself is necessary. Shibi finally weeps one tear, and the eagle puts a stop to it all, thundering that he wants no unwilling sacrifice. Shibi responds that the left side was weeping because only the right side was allowed to suffer for others. With that the eagle and dove turn into Indra and Agni. Even the gods reverence a hero like Shibi. "The Rabbit in the Moon" (110) is the great story of the rabbit who can bring nothing to the beggar, so he throws himself into the fire as his food. The beggar takes the half-roasted body of the rabbit out of the fire and presses it against his heart. Together they ascend to the moon. In one late story of sacrifice by Parvati to save a child in a crocodile's mouth, Lord Sankara is both the child and the crocodile (113)! The last story is the Jataka tale about the faithful white elephant (122). Here he helps secure power for the Boddhisatva, who is heir to the throne. Note the typo "celegrity" (6). Page 63 has mysteriously bled through onto the illustration on its verso.

1968 Stories from Panchatantra: Book I. No author acknowledged. Illustrated by Pulak Biswas. Second edition (1965), sixth printing. New Delhi: The Children's Book Trust. See 1965/68/76.

1968 Stories of Childhood. Editor: Esther M. Bjoland. Musical Arrangements: Helen Wing. Managing Editor: Anne Neigoff. Chicago: The Child's World, Inc. $1 at Roskie and Wallace in San Leandro, June, '89. One extra copy for $1 at Challen Book Shop in Depoe Bay, OR, Aug., '87.

DS, LM, MM, GA, "The Bundle of Sticks," TH, and SW, all with rather predictable illustrations. A nice selection of songs, poems, and stories otherwise, with mediocre pictures. Compare with the earlier edition (1947) containing the same fables but different illustrations.

1968 Take a Giant Step: Fourteen Original Fables for Today's Children. By Jane Lund and Nancy Menlove. Illustrated by Jane Lund. Hardbound. Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company. $4 from Sam Weller's Zion Bookstore, Salt Lake City, Utah, through abe, Nov., '04.

This book is just what it says it is. I read the first three stories and found them charming. The vain Penelope Peacock learns that beauty is not everything, and that she still needs friends. Leonard the lazy lizard goes to Lizardville seeking only fun for himself, but soon finds happiness by helping others to find food in a crisis. Elbert the dirty little elephant meets Esmirelda, a "doll," and quickly learns the value of bathing and looking and smelling good.

1968 Tatarafábulas.  Beatriz Barnes.  Illustrated by Marta Gaspar.  Hardbound.  Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina.  $33.75 from christian723 through Ebay, Jan., '22.

This unpaginated book for children has about ten pages for each of the thirteen stories listed on its last page.  Almost all are easily recognizable traditional fables, starting with GA and "The Cobbler and the Banker."  The stories are here expanded into prose stories with colorful illustrations like those created by very small children.  These illustrations have simple contrasts that fit with the fables' conflicts, like the contrasting faces of cobbler and banker.  Costuming is attractive but sometimes outlandish, as in the case of the fox in FG.  The stuck wagon-driver prays to Atlas.  The tortoise in TT is apparently carried by four ducks, and the carrying apparatus is more complex than in most traditional tellings.  The book has a musty smell all its own.

1968 The Blue Jackal. Retold and illustrated by Mehlli Gobhai. Dust jacket. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. $3.15 at Dinkytown Antiquarian, July, '94.

A very nice book that sets the fable in India. It accents the usual tale by making "Long Howl" a timid jackal whose greatest pleasure is to sing with the pack. Not handled so well is his relationship with the jackals once he is king. Having them move away because they do not want a jackal king seems to me to give away the "secret." Colored and black-and-white pairs of pages alternate.

1968 The Country Mouse Takes a Trip. By Dolli Tingle. (c)1968 James & Jonathan, Inc. Kenosha: Samuel Lowe Company. $5 at Wentworth & Leggett, Durham, NC, June, '97.

I am still trying to decide whether this book belongs in a fable collection. I think that no one in our culture can think of the "country mouse" without thinking of the fable, and so I put it in the collection. Here the mouse, tired of country life, takes a train, plane, and boat to the get to the city, where he rides a trolley and a bus and seems to enjoy it all. Then he retraces his steps. Maybe the best value of the book is that it shows the good things that there are in the fable that are not here, like excitement and surprise! Verse. Sideways format. Thick pages.

1968 The Elephant's Heart. By William Radford. Illustrations by Adrienne Moore. East African Junior Library Number 6. Nairobi: East African Publishing House. $.75 at Adams Avenue Book Store, San Diego, Aug., '93.

This series of four booklets may be my first find from East Africa. This volume has five folktales with one illustration apiece. The tales are not fables in the Aesopic sense. "The Lucky Ones" gives a different interpretation of the origin of zebras from the fifth story in the seventh volume of this series. The third story here tells an engaging story of the capture of an elephant by making him think that he is king. The fourth represents some good African sensitivities, specifically against hurry and impatience, lack of foresight, disrespect of elders, and making trouble for leaders. The final story, "Mole Rat on his Way to the Mountains," is fun.

1968 The Emperor's New Clothes.  Hans Christian Andersen.  Illustrated by Anne Sellers Leaf.  Hardbound.  Chicago: Start-Right Elf Books:  Rand McNally & Company.  $8 from West Coast, July, '15.

This emperor spends all his money on new clothes.  He thinks only of driving in the park to show off his clothes.  He has a costume for every hour of the day.  The supposed weavers tell people that the clothes made of their material become invisible to anyone unfit for his office or just stupid.  Is it logical for the emperor to think that by wearing such clothes he can tell the wise from the stupid?  He sends his honest minister to take a look.  Everybody in the city is eager to see how bad or how stupid his neighbor is.  Again, is that logical?  Advisors admiring the "cloth" advise the emperor to have a suit made of it for the procession soon to take place.  The weavers dress him in his new suit.  This emperor wears long underwear throughout.  A little child at the procession says "He's only in his underwear!"  "The emperor had a queer feeling, for it seemed to him that they were right.  Then he thought, 'I must bear up to the end.'"  There is never an admission of folly and we do not learn what happens to the deceiving weavers.  Leaf's art is of a piece with her illustrations for Aesop's fables.

1968 The Grasshopper and the Ant and other La Fontaine Fables. By Roberta Sewal. Illustrated by M. Boutet de Monvel. Paperbound. NY: Grolier Society. $2.95 from Oakland, July, '00.

I could not remember this booklet, and I happened to be right: I did not have it previously. I do have the parallel 1967 Grolier edition The Fox and the Stork And Other La Fontaine Fables. Note that this book uses small letters, on the title-page, for the words "and" and "other," capitalized by the earlier book. There the title-page had "Retold by Roberta Sewal," where here we find simply "By Roberta Sewal." The "Dear Reader" page apparently skips a line, so that Sewal seems to speak of three fables, one of which unites "a crow and a grasshopper and an ant." In fact, there are four fables here: GA, "The Fox and the Goat," "The Crow and the Eagle," and 2P. The prose texts take liberties with La Fontaine. Thus GA has nothing about the ant's lending habits or her command that the grasshopper dance. It adds a request by the grasshopper to come in and get warm. There is no praise by the goat of the fox's brains. Each page-pair matches one of Boutet de Monvel's lovely little colored illustrations with about one sentence of text.

1968 The Grasshopper and the Ants. Walt Disney Presents the Story. Racine: Golden Press: Western Publishing. $.25 at Pageturners, April, '91.

The story fills out here and is quite different from other Disney versions: Little Pig's Picnic (1939) and Walt Disney's Story Land (1962). Here the new king of the ants, Andy, saves Hop, who does not have to go through a change of heart. Disney also adds Bubba the vulture.

1968 The Grasshopper and the Ants. Walt Disney Presents the Story. Walt Disney Productions. With 33 long playing record enclosed in back flap. $4.50 at Old Bank Antiques, Hastings, March, '94.

This little booklet is identical, except for a few changes, with that published by Western for Disney in the same year. Western is mentioned only as printing the booklet. The other changes all have to do with the presence of the record in the book's new back flap. The back cover adds "(c)1969" to the front cover's "(c)1968." I now have three different versions of the booklet, including the reworded 1971/77 version done to accompany a tape, and three other presentations, all from the text of Margaret Wise Brown, of the same story. Those presentations, unlike these, do not feature Bubba the menacing vulture: Little Pig's Picnic (1939), Walt Disney's Story Land (1962), and The Grasshopper and the Ants (1993).

1968 The Grasshopper and the Ants.  Walt Disney.  Paperbound. Glendale: Disneyland Records: Walt Disney Productions.  $10 from Dog Eared Books, San Francisco, July, '13.

This booklet-plus-record from Valencia Street in San Francisco is tantalizingly similar to one already in the collection, found at Old Bank Antiques in Hastings nineteen years ago.  Let me catalogue the differences.  The cover's "LLP 331" has become just "331."  The copyright year on the front cover has changed from Roman to Arabic numerals.  The verso of the front-cover has changed background colors from blue to tan and has again changed the copyright numerals.  The format of the back-cover's record flap has changed, and many members of the series have been added.  The last is now not 338 but 382.  For some reason, the numbers from 370 to 380 are not used.  The back cover is identical except that, instead of "Copyright©1969 Walt Disney Productions  Printed in U.S.A.," all of which had already been communicated on the front cover, there is now only "Disneyland Records, Glendale, California."  The booklet itself is in good condition, although the last page's black-and-white design has received some smudgy coloring.  This marks the fourth different version of the booklet, including a 1968 version found at Pageturners in 1991 and the reworded 1971/77 version done to accompany a tape, not to mention three other presentations, all from the text of Margaret Wise Brown, of the same story.  Those presentations, unlike these, do not feature Bubba the menacing vulture:  Little Pig's Picnic (1939), Walt Disney's Story Land (1962), and The Grasshopper and the Ants (1993).

1968 The Lion and the Mouse. Based on an Aesop Fable. By Emma Lorne Duff. Illustrated by Vivienne Blake. A Start-Right Elf Book. From A Cargo of Stories for Children. Chicago: Rand McNally. $1 at Omaha Flea Market, March, '90. Extra copy (same source) is from an earlier printing and cheaper ($.29 against $.35); its back cover has a smaller list of books in the series.

The expanded story has some unusual twists: Mr. Lion is the father of a family, as the mouse is a mother. The lion does not sleep or threaten to eat the mouse. The lion laughs to learn that the mouse has babies. The art is of the cute variety, meant for very small children.

1968 The Monkey, the Lion, and the Snake. Retold and Illustrated by Kurt Werth. Hardbound. Printed in USA. NY: The Viking Press. See 1967/68.

1968 The Mouse and the Lion. Gyorgy Varnai. Based on a film made in the Pannonia Film Studios, Budapest, by Gyula Macskassy, Szabolcs Szabo, and Laszlo Molnar. Second edition. Hardbound. Printed in Hungary. London: Bancroft. See 1961/68.

1968 The Oldest Sanskrit Fables. George T. Artola. Hardbound. Madras, India: Adyar Library Bulletin, Vols. 31-32. $29.98 from Jeff Barnard, La Porte, IN, through eBay, June, '05.

Here is a strange addition to the collection. This is a reprint of a scholarly article from what I gather may be a fairly obscure scholarly journal. It discusses perhaps eight early Sanskrit fables, none of which is immediately familiar to me. He quotes the original Sanskrit liberally. The article distinguishes three periods that sound sensible to me: in the oldest parts of the Mahabharata, fables are told only incidentally and with reference to a specific situation. In the second period, compilators gather fables together to use them as religious propaganda. This is the era of the Jatakas, for example. In the third period, fable writers came to regard their work as literature in its own right. The Pancatantra would belong to this period. The article correctly reviews Perry on the definition of a fable. He dates the early fables he finds in the Sabhaparvan to the first century BC. The first fable considered has an older bird supposedly watching the eggs of his fellow birds but in actuality eating them; they discover his crime and kill him. The second has to do with a bird that "obtains her food by picking the teeth of a lion" (289). I gather that the moral is that some actions expose their doers exceedingly! The third fable has to do with birds who produce gold in their dung. This particular story has a counselor telling his king to let such a bird go since gold-dunging birds have never been heard of. The freed bird perches on the doorway, excretes some gold, and tells the appropriate people how foolish they were to let him go! In the fourth, a goat kicks up the earth and thereby kicks up a sharp knife that cuts his own throat. In the next, two birds caught in a net disagree with each other, fall to the ground, and are captured again. A foolish man attempts to eat the honey that gives immortality, but it is guarded by venomous snakes, who poison him. "The Hamsa and the Crow" is the last fable considered -- and the longest. My, the things I have found! 

1968 The Pedant and the Shuffly: A Fable. By John Bellairs. Drawings by Marilyn Fitschen. First printing. Hardbound. Dust-jacket. Printed in USA. NY: The MacMillan Company/London: Collier-MacMillan Ltd. $12 from Serendipity Books, Berkeley, CA, June, '01.

Once upon a time the evil pedant Snodrog used to turn unsuspecting passersby into flimsies, stained dinner napkins, by posing tough logical challenges. These, in turn, would try to float into people's bedrooms and smother sleeping people. Sir Bertram Crabtree-Gore appeared one day, and soon he and Snodrog were in deadly combat with each other. Bertram's great weapon turned out to be a shuffly. The narration of the battle involves a good deal of imaginative and enjoyable whimsy of the 60's variety. Do not miss the cover with its mighty organ and embossed title. There is unfortunately little here that fits my working definition of fable.

1968 The Rabbit and the Turnip: A Chinese fable. Translated from the German by Richard Sadler. Illustrated by Roswitha Grüttner. Dust jacket. Hardbound. Garden City: Doubleday & Company. $42.68 from The Choir Loft, Hamilton, OH, through TomFolio, March, '07.

Little Rabbit finds two turnips on a wintry day. He gobbles up one of them and then thinks of Little Donkey with nothing to eat. He takes him the other turnip. Since Little Donkey is out, Little Rabbit leaves the turnip on his doorstep and hops back home. Little Donkey comes home, finds the turnip, and thinks of Little Sheep, who may have nothing to eat. Each of these recipients has actually been out finding other food; each discovers the turnip when she or he returns home. Little Sheep decides to give the turnip to Little Doe. Little Doe decides to give the beautiful turnip she finds to.Little Rabbit! Some of the fun in the book is seeing and reading about the rolling and nudging of the turnip from one home to another. Perhaps the best picture in the book shows Little Doe at the doorway looking in over the turnip and seeing Little Rabbit fast asleep inside. Little Rabbit awakes, finds the turnip, and says "How kind ofsomeone to give me this turnip!" He gobbles it up. Someone pasted the dust-jacket to the inside covers. Withdrawn from the Preble County District Library in Eaton, OH.

1968 The Rich Man and the Shoe-maker:  A Fable by La Fontaine.  Illustrated by Brian Wildsmith.  Dust jacket.  Third Impression.  Printed in Austria.  NY: Franklin Watts, Inc.  $1.50 at the Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library Book Store, Jan., '97. 

See the original publication of this book by Oxford University Press in 1965 and my comments there.  This copy of the third impression from 1968 belonged to the Minneapolis Public Library and received extensive use.  The original publication was in 1966.

1968 Three Centuries of Children's Books in Europe.  Bettina Hürlimann, translated and edited by Brian W. Alderson.  Various illustrators.  First USA edition.  Dust-jacket.  Hardbound.  Cleveland & NY: The World Publishing Company.  $12 from Pascale's Books, North Reading, MA, May, '20.

This book has presented me with a large surprise: it does not mention fables once!  The index has nothing under "Fable," "Aesop," or "La Fontaine."  The surprise is underscored for me when the flyleaf of the dust-jacket says that the author "traces the history of children's books in Europe from "Aesop's Fables," "Pinocchio," and "Grimm's Fairy Tales" up through more recent classics like "Struwwelpeter" and "Babar the Elephant."  Those others may be there, but Aesop's fables are not.  Perhaps I should take this surprise as a commendation of fables as not originally meant for children.  Still, Croxall and L'Estrange and many others since have surely been thinking of children as they produced their fable books.  Otherwise, I find this book is particularly engaging because the author works from a lively personal sense of books she has herself collected.  The frequent illustrations are helpful.  Still, I go away surprised and frankly saddened.  First published in 1959 by Atlantis Verlag in Zurich as "Europäische Kinderbücher in drei Jahrhunderten."

1968 Zhitiye Spavnioho Basnotvorca Esopa/Vitae Aesopi Versio Russica.  Josef Strnadel.  Hardbound.  Prague: Editio Cimelia Bohemica, Vol. VI:  Cimelia Bohemica.  €16 from Antiquariat Matthias Loidl, Unterreit, Germany, Sept., '15.

I realized after spending extensive time with this publication and then cataloguing it that I already have a copy, purchased for just $8 in 2001.  Because of the unusual character of the publication -- and because there may be helpful information in one cataloguing not in the other -- I will keep both copies in the collection.  This portfolio was a real find in a ZVAB half-price sale.  There are two parts inside a board binder/wallet with marbled exterior, with gold lettering on a black rectangular title plate.  The two parts are a 21-page brochure and sixteen loose woodcut plates.  The brochure offers a four-page background and description of the early Russian "Life of Aesop" in Czech, English, French, German, and Russian.  The English version is titled "The Russian Copper-Engraved Print 'The Life of Aesop.'"  This introduction is highly political.  Fable's vitality "has been preserved due to eternal human and social contentions.  Fable has spread wherever people have been denied their rights."  This approach suggests what it was like to be in Prague in 1968.  The life of Aesop was, for this author, an "organic component of all book editions."  Strnadel traces the ancestry of this Russian work back to Steinhöwel.  I would not have known that Ulm was at that point "the centre of German humanism."  Apparently this Russian vita was published in 1750.  By then woodcut had yielded to copper engraving.  In editions of this era, illustration was primary and texts were secondary.  In fact, texts often lost their original purpose.  In Russia in particular, Aesop's life "met with greater attention than his fables themselves."  "It was precisely the spirit of anti-serfdom in which the life of Aesop was described in these engraved prints that was responsible for the prohibition imposed on the spreading of these publications by the tsarist censor in the first quarter of the nineteenth century."  Used book collectors will be happy to know that the primary copy of the woodcuts was purchased at a second-hand book market in 1935.  The plates themselves track the well-known life of Aesop well.  The third sheet suggests him vomiting forth clear water while his two guilty fellow slaves look on.  One can recognize in the eighth sheet the story showing that the master's dog is the faithful one in his household.  Sheet 15 presents Aesop's crazy idea of flying observers. Sheet 16 is clearest of all.  All three illustrations are easy to decipher.  In the first, Athenian agents "discover" the sacred cup hidden in Aesop's belongings.  In the second he seeks an altar for refuge.  In the third he is thrown down from a precipice.  The publication was put out officially by "Bibliotheca Rei publicae socialisticae Bohemoslovacae Pragensis."  Not in Bodemann.

1968 (Russian)/Vitae Aesopi versio rossica. Josef Strnadel. Portfolio. Prague: Editio Cimelia Bohemica Vol. V: Prague Press. $8 from Zachary Cohn, Prague, Oct., ‘01.

This is one of the most curious and wonderful of the collection's recent acquisitions. Canvas-spined heavy marbled boards enclose a text and sixteen oversized (7½" x 13") heavy-paper reproductions of Russian copper engravings of pictures and text. The text is an introduction by Josef Strnadel in five languages (Czech/English/French/German/Russian) to the prints. Strnadel notes that Aesop was translated into Czech in 1487 and that there were as many as twenty editions of Aesop's fables published in Germany alone between 1476 and 1510. The German editions, particularly that of Steinhöwel, served as models, especially artistic models, for the Russian editions. Strnadel notes the opinion of Alfred Stange that Ludwig Schongauer, one of the creators of the wood-carvings and painted decorations at the Ulm Cathedral, was the author of the illustrations accompanying Aesop's fables and life. The first independent edition of the life of Aesop in Russia was published in 1750 from copper plates. Text was supplemental to illustration. The cradle of Russian engraved books was the Kiev-Petcher monastery. In Russia, the life of Aesop seems to have captured more attention than the fables themselves. For Strnadel, Aesop is the spirit of anti-serfdom. The tsarist censor prohibited the publication of Aesop's life in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Apparently the only known copy of the 1750 edition is in the Lenin Library in Moscow. The work reproduced here is apparently in the Slavonic Library; Strnadel believes it is one of the last editions of that 1750 original, dating from Russia in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. He sees it as a particular treasure of Russian engraving art. After the full-page portrait of Aesop, each page tends to have a top quarter showing several scenes from Aesop's life, while the lower portion of the page is all print. Though some scenes are hard to identify, many are clear from the tradition. All have print identifications and are numbered. The last page includes at its bottom the thrusting of Aesop from the cliff in Delphi.

1968 3 fables de La Fontaine.  Images de Yves Audève.  Pamphlet.  Paris: Collection Beau Contes 59: Société Européenne des Art Graphiques.  €10 from brocante coloreal through Ebay, July, '22.

This is a gigantic 16-page 2-staple pamphlet,  9½" x 12⅛".  Its approach to FC, TH, and MM is unusual in several ways.  First, it does not follow La Fontaine's verse stoppages but presents his fable without changing any of the texts, which are presented in cartoon "bubbles."  Secondly, we encounter here several various-sized panels per page like those in comic books, only much larger.  The artist, I believe, does particularly well with the facial expressions of the crow, who ends up wearing an "Ass" crown!  He likewise succeeds well in expressing the tortoise's early anger, mid-race effort, and post-race touch of arrogant impertinence.  Perrette is beautifully rendered with her striped skirt, striped stockings, wooden shoes, and apron.  The artist expresses well how she, like the cow she imagines, skips.  The very last panel also presents a convincingly angry husband.  Overall charming work!

1968/69 A Harvest of World Folk Tales. Paperbound. Edited by Milton Rugoff. With Illustrations and Decorations by Joseph Low. (Hardbound?) (c)1949 The Viking Press. Second Printing. NY: Viking Press. $2.36 from Used Books and Unicorns, Kirksville, Oct., '94.

Identical with the hardbound (1949/55) in plates and pagination. The print area is reduced slightly and margins substantially. There are thus again thirteen fables (415-21) in Thomas James' translations; they form the chief representive of the genre here. Low's woodcut-style drawings are delightful throughout, including the two for these Greek fables: DW and TB. There is also a section on Renard (304) and a generous sampling of stories of India. The latter include "Mouse-Maid Made Mouse" (443), "The Loyal Mungoose" (448), "The Brahman and the Pot of Rice" (450), and "The Mice That Ate Iron" (451).

1968/69    Aesop's Fables.  V.S. Vernon Jones.  Arthur Rackham.  G.K. Chesterton.  Reprinted 1969.  Dust-jacket.  Hardbound.  NY: Franklin Watts.  $15 from (more) Moe's, Nov., '96.

Here is a dust-jacketed reprinting of a book already in the collection under 1968.  Vastly superior in its illustrations to the Avenel facsimile (1975?).  This is not a facsimile, for it omits the illustration of the blackamoor being scrubbed to death!  Otherwise it fully represents the 1912 original except for its sturdy simple covers and binding.

1968/69 Look, There Is a Turtle Flying. Story and pictures by Janina Domanska. Second printing 1969. Dust jacket. London: Collier-Macmillan Limited: The Macmillan Company. $13.50 at The Book Cellar, Bethesda, Jan., '96.

Solon was the hundred-year-old talking pet turtle of King Powoj of Poland. He told the King that the King talked too much, when in fact Solon talked more than Powoj. The herons wanted to teach Solon a lesson; as a result, when he approached them with his stick and flying idea, they readily agreed. "Fly lower so the King can see me!" was the sentence that lost Solon his passage. Then he decided not to fly any more. The illustrations are wonderful, especially those involving the herons; they often combine orange, blue, and tan in beautiful fashion.

1968/71 Animal Folk Tales. By Barbara Ker Wilson. Illustrated by Mirko Hanak. First published and (c)1968 by The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd. Printed in Czechoslovakia. NY: Grosset & Dunlap. $6.50 at Selected Works, Chicago, Sept., '92.

A nice big book that I found at 9:02 after a day of finding almost nothing in Chicago's Near North Side. I had five minutes while the owner waited to close. The striking color illustrations are an unusual combination of highly defined black ink with less defined color masses. There are seventeen Aesopic fables among the fifty-seven stories told. The stories and sources (other than Aesop) vary greatly. Different: the house mouse apologizes for the interruption (8). The fox says to the lion: "I fear I cannot accept your invitation" (24). The stories are told with a certain fullness. Compare with Greek Fairy Tales (1968) by Wilson, which uses fourteen of these fables for its basic texts.

1968/77 Alessandro e il topo meccanico.  Leo Lionni.  11th printing.  Hardbound.  Milan: Emme Edizioni.  $22.5 from Brattle Books, June, '16.

Here is the Italian version of "Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse," published as a Dragonfly Book in 1969 by Alfred A. Knopf.  This remains a marvelous story of love and of dreams come true.  Bravo, Alexander, and bravo, Leo! 

1968/77 Altägyptische Tiergeschichte und Fabel: Gestalt und Strahlkraft.  Emma Brunner-Traut.  5th unchanged edition.  Hardbound.  Darmstadt, Germany: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.  €8 from Antiquariat Richart Kulbach, Heidelberg, August, '16.

I do believe that this is one of the books I found when I discovered that this favorite bookshop in Heidelberg was closing down.  A note on the verso of the title-page indicates that this is a fuller version of a book first published in 1959 as Saeculum Band X.  Apparently WBD published it in an expanded form in 1977 and has republished now five times.  I wonder if it might have been originally a dissertation or a Habilitationschrift.  This is the kind of tantalizing book I would love to dive into, but it would open up so many questions and lines of inquiry!  For now I can say that I find it touching on many Aesopic fables.  Among them are "The Cat and the Vulture" as very similar to the Aesopic "The Fox and the Eagle" (35-36); LM -- and "The Lion and Man" (37-39); and BM (40).  I believe that the author is saying that Greek fables that mention the crocodile or ostrich must be derived from Egyptian stories.  The author's thesis vis a vis Greek fables is hinted at already on 59: Greek fables are secularized Egyptian myths.  I look forward to getting back to this book whenever I get to look into the "source" studies it represents well.  Do not miss the 37 great drawings in the appendix!

1968/1982 Die Schwiegermutter und das Krokodil: 111 bunte Bilderbogen für alle Land- und Stadtbewohner soweit der Himmel blau ist.  Herausgegeben von Werner Hirte.  Hardbound.  Berlin: Eulenspiegel Verlag.  €10 from Antiquariat Ihring, Berlin, July, '24.

We have a copy of this book dated 1970.  Here is something worth noticing: I now had the same experience finding this book as I had then.  As I wrote then, "I fell in love with this book in my delightful hours back at the Dresdener Antiquariat, but I wondered if I could find a way to justify taking it along.  I felt very lucky when I reached 64 and found a page of 'Fabeln.'  Each of these fifteen one-picture vignettes is a single rhyming couplet, often a conversation between two characters.  The kakadu says 'Listen to me,' but as soon as the nightingale starts to sing, everyone listens to her.  The swan says 'Mythology speaks of my song,' and the nightingale answers 'But I sing in reality.'  A mouse gets into a granary and says 'This is my territory,' but a cat answers that he is the master in this house.  The fox is just declaring that the stronger is the master as he lays hold of a rabbit -- and is shot by a hunter."  The combination of text and illustration in these Bilderbogen is delightful.  A look across the page from the fables (65) shows some fine illustrations.  My prize goes to the bee near the farmer's nose.  The title-story (29) is a good example of the book's fun.  The Meier Family wins the lottery and has ideas what to do and especially where to go.  Mother-in-law carries the day by deciding that they will go to Egypt.  A krokodil falls in love with her.  When she runs, he tells her to stand still or he will have to use force.  She does not, and he does.  Love conquers.  "Such a fat mother-in-law," he declares, "is a delicacy."  The book's colophon does not indicate when the first edition may have come out.  Besides being the fifth printing, this copy has a laid-in reprint of pages 107-110, perhaps as an advertisement.  The price of this book stayed constant at 34 East German marks!

1968/88 Der Blick vom Turm: Fabeln von Günther Anders. (Günther Stern). Mit Bildern von A. Paul Weber. Dritte Auflage. Hardbound. Munich: Verlag C.H. Beck. DM 29,80 Museum Haus Cajeth, August, '98.

Anders was born as Günther Stern in 1902. This book of 104 pages has ninety-six fables a la Anders, with twelve black-and-white illustrations from lithographs by Weber. Weber is the right illustrator for Anders. His pictures are often perfect, as in the case of "Kainz und das P.P. Publikum" (12). Besides traditional fables, there are all sorts of genres here: didactic narratives, satires, aphorisms, and mixed prose forms. Anders composed these pieces between 1932 and 1968. The titles often give a clue as to the perenniel problems of those difficult times: freedom, truth, progress, betrayal, solidarity, common sense, humanity, faithlessness, and grounds for war. Characters in these fables a la Anders include animals, men, figures from Greek mythology, and everyday objects like a can, a pebble, coal, or a diamond. I read these fables in the summer of '07 in Mannheim and found them very good if often a step or two away from Aesop. In the very first fable, "Der Blick vom Turm" (7), a woman looks down and sees her son run over in the street. She refuses to go down. "Down there I would be in despair!" Distance gives her the ability to resist tragic reality. In the second story, a mosquito says to a rooster about the lion "He buzzes strangely." The rooster responds "Buzz? He cackles, but he cackles strangely." Everyone translates experience into his or her own terms. "Auch er" (13) tells of one of the captives in the cave of Plato's "Republic" who believed he was bitten by the shadow of a mouse. He broke free into reality. This was not a noble path to truth, but what counts is whether or not one arrives. Anders' last fable gives a sense of how he sees Aesop working. For him, Aesop starts not with an insight but with a picture. "The picture betrays that it means something, but it never -- at least not immediately and not to me -- reveals what it means." Aesop then sets himself to the task of figuring out and translating what it means. The allegorist turns an insight into a picture. Aesop transforms a picture into an insight. I left notes in my copy of the original publication of 1968 from Büchergilde Gutenberg.

1968? Animal Ranch: The Great American Fable. Jack Newfield et al. Illustrated by Robert Grossman. Distributed by Simon and Schuster. NY: Monocle Periodicals and Parallax Publishing Co. $1 at Olive Tree Book Store, New Orleans, June, '89.

Enjoyable political satire in the tradition of Punch. Good satirical illustrations. The only touch of Aesop comes late when Bobsy Rabbit (the Hare Apparent: Robert Kennedy) challenges Bull (Lyndon Johnson) to a race.

1968? Fabeln. Entwurf u. Anfertigung der Tierfiguren: Hannelore Wegener. Bildszenen u. Farbaufnahmen: Hannelore Wegener u. Klaus Götze. Inscribed in 1968. Niederwiesa: Verlag Karl Nitzsche. $4 from Bill and Barbara Yoffee, Oct., '91.

Twelve fables done with photographs of cute posed three-dimensional figures. Aesop's cat becomes a squirrel in the "one trick" fable with the fox. The best of the illustrations may be of two goats on a bridge and of FS. T of C at the end. A simple, pleasant book. The later edition has a simpler spine.

1968? Fabeln. Entwurf u. Anfertigung der Tierfiguren: Hannelore Wegener. Bildszenen u. Farbaufnahmen: Hannelore Wegener u. Klaus Götze. Fifth printing. Hardbound. Niederwiesa: Verlag Karl Nitzsche. DM 5 from Revers, Berlin, Nov., '95.

Here is a copy of the fifth printing of a book whose apparent first printing I have listed under "1968?" This edition has a traditional board spine rather than the canvas spine there. Twelve fables done with photographs of cute posed three-dimensional figures. Aesop's cat becomes a squirrel in the "one trick" fable with the fox. The best of the illustrations may be of two goats on a bridge and of FS. T of C at the end. A simple, pleasant book. 

1968? Fabels. Vertaling Thecla Davids. Hannelore Wegener. Hardbound. Amsterdam: C.P.J. Van der Peet. €7 from Antiquariaat Lont, Amsterdam?, June, '07.

Here is the Dutch version of a German book Fabeln, which I have listed under the same date from Verlag Karl Nitzsche in Niederwiesa. This edition includes several pages after the T of C at the end with instructions on how to construct and paint your own mouse. As I wrote there, these are twelve fables done with photographs of cute posed three-dimensional figures. Aesop's cat becomes a squirrel in the "one trick" fable with the fox. The best of the illustrations may be of two goats on a bridge and of FS.

1968? Tierfabeln. Some illustrations signed "Chader." Paperbound. Hemma Verlag. € 10 from Richard Kulbach, Heidelberg, July, '06.

Nine fables in a pamphlet about 10" x 7½". Each fable gets a two-page spread. Most of the simple illustrations are signed "Chader." This book seems closest to Fables Choisies by Hemmerlin in 1969, which uses the same artist. FS is a bit surprising here when it features an English menu in the stork's nest: "Roast beef and apple pie."

To top

1969

1969 A Harvest of World Folk Tales. Paperbound. Edited by Milton Rugoff. With Illustrations and Decorations by Joseph Low. (Hardbound?) (c)1949 The Viking Press. Second Printing. NY: Viking Press. $2.36 from Used Books and Unicorns, Kirksville, Oct., '94. See 1968/69.

1969 Aesop's Fables. A New Version Written by Munro Leaf with Illustrations by Robert Lawson. NY: The Heritage Press. See 1941/69.

1969 Aesop's Fables. A Selection Written, Illustrated, and Decorated by Vincent Torre. NY: The Inkwell Library. $10 at Victoria (?), NY, Jan., '90.

A one-man book. Seventeen fables in verse, with a predilection for off-rhymes and even some off-rhythms. An occasional moral shows wit (e.g., GGE on 60). Different: a farmer gets into FG, and the frog and the rat quarrel over the fee in mid-stream. There is one primitive drawing for each fable. The borders and print are very pleasing.

1969 Aesop's Fables.  Vincent Torre.  Hardbound.  NY: The Inkwell Library.  $20 from Lori Accardo, Medford, NY, through Ebay, August, '20.

This book is already in the collection, but this copy, found thirty years later, is signed by Vincent Torre, and so I include it on its own.  I am delighted to have found a copy at a reasonable price.  Perhaps I am coming close to finding all of Torre's fable books!  As I wrote of the copy found earlier, this is a one-man book.  Seventeen fables in verse, with a predilection for off-rhymes and even some off-rhythms.  An occasional moral shows wit (e.g., GGE on 60).  Different:  a farmer gets into FG, and the frog and the rat quarrel over the fee in mid-stream.  There is one primitive drawing for each fable.  The borders and print are very pleasing.

1969 Aesop's Fables--lessons in living. Translated by Samuel Croxall, D.D. and Sir Roger L'Estrange. With Applications, Morals, Etc. by G.F. Townsend and L. Valentine (though admittedly edited). Fort Worth: Brownlow Publishing Co. $2.50.

This book is singular for giving not only a moral but an application in each instance. I would gather that it is also an example of eclecticism in the cranking out of "Gift Books." Here we have two translators, two morals-and-applications people, and they do not admit who they stole the engravings from (which I recognize but cannot place). The engravings are generally too indistinct, especially those done in brown on white paper.

1969 Aesop's Falables: A Moral Rock Musical for Young People. Edward Graczyk. Music by Shirley Hansen. Lyrics by Marty Conine and Edward Graczyk. Pamphlet. New Orleans: The Anchorage Press, Inc. $5 from barnesandnoble.com, Feb., '99.

A rock musical for the whole family. Jack In The Box pops up regularly to dish out morals and various proverbial phrases. These are Aesop's "falables" because the stories are sometimes done a little differently, for a falable is defined as "a falsehood....a story that is meant to deceive the listener and change it from the original." The play's action is interspersed with the song "Rock, rock, rock with old Aesop" and several other rock songs. Costumes and props are minimal; the characters--sheep, mice, wolf, hare, crow, tortoise, stork, ant, grasshopper, and eagle--have names and are meant to be human with perhaps a few whiskers to suggest their animal character. The stories presented or touched on include "The Country Mouse and the Pail of Milk," "The Country Mouse and Basket of Storks," "Little Red Riding Hood," "The Wolf and the Grapes," "The Nurse, the Baby, and the Wolf," TH, "The Tortoise and the Eagle," GA, "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," TMCM, WL, and "The Wolf and the Crow." The wolf is the bad guy until he reforms and becomes kind. There are some creative developments of the fables: e.g., the wolf tries to get the grapes using a pogo stick, the grasshopper is saved by a compassionate ant, and because he is taken for the wolf that has worn sheep's clothing, the tortoise gets locked into the prop-box in which he is napping during his race. There is a clever play on what it means to dust crops. From the age of the hippies, this play is very datable.

1969 Aisopos: Sieben Berichte aus Hellas: Der Aisopos-Roman neu übersetzt und nach den Quellen ergänzt. Arnolt Bronnen. 4. Auflage. Hardbound. Berlin und Weimar: Aufbau-Verlag. DM 10 from Markt am Lehmweg, Hamburg, June, '98.

Aufbau-Verlag newly copyrighted this work in 1969 and I follow their lead. The book was originally published by Aufbau Verlag, then in Berlin only, in 1956. They make no reference to that edition here. That edition included a map at the end that is not in this copy. I will repeat here remarks I made on that edition. This seems an important work on a fascinating subject. The Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature says of it: "The novel Aisopos, his masterpiece, presents a life struggling for freedom and justice." I gather that Bronnen shapes his life of Aesop around seven fictional reports -- from, for example, the slave-handler Ophelion, the philosopher Xanthos, the slave Sosos, and the prostitute Rhodopis. From what I have read, Bronnen sees in Aesop a hero of the kind of humanity Bronnen came to embrace in the communism of the German Democratic Republic. Bronnen himself is a fascinating man who came from being close to Goebbels and involved in a menage-a-trois with him to being a close associate of Bertold Brecht. I tried a few pages from the report of Rhodopis. Bronnen's writing grows out of a strong perspective apt for the character, and the story is engaging. I hope to read more. I am sorry that this work has not, for all I can tell, been translated into English. Helpful to me has been Andreas Beschorner's article in Der Äsop-Roman, edited by Niklas Holzberg. Beschorner corrects Pack Carnes' presentation in his fable bibliography that the work is basically a translation. For Beschorner, Bronnen makes out of the clever slave of the ancient Aesop novel a Marxist pre-fighter for freedom, "who alone with the help of only the word protests against cruel suppression by the monocapitalistic upper class" (my translation). Several pages at the book's end offer first help on reckoning time, names of months, and offices; then textual sources and important works for interpreting them; and finally a fold-out map. The covers have experienced some water-damage. 

1969 Aiszóposz: meséi.  Translated by Sarkady Janos.  Illustrated by Kass Janos.  Hardbound.  Budapest: Magyar Helikon.  1500 Forints from Karpati Antiquarium, Budapest, August, '17.

A few minutes ago, I catalogued a book found in Hungary and published in 1987 with Sarkady Janos' translations from Hausrath's Aesop.  I noticed mention of a 1969 copyright of Janos' translations.  Now I open this book and find that it is the book I referred to there!  There is double good news here.  This edition is sturdier and it also includes illustrations, like the crow holding the cheese opposite the title-page.  The illustrations are wonderfully playful.  They usually mix two or three colors in a line-drawing.  Among the best I would include the stag seeing himself in the pool (40); GGE (46); the lion in love (70); the wolf, the mother and her baby (80); and the monkey-mother (113).  I could mention many more among these delightful illustrations.  As in that edition, there are here 307 numbered fables.  This copy seems to be stamped as Number 419, but I cannot decipher if there is indication of how limited the edition is.  What a happy find!

1969 All Creatures Great and Small: Bedside Book. Stories from Aesop retold by Jean Morton. Illustrated by Susan Aspey. Hardbound. London: Century 21 Merchandising Limited; World Distributors. £6 from Rose's Books, Hay-on-Wye, August, '05.

Here are six fables on 45 large-format pages. "Authorised edition based on the popular Television Series." The six fables are GA, LM, DLS, DS, TH, and TMCM. The characters have names, like Annie Ant and Griselda Grasshopper. I am not sure that I have seen this moral for GA: "When you are having a good time, always be prepared for the bad times which may follow" (11). The telling here of LM cleverly uses the lion's afternoon nap first to influence his decision to let the mouse go and then to explain how, right after the nap, he did not notice the trap until he fell into it. In TH, Harry Hare "decided to have a little nap before even beginning to run the race" (35). One of the best lines in TMCM is "Why, you've even got a television," said by the country mouse to the town mouse (41). The large colored illustrations are somewhat predictable. They seem apt enough for a bedside book.

1969 Animal Stories. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Chicago: Young Folks' Library: Auxiliary Educational League. $3 from Venice Antique Mall, Venice, NE, June, '00.

This volume is in continuity with The Animal Story Book by the same publisher, which I have listed most recently under "1902/55." The title has changed now but the series is the same. Mention of Seton has dropped. There are multiple copyrights, the latest in 1958 for Charles E. Knapp and S.M. Knapp. Kingsport Press still does the printing. The fable section still starts on 8, but the order has changed. TMCM comes first rather than last, but then the sequence is just as it was in 1955, with the same illustrations. "The Old Hare and the Elephants" and "The Timid Hare and the Flight of the Beasts" have both been dropped, but AL (86) has been kept. Many further stories have been dropped, and now the volume is heavy in material from Robert Cochrane, Rudyard Kipling, and Julia Lockwood. The outside color scheme has shifted to red, cream, and gold.

1969 Antología de Fábulas. Prólogo y Selección de César Armando Gómez. Hardbound. Barcelona: Grandes Antologías Labor: Editorial Labor, S.A. $75 from Libros Latinos, Redlands, CA, July, '99.

Here is a huge and wonderful resource! Its 918 pages are full of texts and information. After an opening T of C, there is a substantial prologue (1-88). Four sections of texts follow: Fábulas Castellanas, Catalanas, Gallegas, and Hispanoamericanas. Subsections of the first (Castellanas) include medieval, renaissance, classical theater, baroque, eighteenth century, twentieth century, and contemporary. Among all these, "Calila e Digna" receives four pages, Juan Ruiz eleven, Samaniego thirty-one, and Iriarte seventeen. In the Catalan section, the sixteenth-century "Isopestes catalanes" receive seven pages. Among the Hispanic Americans, José Rosas Moreno receives eleven pages. I am surprised not to find Augosto Monterroso here. There is a catalogue of biographical notes at the very end. Other than that, I find no notes. The central sections contain nothing but authors and texts. What a treasurehouse!

1969 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. See 1934/69.

1969 Belling the Cat & Other Stories. Retold by Leland B. Jacobs. Illustrated by Harold Berson. Hardbound. NY: A Golden Beginning Reader: Golden Press: Western Publishing Company. $9.34 from Twice Sold Tales, Seattle, August, '08.

Here is a redoing of the 1960 version done by Golden Press. This book remains a "Golden Beginning Reader," but Golden Press is now a Division of Western Publishing Company. The pink cover has turned to green. The first end-paper page has disappeared so that we are confronted now immediately with the title-page. The verso of the title-page identifies this as the "1969 Edition." The interior pages are identical. Page 31 is now pasted to the back cover, and thus an end-paper page has been eliminated. The back cover is redone completely. The series of Golden Beginning Readers has dropped four books and added nine. And the series now divides books into three different levels of difficulty. As I mentioned then, this volume includes also "The Little Red Hen" and "The Rabbit's Mistake." I like this cat with yellow eyes and red fez. A nice text for children. Five pages on BC.

1969 Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox.  Retold by Jane Shaw from the original of Joel Chandler Harris.  Illustrated by William Backhouse.  First edition.  Dust-jacket.  Hardbound.  London and Glasgow: Wm. Collins and Sons.  $6 from Phoenix Books, San Francisco, June, '13.

Here are, in a book of large format, thirteen stories from the Uncle Remus cycle.  Among those most closely related to traditional fables are "Brer Fox goes A-hunting"; "Against the Law"; "Mr. Dog's new shoes"; "Brer Terrapin shows his Strength"; "How Brer Rabbit lost his Fine Bushy Tail"; "The Moon in the Mill-pond"; and "Little Mr. Cricket."  Among the best illustrations is that at the end of "Against the Law."  Brer Wolf is back under the heavy rock where he started, Brer Terrapin is feeling great about his power of judgment, and Brer Rabbit is just ready to keep going wherever he was going when he was silly enough to help Brer Wolf (14).  I have trouble understanding this editor's rules for capitalization.  The book has a musty smell.

1969 Brother Rabbit, His Friends and Enemies. Joel Chandler Harris. Introduced and edited by P.B. Chrosmeiko. Illustrations taken from A.B. Frost and other(s). Paperbound. Leningrad: Prosvechenee. DM 1 at Zentralantiquariat, Leipzig, July, '95.

A broad selection of English stories in five sections with vocabulary at the bottom of the page and in back. Is Harris ever acknowledged? The illustrations include some black-and-white reproductions of works that look like they were originally in color; all are done quite cheaply. My, what one finds!

1969 Children and Their Literature. Constantine Georgiou. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Gift of Linda Schlafer, April, '93.

A classic and comprehensive view of children's literature, including a history and an excellent bibliography. Linda not only gave me this book; she recommended it. I can see why. It handles the subject with engagement and sense. Unfortunately for me, there is little here on fable. Pages 219-21 offer a description, a sample, and an illustration of FG from Ulm. I expect I will be using this book a great deal as a reference work on authors and illustrators.

1969 Classics Illustrated Junior. Number 511. (c)Famous Authors Ltd. 1954. Summer 1969 issue. Issued quarterly by Classics Illustrated, NY. See 1954/69.

1969 Cock and Lion. By Kalondo Kyendo. Illustrations by Adrienne Moore. East African Junior Library Number 9. Nairobi: East African Publishing House. $.75 at Adams Avenue Book Store, San Diego, Aug., '93.

This series of four booklets may be my first find from East Africa. This volume has seven stories with one illustration apiece. The first tale, "Nguu and his sons," is the Aesopic tale of the treasure. It may lose the story's possible ambiguity when the father says he has forgotten where the treasure is hidden. Disappointed after digging, one brother suggests that they plant the fields. The third story substitutes a lion for the bear in Aesop's TB. The final story, "The Cock and the Lion," gives an etiology for the phenomenon known in the Aesopic corpus that lions dislike cocks.

1969 Fabeln von Aesop Illustriert mit Holzstichen.  Holzstichen von Endrik Rehagel.  1 of 750.  Pamphlet.  Essen?: Folkwangschulen e.V.  €8 from Krull GmbH, Neuss, Germany, through ZVAB, April, '20.

"Jahresgabe 1969 für die Mitglieder der Gesellschaft der Freunde und Förderer der Folkwangschulen e.V."  This work is the production of Rehagel in his sixth semester at this school of the arts.  I take it that we are dealing with the most famous school with a name like this, namely in Essen.  The ten woodcuts are strong.  My prize among them goes to the image of the miser kneeling beside the hole in which he had hid his riches.  In the background someone slinks away with something in his hand.  Well done!  About 10" square.  This collection is great for finding and bringing together rarities like this pamphlet.

1969 Fables Choisies. Texts from La Fontaine (NA). Some illustrations signed "Chader." Oversize pamphlet. Printed in Belgium. M.A. Hemmerlin. $5.51 from Anita B. Davis, Baltimore, MD, through Ebay, July, '00.

This oversize (12" x 9") pamphlet is a curiosity. It presents TMCM, FC, GA, FG, GGE, LM, OF, and WL in La Fontaine's versions with suitably simple illustrations for children. The surprise is that La Fontaine is never mentioned. The artist is identified as "Chader" in many but not all illustrations. The best of these may be the sausage-and-cold-cut dinner with wine and napkin in TMCM. This is one of the few times that I have seen the wolf's seizing of the lamb pictured. The covers are starting to separate.

1969 Fables from Aesop.  General Editor: Jean Forrester.  Paperbound.  Bombay: Orient Longmans' New Supplementary Readers 1: Orient Longmans.  See 1951/69.

1969 Fables: La Fontaine. Tome 1 annotées et commentées par Pierre Michel et Maurice Martin. Paperbound. Nancy: Bordas: Univers des Lettres. $1.50 at Elder's Bookstore, Nashville, April, '96.

See 1964 for Tome 2, which I found eight years ago. In fact, I thought I was picking up an inexpensive extra. The first surprise was that the dealer wanted $1.50 for a book marked $.50. The second surprise came when I got home and discovered that, though the books have the same abstract green and orange cover, they are two different volumes. Like the other, this volume has a very particular school edition's approach, with plenty of pictures, including photos of animals for little kids who apparently do not know what goats look like!

1969 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.

1969 G.E. Lessing: Zwölf Fabeln.  Radierungen von Thomas Harndt.  #46 of  70.  Portfolio.  Berlin: Ladengalerie.  170 Swiss Francs from Peter Bichsel Fine Books, Zurich, April, '18.

Let me start with Peter's fine description: "Suite of 11 original etchings with incorporated text in letterpress, each numbered and signed by Thomas Harndt.  Small 8vo.  Loose leaves as issued in folding portfolio with printed front title.  One of 70 numbered copies.  Selection of 12 prose fables by G.E. Lessing in the original version of 1759.  Thomas Harndt's (b. 1932) etchings present the animals in very vivid and naturalistic actions.  --Bodemann 515.1; Fabula docet 159.  -- Mint copy."  Among the best of these etchings is the third.  An ass confronted with a hungry wolf claimed to have a thorn stuck in his hoof.  The wolf answers that he feels all the more compelled to free him from his pain.  The illustration shows an aggressive attack.  The selection of Lessing fables to illustrate is very good.

1969 Hee Haw. Story: Ann McGovern. Pictures: Eric von Schmidt. First printing. Dust jacket. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. $1.25 at Beckham's Bookshop, New Orleans, June, '89. Extra copy of the first printing for $.50 from the Milwaukee Public Library Book Cellar, Nov., '95, and of the second printing for $1.25 at Beckham's, June, '89.

This delightful book has fun with its story. Among its nicest features: the donkey's repeated formulaic silence; the visual presentation of the mayor's wife; and the non-laughter of only the man who had planned to trade three hens for the donkey. A few unusual turns: the old man mounts alone twice; no pole is used; and the donkey runs off at the end. Lively watercolors throughout.

1969 Hee Haw. Ann McGovern. Pictures by Eric von Schmidt. Hardbound. First printing. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. $4 from Chimney Sweep Books, Santa Cruz, August, '98.

This is a second copy of a book with identical bibliographical information. That copy has a pictorial cover matching the dust-jacket. It includes cameos of the main characters. This copy has green cloth with a diamond portrait of a happy donkey in its center. Let me repeat some of my comments from there. This delightful book has fun with its story. Among its nicest features: the donkey's repeated formulaic silence; the visual presentation of the mayor's wife; and the non-laughter of only the man who had planned to trade three hens for the donkey. A few unusual turns: the old man mounts alone twice; no pole is used; and the donkey runs off at the end. Lively watercolors throughout.

1969 Humanimales Fabeln.  Franz Richter.  Thomas Moog.  Paperbound.  Vienna: Neue Perspektiven:  Verlag für Jugend und Volk.  €12.50 from Antiquariat Dr. Paul Kainbacher, Baden, Austria, through zvab, Oct., '15.

What does one make of a fable book that includes "Daphne auf der Flucht"; "Das Huhn, das nicht gegrillt wurde"; and "Bericht des Walfisches über Jonas"?  I do not know!  These sound provocative and creative.  The texts are matched by Thomas Moog's artistic photographs that regularly morph human and animal faces in strange situations and landscapes.  Typical examples face 16, 64, and 88.  This copy includes a handwritten letter by Richter to a recent graduate, apparently accompanying the copy as a gift.  100 pages.  The fable world does provoke some unusual offerings!

1969 I.A. Krylov: Basni.  Illustrations by N. Tseytlin.  Pamphlet.  Moscow: Detskay Literatura.  $6.50 from Inna Chertok, Toronto, through Ebay, May, '20.

I had just catalogued the 1971 version of this engaging Russian pamphlet of 32 pages when I noticed this 1969 version offered on Ebay.  It was all the more important for me because I had already included in the collection a 1969 version but without the front and back covers shared by the other two.  While this is a confirmation that that 1969 version was probably published with this cover, I will leave all three in the collection as another fascinating curiosity.  What is different here from the 1971 version includes three things.  First is the date on the title-page.  Second is the typesetting of the colophon material on the back cover.  I will leave it to Russian readers to decipher how much the colophon data themselves may have changed.  The third change is more surprising.  This copy confirms that the young woman eating grapes facing the full-page illustration of FG, present in both 1969 copies, disappears in 1971!  Only the baskets of freshly plucked grapes remain!  The inside back cover features a crow in a tree, while the front cover offers four cameos of principal animal characters from the fables.  The verso of the front-cover is a gouache of Krylov in his red and black striped robe composing with a writing quill.  The illustrations are strong and colorful.  Often there is an echo of the facing full-page illustration on the text page.  For example, a female monkey points to a mirror on the right-hand page while a male bear looks on in the full-page illustration to the left.  8⅜" x 10⅞".

1969 I.A. Krylov: Basni.  Illustrations by N. Tseytlin.  Paperbound.  Moscow: Detskay Literatura.  $10 from an unknown source, July, '17.

This pamphlet of 32 unpaginated pages features on its cover a small gouache (?) illustration of a monkey holding a mirror.  The illustrations are strong and colorful.  Often there is an echo of the facing full-page illustration on the text page.  For example, a young woman enjoys eating grapes next to the text of FG, while on the facing page a female fox strides away from a vine with her nose proudly up in the air.  Again, a female monkey points to a mirror on the right-hand page while a male bear looks on in the full-page illustration to the left.  The back cover is an unpictured fable text, apparently FC.  8⅜" x 10⅞"

1969 I.A. Krilov, Compositions in Two Volumes, Volume I (Russian). Edited by N.L. Stepanov. Hardbound. Library of the Fatherland's Classics. Printed in Moscow. Moscow: Ogonyek: Pravda. Gift of Semyon Mogilevsky, from Victor Kamkin Bookstore, Oct., '98.

This is a lovely pair of Russian volumes. After the introductory material here in Volume I, the fables come first on 44-290. Sepia illustrations by various artists are interpaginated: "Damien's Soup," "The Peasants and the River," and "The Dainty Spinster" after 128; "Quartet," "Trischka's Caftan," and "The Wolf in the Kennels" after 160; "The Crow and the Chicken" and FC after 256; "The Monkey and the Mirror" and GA after 288.

1969 I.A. Krilov, Compositions in Two Volumes, Volume II (Russian). Edited by N.L. Stepanov. Hardbound. Library of the Fatherland's Classics. Printed in Moscow. Moscow: Ogonyek: Pravda. Gift of Semyon Mogilevsky, from Victor Kamkin Bookstore, Oct., '98.

See my comments on Volume I. This second volume's illustrations include a number of Krilov himself. One catches a glimpse of the base of a statue of him that contains a number of characters from his fables, especially "Quartet," facing 353. There is an AI for both volumes just before the T of C for this volume at the back.

1969 Ivan Krolov. Tolkinud Mart Raud. Kujundanud Mai Einer. Dust jacket. Hardbound. Talinn: Eesti Raamat. $24.50 from Raigo Kirss, Kuressaare, Estonia, through Ebay, Feb., '02.

There are three fables in Estonian in this twenty-page book 7¾" x 7". Each has a strong black-and white ink illustration. "The Monkey and the Spectacles" has spectacles and their parts around the monkey at its center. "The Ass and the Nightingale" shows an ass caught in the cavern of his own prejudiced judgment, while the nightingale flies off in the open space above him. "Elephant and Pug" has another strong design showing the dog barking at waves of nothingness while a substantial elephant stands nearby. There is a fourth strong black-and-white design on the dust-jacket front, while the front cover itself presents a nice head-and-neck profile of Krylov and the front end-paper presents a small profile of his whole figure. The book's cover has a nice combination of cloth and striped paper overlay.

1969 Jolly Hares. Sergei Mikhalkov; translated by Fainna Glagoleva and Irina Zheleznova. Drawings by Y. Rachev. Hardbound. Printed in USSR. Moscow: Progress Publishers. $10 from Ichabod's Books, Denver, April, '99. Extra copy without dust jacket for £15 from Unicorn Books, Middlesex, UK, June, '00. 

Fourteen fables, all with several delightful Rachev illustrations. "A Friend in Need" is about the mosquito who can get revenge on the bear. "How the Birds Saved Little Kid" is an exciting rescue ten pages long. Wolf bandits are drowned, and a non-helpful pig (subject of a great illustration on 14-15) is excluded from the final party. "Superstitious Shaky-Tail" is like the movie "Airplane," the story of an emergency landing made by a hare on Friday, the 13th. "How Misha Bear Found a Pipe" mixes narrative prose and dramatic verse in a story that shows the evils of smoking; there is a fine picture of Misha after smoking too much (39). "Rabbit Nose-in-the-Air" is described as a "Fairy-Tale in Two Acts and a Prologue." It stretches to a length well beyond that of a fable, in fact some forty-six pages. "The Boar and the Yoke" sees the latter being put on the former by a bear before the story is over. "The Portrait" includes one of the best illustrations of the book (98), a portrait of the ass as a lion. "It Was All Their Own Fault" speaks in terms like those of the Vita Aesopi about two hares who did not remove the rock from their front walk. The main character in "The Greedy Hare" brings a keg to the hive to take honey, and the bees react fiercely to him; when the bear brings only a jar to the hive, they let him have half a jar in peace. The main character in "The Stubborn Rooster" insists on being seen as an eagle; he ends up with nothing but trouble. "Yank-Tail" is about a hare who finds a wolf's tail in a trap and brags that he overcame the wolf in a fight. He is revealed as a coward when he is frightened by a rooster. In "The Mirror" the put-down artist Hippopotamus laughs at himself in the mirror and cannot believe that he sees himself. The other animals recognize that he is so stupid that his taunts should not be taken seriously. In "The Hare Who Fibbed" the hare has lied to Misha the Bear that the latter had injured his foot in an accident; in the end a fox doctor shows how little wounded hare really was. "The Test" refers to the claim of a parrot that he would only speak human language henceforth; when put to the test, he says "Parrot's a fool!" The last page invites readers' feedback. I enjoy Rachev's work a great deal.

1969 La Fontaine Fables. Images de Romain Simon. Hardbound. Paris?: Grands Albums Hachette: Hachette. See 1953/69.

1969 La Fontaine: Fables. Illustrations de Daniel Billon. Les Grands Livres Hachette. Paris: Librairie Hachette. See 1958/69.

1969 Look, There Is a Turtle Flying. Story and pictures by Janina Domanska. Second printing 1969. Dust jacket. London: Collier-Macmillan Limited: The Macmillan Company. See 1968/69.

1969 Mesholim (Yiddish "Fables"). Eliezer Steinbarg. With 12 woodcuts from Arthur Kolnik. Hardbound. Tel Aviv: I.L. Peretz Publishing House. $80 from Meir Biezunski, Israel, Nov., '06. Second copy of unknown date and cost from Isaac Cohen, Rishon Lezion, Israel.

There are here some 180 original fables by Steinbarg on some 321 pages. There may be something special about this 1969 edition. The most striking of the twelve woodcuts may show the lamb facing a panel of wolf, bear, and fox. I would not want to be in his skin whatever is happening! The frontispiece, presumably of Steinbarg, is also impressive. It seems to combine a certain geometric character with a kind of industrial heaviness. For comments on the stories, see the English translation, The Jewish Book of Fables: Selected Works (2003) from Syracuse University Press. My two copies both have weaknesses: this better copy from Meir Beizunski finds it front cover separating. The second copy shows stains on the cover. I will keep both in this collection under the same ID number. 

1969 Moralities/Moralitäten. Hans Werner Henze; W(ystan) H(ugh) Auden; Deutsche Übersetzung von Maria Bosse-Sporleder. Paperbound. Mainz: Edition Schott 6033: B. Schott's Söhne. $45 from Michael Hackenberg, El Cerrito, CA, July, '11.

The publisher describes this as "three moralities plays after Aesop's fables," and the description is accurate. The title-page includes this sub-title: "Version for 2 pianos or for harpsichord and 2 pianos/Fassung für 2 Klaviere oder für Cembalo und 2 Klaviere." In 1968 the Cincinnati Music Festival commissioned this work representing W.H. Auden's texts for three Aesopic fables. Each page offers fourteen musical staffs: a set of six that gives two each to harpsichord and either of two pianos; four for SATB; and a set of four that gives two each to two pianos. Each page thus offers one line of music and text in both German and English. Thus one fable runs to some length. FK runs from 1-60 and has this fine moral: "When people are too dumb to know when all is well with them,/The gods shrug their shoulders and say: To hell with them!" (60). "The Horses and the Crows" (61-110) is new to me. Horses come upon crows singing and begin to sing too, but horses are horses and crows are crows! The third deals with people in a sea-storm who promise Poseidon everything if they arrive safely. They do arrive safely, and they seem promptly to forget their promises. "When afraid, men pray to the gods in all sincerity but worship only themselves in their days of prosperity." The German renditions of all three are available through Itunes. 

1969 Mrav Dobra Srca (An Ant with a Kind Heart). Text by Brane Crncevic. Illustrations by Aleksandar Marks and Pavao Stalter. Hardbound. Zagreb: Skolska knjiga. $19.79 from Edgewood Booksellers, Canterbury, CT, August, '03. 

This book is based on an animated film, with the same title, made at Zagreb-film. A little ant, one of the three million and one ants, is unhappy because his father has driven away a cricket from their house. When other ants realize why the ant is sad, they look for the cricket. They find him in a well and bring him back to the anthill. There the cricket sings again, and the ants work. The text is in rhymed verse. I am indebted to Yerko Ban for his help in analyzing this book. My own guesses from following only the pictures went quite wide of the mark!

1969 Mrav Dobra Srca. Tekst: Brane Crncevica. Ilustracije: Aleksandar Marks and Pavao Stalter. Hardbound. Zagreb: Skolska knjiga. $19.79 from Edgewood Booksellers, Canterbury, CT, August, '03.

This children's book builds off of the story of the grasshopper and ant to make a comment on socialism--or at least on society. 300,000,000 ants are happy doing their normal chores, like milking cows, until one green ant finds itself unhappy. This ant and its guitar are rejected at first by the other ants. Then somehow the musical ant finds acceptance in the group, and everyone ends happy.

1969 Poems, Fables, and Plays by Edward Moore. Hardbound. Printed in Heppenheim, West Germany. Original: London: R. and J. Dodsley. Reprint: Westmead, England: Gregg International Publishers. See 1756/1969.

1969 Proverbs and Folk Tales: Grade 4, Part II -- Second Semester. Canvas-bound workbook. Vocabulary Development Project for the Middle Grades. St. Louis, MO: St. Louis Public Schools. $1.98 from Amitin's, St. Louis, March, '93.

I have hesitated to include this book, but I at last decide for inclusion because it represents yet another concrete response to and use of fables. Here stories, including some fables, are the springboards for learning proverbs, vocabulary, and spelling. Thirty-six sections are given proverbial titles in the beginning T of C. The fables included here are TH (3), "The Monkey's Heart" (111), "The Crocodile-Rock" (116), "The Lion and the Small Beasts" (and the reflection in the well, 136), "The Monkey and the Glasses" (141), "The Frightened Squirrel" (and the end of the world, 145), "The Animal Band" ("Quartet," 153), and "The Man and the Turtle" (159). This last is the Brer Rabbit story in which the turtle ends up pleading not to be thrown into the river. There are some good developments to the Kalila & Dimna story of "The Lion and the Rabbit." In particular, the rabbit brings the news from the lion to the animals that he has decided on a new hunting-and-eating plan, and the animals unanimously vote for him as the first victim. Missing pages include 3-4, 9-10, 13-14, 19-22, 61-62, 79-80, 113-14, 117-18, and 143-44.

1969 Qué es la Fábula.  Maria Alicia Dominguez.  Paperbound.  Buenos Aires: Colección Esquemas 96: Editorial Columba.  $23 from Christian Tottino, Buenos Aires, through eBay, August, '18.

This is, apparently, a paperback for students.  It has just one image, of the author.  Otherwise it has good texts.  Many of these short texts lay out the history of fable literature.  Then there is an anthology of fable texts, from the Panchatantra to the Hitopadesa and many authors, especially Spanish authors, in the fable tradition.  This book would be helpful for finding good Spanish texts of well-known fables that we might otherwise overlook.  There has been a good effort here to include Spanish fabulists that are otherwise overlooked.

1969 Reynard the Fox. Based on the version by Joseph Jacobs and retold by Roy Brown. Illustrated by John Vernon Lord. Hardbound. Dust jacket. Printed in USA. London: Abelard-Schuman. $2.95 from Carousel Books, Charlottesville, April, '95.

Here is the distinctive Lord style that I have enjoyed so much in his 1989 Aesop's Fables. This edition is divided into sixteen episodes and is richly illustrated with Lord's work. Tibert the Cat caught in the priest's trap while Reynard looks on (30) is a typically strong illustration. Fable material is well represented here, e.g., in the mare's kicking of the wolf on 57, in WC on 74, in the female wolf's fishing with her tail in the ice on 82, and in the two-bucket story of Isegrim and Reynard on 86. This story is always lively!

1969 Stories That Never Grow Old. Best Loved Stories Retold by Watty Piper. Illustrated by George and Doris Hauman. NY: Platt and Munk. See 1938/69.

1969 Tales from Old China: A collection of Chinese folk tales, fairy tales, and fables. Isabelle C. Chang. Illustrated by Tony Chen. Inscribed and signed on 46 by Tonyi Chen. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. NY: Random House. $3.50 in trade from Clare Leeper, July, '96.

I regret that it has taken me fifteen years to catalogue this lovely book. I know Isabelle Chang's good work from her 1968 Chinese Fairy Tales. The contents here include two sets of five and six well told fables, respectively. The first fable uses ploys and stratagems well known in Western fables. The wolf asks the fish why he swims back and forth. The answer: "To avoid the waterfall in one direction and the fisherman in the other." Then why not come ashore? "It is always safer to put up with known dangers than to face unknown ones" (2-3). I think it is clear that the wolf himself is Unknown Danger #1. After seeing him stop and look in his shop window every day, the clock-maker finally asks a man why. "To check with your clock before I ring the chimes at church." The clock-maker responds with surprise, since he uses the church bells to set his clocks! I am surprised to find here a version of the "One does what one can" story of the bird -- here a hummingbird -- lying with its feet up in the air: "The World's Work" (9-10). It includes one of the best illustrations. "The Artist" (45) presents a typical Eastern anecdote, I think. The king asks the court artist to paint a picture of a rooster for him. The king then waits a year and gets no picture. Angry, he stomps into the studio and demands to see the artist. The artist comes, pulls out paper, paint, and brush and in five minutes executes a perfect picture of a rooster. "Why did you keep me waiting a year?" The artist takes him into a room filled with a year's worth of rooster paintings. "It took me more than one year to learn how to paint a perfect rooster in five minutes" (46). TT shows up here as a Chinese fable (49) and handles the dialogue exceptionally well. One group on the ground says "Only a brilliant turtle can get two stupid cranes to carry him in such high style." The cranes pay no attention. On a little further, some children shout "What a smart pair of cranes to think of carrying a creeping creature in the air with them!" The turtle wants them to know that it was his idea, and so he informs them. A man has a great cook (55). She gives notice to leave. He offers money, better conditions, longer vacations -- in vain. Finally he proposes marriage and she accepts. After the honeymoon she tells him that he needs to hire a cook, since it is now beneath her to cook. He drowns himself! Tony Chen's full-page duochrome illustrations are engaging, as is his multicolored picture of a dragon on the dust-jacket's front cover. The cloth cover is embossed with two Chinese characters; they reappear on the back of the dust-jacket. 

1969 Tales from Old China: A collection of Chinese folk tales, fairy tales, and fables.  Isabelle C. Chang.  Illustrated by Tony Chen.  Dust-Jacket.  Hardbound.  NY: Random House.  $10 from Spectator Books, Oakland, June, ‘21.  

We already have a signed copy of this book in the collection, and so I will include this unsigned copy, found 25 years after the first and catalogued ten years after that copy.  As I wrote then, I know Isabelle Chang's good work from her 1968 "Chinese Fairy Tales."  The contents here include two sets of five and six well told fables, respectively.  The first fable uses ploys and stratagems well known in Western fables.  The wolf asks the fish why he swims back and forth.  The answer: "To avoid the waterfall in one direction and the fisherman in the other."  Then why not come ashore?  "It is always safer to put up with known dangers than to face unknown ones" (2-3).  I think it is clear that the wolf himself is Unknown Danger #1.  After seeing him stop and look in his shop window every day, the clock-maker finally asks a man why.  "To check with your clock before I ring the chimes at church."  The clock-maker responds with surprise, since he uses the church bells to set his clocks!  I am surprised to find here a version of the "One does what one can" story of the bird -- here a hummingbird -- lying with its feet up in the air: "The World's Work" (9-10).  It includes one of the best illustrations.  "The Artist" (45) presents a typical Eastern anecdote, I think.  The king asks the court artist to paint a picture of a rooster for him.  The king then waits a year and gets no picture.  Angry, he stomps into the studio and demands to see the artist.  The artist comes, pulls out paper, paint, and brush and in five minutes executes a perfect picture of a rooster.  "Why did you keep me waiting a year?"  The artist takes him into a room filled with a year's worth of rooster paintings.  "It took me more than one year to learn how to paint a perfect rooster in five minutes" (46).  TT shows up here as a Chinese fable (49) and handles the dialogue exceptionally well.  One group on the ground says "Only a brilliant turtle can get two stupid cranes to carry him in such high style."  The cranes pay no attention.  On a little further, some children shout "What a smart pair of cranes to think of carrying a creeping creature in the air with them!"  The turtle wants them to know that it was his idea, and so he informs them.  A man has a great cook (55).  She gives notice to leave.  He offers money, better conditions, longer vacations -- in vain.  Finally he proposes marriage and she accepts.  After the honeymoon she tells him that he needs to hire a cook, since it is now beneath her to cook.  He drowns himself!  Tony Chen's full-page duochrome illustrations are engaging, as is his multicolored picture of a dragon on the dust-jacket's front cover.  The cloth cover is embossed with two Chinese characters; they reappear on the back of the dust-jacket.

1969 Tales of Wise and Foolish Animals. Written and illustrated by Valery Carrick. Unaltered republication of work originally published by Frederick A. Stokes Company. NY: Dover. See 1928/69.

1969 The Boy and the Lion on the Wall. Story and Pictures by Carol Barker. First edition? Dust jacket. Printed in Great Britain. NY: Franklin Watts Inc. $15 from Dorothy Meyer, April, '95.

This book represents a mistake on my part. I thought the story was Babrius' (#136) of the boy who is doomed to be killed by a lion and so locked away in a deserted home with a lion pictured on one of its wooden walls.... This story is rather that of a contemporary boy who enters the scene pictured on his bedroom wall and rides the magic lion Leo through three adventures that end up rescuing the princess Beatrice. This is a very "60's" book, in story and art. I include it in the collection to keep some future researcher or book-purchaser from making my mistake again!

1969 The Curse of Envy. An Aesopic Fable by Avianus Translated form the Latin by Lloyd W. Daly. Illustrated with an original Wood engraving by Thomas Bewick. #67 of 70. Menomonie, WI: The Vagabond Press. $15 by mail from William H. Allen, Philadelphia, Oct., '96.

I did not know before that Lloyd Daly ever translated Avianus. He does a good job of it here. One of the very nice things about this book is the single eye and the pair of eyes on the cover. The book is very nicely produced.

1969 The Foolish Old Man Who Moved Mountains. Stories, Songs and Sayings from China. Marie Louise Gebhardt. Illustrations by Edith Aberle and Karen Tureck. NY: Friendship Press. $2.40 from Dan Behnke, Chicago, March, '93.

A curious blend of all sorts of materials: linguistic, literary, cultural, and propagandistic. I wish I knew what Friendship Press is. A spokesperson for the Red Chinese? A religious publishing house? In any case, the story of Matteo Ricci is included here ("The Map Maker," 53). The book's ten fables are on 29-40. They include one straight Aesopic fable: AD (34). The other stories are good, like "The Kind-Hearted Man" (35): the turtle must walk over a rod above a pan of boiling water.

1969 The Golden Story Book. Illustrated by Felicitas Kuhn. London: Collins. $7.50 at White Way Antique Mall, Nashville, April, '96.

Ten fables, well told, out of a total of almost sixty stories of various sorts. The illustrations are all of children and elves, cute to an extreme. The best of the illustrations is for BF on 168. There is absolutely no acknowledgement of the provenance of the story versions.

1969 The Hare and the Tortoise (Japanese).  Brian Wildsmith.  Hardbound.  $10 from Wessel and Lieberman, Seattle, June, '03.  

Here is the Japanese version of Wildsmith's work, originally published by Oxford University Press in 1966.  The bibliographical data here notes that original publication and seems to indicate a publication date of 1969 for this Japanese version.  Beyond that I cannot make out much other than that it originally sold for 480 Yen.  I have this book in two English versions: a hardbound printing of 1988 and a paperbound printing of 1985 from the first paperbound of 1982.  I will add my comments from those two versions:  Lively pictures in the Wildsmith style.  The story is much expanded (even from la Fontaine):  the fox and the owl debate, and the rooster starts the race. 

1969 The Hedgehog and the Hare: The Brothers Grimm. Adapted and Illustrated by Wendy Watson. Hardbound. Apparently first printing. Printed in USA. Cleveland/NY: The World Publishing Company. $.25 from Milwaukee Public Library Bookseller, June, '99.

Since a version of this fable appears as Perry 649, I will include this lovely little book. This hare is particularly contemptuous of the hedgehog. Watson cleverly writes of the hedgehog's anger "he can bear anything but an attack on his legs, just because they are crooked by nature" (12). When they have bet, the hedgehog cleverly asks for a half-hour to go home and eat breakfast before the actual race. Watson introduces the farmer early by having the hedgehog go out on a Sunday morning to see how "his" turnips were coming along in the farmer's garden. A few pages later, we begin to see the furrows of the farm itself. At the start of the race (20), we see the full extent of the field's furrows. A race lasts one furrow, and the hare keeps asking for a rerun until they have completed seventy-three runs. Watson has the hedgehog keep tally on a rock. (The tally is correct, by the way!) Finally the hare gives up before he can finish the seventy-fourth. Because the copies have slightly different covers and there is varying wear on the inside, I will keep both in the collection.

1969 The Hedgehog and the Hare: The Brothers Grimm. Adapted and Illustrated by Wendy Watson. Apparently first printing. Hardbound. Cleveland/NY: The World Publishing Company. $0.25 from Milwaukee Public Library Bookseller, June, '99.

Here is a version of a book already catalogued, but found at the same time and in the same place as my first copy. This version is slightly larger, has better color on its front cover, and has a pictured back cover. It seems to be a regular binding rather than the library binding of my first copy. As I wrote then, since a version of this fable appears as Perry 649, I will include this lovely little book. This hare is particularly contemptuous of the hedgehog. Watson cleverly writes of the hedgehog's anger "he can bear anything but an attack on his legs, just because they are crooked by nature" (12). When they have bet, the hedgehog cleverly asks for a half-hour to go home and eat breakfast before the actual race. Watson introduces the farmer early by having the hedgehog go out on a Sunday morning to see how "his" turnips were coming along in the farmer's garden. A few pages later, we begin to see the furrows of the farm itself. At the start of the race (20), we see the full extent of the field's furrows. A race lasts one furrow, and the hare keeps asking for a rerun until they have completed seventy-three runs. Watson has the hedgehog keep tally on a rock. (The tally is correct, by the way!) Finally the hare gives up before he can finish the seventy-fourth. 

1969 The King and the Parrot and Other Fables. Klaus Winter and Helmut Bischoff. (Originally published in 1965 in Germany as Fabeln Aus Aller Welt.) Dust jacket. Printed in Germany. NY: Borzoi Book: Alfred A. Knopf. $7.50 at Georgetown Book Shop, Bethesda, Jan., '96.

A fascinating book. The seven fables presented here (out of the twelve in Fabeln Aus Aller Welt) include five Aesopic fables, each with one black-and-white page and a double page of color: "The Mortal and the Satyr," "The Thieves and the Cockerel," "The Fearful Frogs and the Battling Bulls," "The Peacocks and the Raven," and FS. The latter might be the best of the colored illustrations. The other two fables are the Tibetan title-fable and "The Sow Under the Oak" by Krylov. The black-and-white woodcuts may come off well in this inexpensive reprint while the colored woodcuts are so much better in the original. Consult it now that I have found it!

1969    The King and the Parrot and Other Fables..  Klaus Winter and Helmut Bischoff.  Hardbound.  NY: Borzoi Book: Alfred A. Knopf.  $2.98 from New England Mobile Books, June, '85.

Here is a second version of a book already in the collection.  This version puts the illustrations of the dust jacket, front and back, onto the front and rear covers, respectively.  These are now white canvas rather than blue cloth.  Internally the books seem identical.  A fascinating book.  The seven fables presented here (out of the twelve in Fabeln Aus Aller Welt) include five Aesopic fables, each with one black-and-white page and a double page of color:  "The Mortal and the Satyr," "The Thieves and the Cockerel," "The Fearful Frogs and the Battling Bulls," "The Peacocks and the Raven," and FS.  The latter might be the best of the colored illustrations.  The other two fables are the Tibetan title-fable and "The Sow Under the Oak" by Krylov.  The black-and-white woodcuts may come off well in this inexpensive reprint while the colored woodcuts are so much better in the original.  Consult it now that I have found it!

1969 The Lion and the Mouse and Other Fables. Retold by Laurence Collinson. With pictures by Yasu Tai. Hardbound. London: Storytime Gift Books: Paul Hamlyn. $8.16 from Gordon Evans, Aberdare, UK, through eBay, July, '03. 

This is a large-format (7¾" x 10") book. In the title-story the mouse brings a veritable army of little friends to gnaw through the lion's net. Other stories here include "The Vain Jackdaw," OF, AD, TMCM, and "The Honest Woodcutter." The style of the colored art is impressionistic: there is little sense of detail or even verisimilitude. One of the best illustrations presents the proud frog of OF with his expanded belly. For this book the postage ($9.08) was more expensive than the purchase price ($8.16)!

1969 The Man, The Boy, and The Donkey. Retold and illustrated by Katherine Evans. Hardbound. Printed in USA. Chicago: Albert Whitman & Company. See 1958/69.

1969 The Miller, the Boy and the Donkey. Based on a fable by La Fontaine. Brian Wildsmith. NY: Franklin Watts. $.50 from Book Cellar, March, '88. Also a paperbound copy for $3.95 from MPC.

Perhaps most instructive for following a version of the fable that has the carrying of the donkey as the first stage. The beast ends up getting sold. The colored illustrations are big and splashy, but I do not see much wit in them.

1969 The Monkey and the Crocodile. A Jataka Tale from India. Paul Galdone. Paperbound. Printed in USA. NY: Clarion Books: Ticknor & Fields: A Houghton Mifflin Company. $0.50 from Bookseller Library Used Book Store & Coffee Shop, Milwaukee, June, '98.

This book represents the fourth copy I have, all from different editions. It may be the most colorful of them all! See my comments on the others, all listed under 1969.

1969 The Monkey and the Crocodile. A Jataka Tale from India. Paul Galdone. A Children's Choice Book Club Edition from Scholastic Book Services. NY: Clarion Books: Houghton Mifflin. $.95 from A-Z Books, North Platte, Jan., '94.

Yet another version of a fine book. This edition is still smaller than the "Weekly Reader" edition I last found. See my notes on the other two versions (1969).

1969 The Monkey and the Crocodile. A Jataka Tale from India. Paul Galdone. Dust jacket. NY: Seabury Press. $6 from Second Story Books, DC, Feb., '91.

A lively tale with lively color in the illustrations. Perhaps typically for Jataka tales, the story goes through several phases, whereas I think an Aesopic fable would usually finish after the first. Great crocodile eyes!

1969 The Monkey and the Crocodile. A Jataka Tale from India. Paul Galdone. Dust jacket. Weekly Reader Children's Book Club Edition: Primary Division. Second Printing. NY: Seabury Press. $3 from MisterE, Seattle, July, '93.

A slightly smaller edition than Seabury's original edition, with the original design for the dust jacket now put onto the cover itself. See my comments on the original Seabury edition.

1969 The Parables of Eliyahu Meir Krugman.  Dust jacket.  Hardbound.  Tel Aviv: Published by the author.  $30 from Joshua Jakobovich, Shiloh, Israel, Oct., '21.

224 pages of parables, including fables, all set in rhyme.  Joshua assured me that some of the stories here come from Aesop's fables.  I tried the first twelve or so and came away unconvinced.  A better Hebrew reader than I will have to look into it!  Not illustrated.  No T of C.

1969 The Talkative Beasts. Myths, Fables, and Poems of India. Gwendolyn Reed. Photographs by Stella Snead. First printing (see top of 96). Dust jacket. NY: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. $5 at Powell's, Portland, March, '96. Extra copy without the cloth binding, embossed title, dust jacket, or colored endpapers for $.25 from the Milwaukee Public Library, Nov., '95. Another extra copy without any of the above but with a picture on its blue cover for $1.25 at the Minneapolis Public Library, Jan., '97.

This collection of various sorts of tales includes perhaps four fables in its first section. They include "The Bragging Beasts" (13; in this "all talk" fable, the unhunted frog tells all the other animals "It is what you boast of that is your undoing"), "The Cock and His Loving Wives" (15; there are many ways to love a rooster), "The Mouse Surrounded" (25; the mouse is wise never to trust the cat), and "Get Ready, Get Set, Go" (28; the elephant sees two ants in front of him no matter how fast he runs in this race). Then there are five Jataka tales (52-69): "The Golden Deer," "The Monkey King's Bridge," "How to Catch a Fish," "The Carpenter's Boar," and "A Handful of Peas." The last three of these seem the strongest to me. I will keep all three copies in the collection. Though they are different, they are all first printings.

1969 The Works of William Bullokar, Vol. IV: Aesops Fablz, 1585. J.R. Turner. Paperbound. Leeds: Leeds Texts and Monographs, New Series I: School of English: The University of Leeds. £5 from the book exhibit booth of the School of English at the Leeds International Medieval Institute, July, '99. Extra copy for £5 at the same time.

Finding this book represents a wonderful piece of luck! I had sought it for some time and had it on my want list. When I came to Leeds for the medieval institute, I thought of trying to find the university press, but the people I asked did not know what I was talking about. When I came to the book exhibit, I was surprised to find that the School of English had a booth. I asked about this book, and they pulled out a copy from under the table and were delighted that someone even knew about it! If truth be told Max Plessow's presentation in Palaestra LII (1906) is easier to read, particularly because the pages reproduced here are only about 2.5 x 5 inches. The combination of early printing and Bullokar's novel alphabet makes reading very difficult. Bullokar's fables include groups of 131, 8 (from divers authors), 95 (from Abstemius), 33 (from Valla), 99 (from Rimicius), and 11 (from Poggio) for a total of 377. There is a T of C just after 319.

1969 Twenty-two Russian Tales for Young Children by Leo Tolstoy. Selected, Translated, and with an Afterword by Miriam Morton. Illustrated by Eros Keith. First edition. Dust jacket. NY: Simon and Schuster. $4 at Midway, Nov., '94. Extra copy of the first printing, without dust jacket, for $2.95 from the Book Shop, Burbank, Feb., '97.

Good touching stories! Do not miss, e.g., "The Trapped Bird" (15). Several stories are not clearly or explicitly resolved, e.g. "The Jump" (34). There are at least four Aesopic fables here: "The Two Friends" (and the bear, 13); "What the Little Mouse Saw on Her Walk" (the rooster and the cat, 41); "The Bat" (44); and "The Quail" (usually "The Lark and Her Young," 47). Three other stories come very close to being fables: "The Old Man and the Apple Trees" (14), "The Peasant and the Horse" (23), and "The Old Grandfather and His Little Grandson" (27). The titles in the book are not from Tolstoy.

1969 Ungi Litli; Kennslubók í Lestri.  Steingrímur Arason.  Designs by Baltasar.  Paperbound.  Reykjavik: Ríkisútgáfa Námsbóka.  NK 49 from Brugt og Nytt As, Bodo, July, '14. 

Here is my first Icelandic book, and I did not even know it as I found it.  From our hotel in Bodo I wandered down a main street toward what seemed the center.  To my surprise, I came past a second-hand store, full of schatzky of every description.  Some searching turned up books, and some rummaging revealed this book obviously for children.  Fables seemed to be marked by their illustrations at these points: FS (19-20); LM (21-22); and BC (31-33).  The  two-color designs are simple and helpful.  There is a T of C at the back.  OCL lists the book as published in 1969.

1969 What a Man Can See: Russell Edson Fables, Ray Johnson Drawings. Paperbound. Printed in USA. Penland, NC: Jargon 37: The Jargon Society. $20 from Thaddeus Books, Portland, OR, through ABE, Feb., '98.

The key to my understanding of this book is that it is in the same "Jargon" series in which one finds Kenneth Patchen's Fables and Other Little Tales (1953). I understand the works in both books about equally--that is, very little. These works are all in prose, and most of them are one page in length. A few of them of which I start to get a sense are "Something to Tell People," "A Man with a Tree on his Head," "Mrs Pinch & a Bad Mister Man," "The Fall," "Mr and Mrs Mildred Pump," and "If I Remember." There seems to be a good deal of interrelation in the works: items and phrases from earlier works recur in later ones. The modality of this work seems to be dream and dreamlike association. I do not get a sense of the relation of the visual art to the literature here. I am also unsure in what sense "fable" applies to this collection.

1969 Why the Jackal Won't Speak to the Hedgehog. A Tunisian folktale retold and illustrated by Harold Berson. Dust jacket. NY: The Seabury Press. $3 from The Book House on Grand, July, '94.

A pleasing, simple sideways book about choosing what is above ground or in it. The hedgehog twice sets the choice, and the jackal twice misses his chance. Faced with harvesting the wheat, the jackal chooses what is in the ground. The onion harvest finds him intending to learn from his bad choice, and so he picks what is above ground. The charming illustrations in blue, black, and white evoke Berson's time of living in Tunisia.

1969/70 A Book of Fables and Stories.  E.F. Dodd and W.W.S. Bhasker.  Paperbound.  Madras: Simple Graded Readers: Macmillan.  €7 from Versandantiquariat Robert A. Mueller, Hanover through ZVAB, June, '18.

As the preface declares, this pamphlet of 39 pages "consists of five well-known Fables and five original stories.  Each story illustrates a moral."  The level of vocabulary and sentence structure is adapted to pupils who have had two or three years of English.  First published in 1969, it was reprinted in 1970.  The telling of OF is unusual.  Two young frogs who think that their mother is the biggest creature in the world see a bull for the first time and report it to her.  She also thinks that she is the biggest creature in the world!  She pops before them.  "The two frogs looked everywhere for their mother but they couldn't find her.  She had burst!"  The partnered story has Raju trying to build the biggest house in the world in a village in India; it falls down in a storm.  For LM, the matching story has the boy Ganesh remove a thorn from a dog's paw.  The next day, the dog finds Ganesh lost in the woods and leads him home.  Other stories include TH, FC, and DS.  Each story has one or two simple black-and-white cartoons.

1969/73 John Gay Fables: 1727 and 1738. Illustrated by William Kent and John Wooton/Hubert François Gravelot. A Scolar Press Facsimile. Second printing. Dust-jacket. Hardbound. Yorkshire/London: The Scolar Press. $30 from Serendipity Books, Berkeley, Jan., '11.

I am surprised that I have not run into this fine book earlier. It presents two books in one, the first printings of both editions of Gray's fables. Its dates are thus 1727 and 1738. The illustrations may not be as fine as in an original copy, but they are remarkably clean. There are a few pen markings that get reproduced with the rest, e.g., on the title-page of the first volume. One can also find a library stamp on 51 of the second volume. This is a very nicely constructed book!

1969/73 May I Come In? By Theodore Clymer and Doris Gates. Various illustrators. Level 5. Series 360. Lexington, MA: Ginn and Company. Gift of Linda Schlafer, Nov., '92.

This reader for the early grades has two fables in its "Old Tales" section (155): GA and TMCM, the latter told as two stories. The art is simple and colorful. See 187 for "New Tales" contrasting with the old fables.

1969/78 Stories from Panchatantra: Book IV. Retold by Shivkumar. Illustrated by Pulak Biswas. Seventh printing. New Delhi: The Children's Book Trust. $2.95 at Powell's, Portland, March, '96.

Like Book II of the series (1966/78), this volume collects six good stories. The illustrations here rely on blue, brown, and a burnt red. Perhaps the best illustration shows the guest mosquito about to bite the king's neck (54-55); also good is the full cover picture of the chase after the blue jackal. There are two curious differences in the telling of standard stories here. The three thieves tell the man with the gift-goat that it is, respectively, a dog, a calf, and a donkey (18); I would have thought that the point of the story lies in the force of a repeated (not a varied) lie. And the mosquito finds in the king's bedroom a whole family of bugs that have been feeding on him undetected (49); Ramsay Wood's version speaks by contrast of "The Bedbug and the Flea." The best story-twist comes in "The Thief's Sacrifice" (36). This book and its companion volume are among those things that may have wandered a long way to come into this collection.

1969/82 Stories from Panchatantra, Book IV. Retold by Shivkumar. Illustrated by Pulak Biswas. Hardbound. New Delhi: The Children's Book Trust. $3.95 from Feldman's Books, Menlo Park, CA, Jan., '13.

This book is almost identical with another found some seventeen years ago. That copy of the 1969 original was printed in 1978, while this one was printed in 1982. The front cover here removes the distinctive red ink from the word "Panchatantra" in the title and adds a logo and "New Delhi Children's Book Trust" to Lotus Books and its logo, both also changed from red to black. This copy adds an element to the bottom of the back cover: E 041 and a price of 11.50 Rupis. This price, by the way, has been crossed out and changed to 15 Rupis! Internally, I find only two differences on the verso of the title-page. The original price of 7.5 Rupis has been removed, and the two printings since 1978 have been added. As I wrote there, like Book II of the series (196June, '78), this volume collects six good stories. The illustrations here rely on blue, brown, and a burnt red. Perhaps the best illustration shows the guest mosquito about to bite the king's neck (54-55); also good is the full cover picture of the chase after the blue jackal. There are two curious differences in the telling of standard stories here. The three thieves tell the man with the gift-goat that it is, respectively, a dog, a calf, and a donkey (18); I would have thought that the point of the story lies in the force of a repeated (not a varied) lie. And the mosquito finds in the king's bedroom a whole family of bugs that have been feeding on him undetected (49); Ramsay Wood's version speaks by contrast of "The Bedbug and the Flea." The best story-twist comes in "The Thief's Sacrifice" (36). These two books and their companion volume are among those things that may have wandered a long way to come into this collection. 

1969/84 The Miller, the Boy and the Donkey. Brian Wildsmith. Hardbound. Toronto: Oxford University Press. $0.25 from Milwaukee Public Library, August, '00.

This 1984 printing has changed from the original book in 1969. The cover material and layout have changed. The paper quality has improved. The printing site has changed from Austria to Hong Kong. Let me repeat my comments from there. Perhaps most instructive for following a version of the fable that has the carrying of the donkey as the first stage. The beast ends up getting sold. The colored illustrations are big and splashy, but I do not see much wit in them.

1969/87 Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse. Leo Lionni. Part of Frederick and His Friends, a set of four books and a tape. NY: Dragonfly Books: Alfred A. Knopf. $1.25 at Heartwood, Charlottesville, VA, April, '92.

More pictures here than in my Frederick's Fables (1985), but the colors are not as lively. I catch one slight change from "Alexander" to "he." This is a marvelous story of love and of dreams come true. Bravo, Alexander, and bravo, Leo!

1969/90 La Oveja negra y demás fábulas. Augusto Monterroso. Paperbound. Edición original: Joaquín Mortiz, 1969. Primera edición en Biblioteca Era. Printed and made in Mexico. Mexico City: Ediciones Era. $.38 at Olsson's, Alexandria, May, '96.

The texts are those which Bradbury translated in The Black Sheep and Other Fables (1971) and they follow the same order; see my comments there. For an illustrated edition in Spanish, see 1981. There is a torn patch on the back cover where a label was perhaps hastily removed. How often does one find great literature waiting on the "reduced" cart outside the store--and in fact as the first book in line?

 

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