Aesop's Fables > Books of Fables > Series Books > Lito Collection "Fabliaux"

Lito Collection "Fabliaux"

 

Here is one of a series of some eighteen pamphlets.  I am surprised at the title "Fabliaux" since the stories included in the collection are all fables.  There are two sets.  The original set of twelve booklets each features one story.  The story title is prominent on the cover, with "La Fontaine" in block letters smaller than the larger story title.  The booklets in the collection are listed on the page facing the title-page.  Apparently, there was a first set of six done in 1975.  The six were republished along with six others in 1980.  The inside covers and first and last pages in these two series include a series of faces of the characters involved in the booklets of that six-book series, and the series is identical at the front and back of each booklet.

The six booklets in the second group feature two stories apiece.  "La Fontaine" is featured on the cover, with the two stories listed in smaller print below.  The booklets in this second series share the same endpapers and the same last page.  They were published in 1981.  That last page has the list of the eighteen booklets in the series and the same illustration featuring characters from several fables.  My work as a collector is cut out for me, especially to find further booklets from the first set! 

1975 La Fontaine: Le renard et la cigogne. Illustrations de Michèle Danon-Marcho. Paperbound. Joinville-Le-Pont: Collection "Fabliaux": Editions Lito-Paris. $7.50 from Marie Gervais, St.-Urbain-Premier, Quebec, Canada, through eBay, Nov., '11.

In this pamphlet's sixteen pages, Danon-Marcho offers a lively presentation of the fable. The facial expressions at the first meal of both wise-guy fox and disappointed stork are excellent. A mouse makes it into every scene, even riding the pendulum on the grandfather-clock as the fox enters the stork's house. The fox's frustration is perfectly expressed as he approaches his vase; the editors wisely put a detail of this scene onto the title-page. On the last pair of pages, La Fontaine makes an appearance to give the two-line lesson to children. In that scene, the mouse wears spectacles and reads a page. 

1980 La Fontaine: Le savetier et le financier.  Jean de La Fontaine.  Illustrations de Michèle Danon-Marcho.  Paperbound.  Joinville-Le-Pont: Collection "Fabliaux":  Editions Lito-Paris.  $5.25 from Marie Gervais, St.-Urbain-Premier, Quebec, Canada, through eBay, Oct., '16.

In this pamphlet's sixteen pages, Danon-Marcho offers a lively presentation of the fable on two-page spreads.  As Gregoire sings, his cat is happy.  As the financial man scowls, his dog is worried.  Gregoire is a redhead with a handlebar moustache.  As he is overcome by money cares, we see the cat carrying off his moneybag.  There is no need for further comment when we see Gregoire running back to the banker asking for his songs and his sleep back.

1980 La Fontaine: L'ours et les deux compagnons.  Jean de La Fontaine.  Illustrations de Michèle Danon-Marcho.  Paperbound.  Joinville-Le-Pont: Collection "Fabliaux":  Editions Lito-Paris.  $5.25 from Marie Gervais, St.-Urbain-Premier, Quebec, Canada, through eBay, Oct., '16.

In this pamphlet's sixteen pages, Danon-Marcho offers a lively presentation of the fable on two-page spreads.  As the two hunters make their pitch, we see their hands, the furrier's head, and the bear -- already marked up as by a tailor -- scowling.  The next scene takes us already to the moment of the bear's approach, where we see one companion on the ground.  We see only the shoe of the other companion in the crook of a tree branch.  La Fontaine's bear noses around the body's orifices and declares that this corpse stinks.  Danon-Marcho offers a great final picture on the back cover.  Is the bear waving good-bye or good riddance?

1980 La Fontaine: Le cochet, le chat et le souriceau.  Jean de La Fontaine.  Illustrations de Michèle Danon-Marcho.  Paperbound.  Joinville-Le-Pont: Collection "Fabliaux":  Editions Lito-Paris.  $5.25 from Marie Gervais, St.-Urbain-Premier, Quebec, Canada, through eBay, Oct., '16.

In this pamphlet's sixteen pages, Danon-Marcho offers a lively presentation of the fable on two-page spreads.  All the animals are colorfully clothed.  The most prominent physical feature is the cat's green eyes.  The most dramatic image is of the seizure of mice that does not happen in this case.  The little mouse's blue and white striped outfit is particularly well rendered.

1981 La Fontaine: Le laboureur et ses enfants, Le pot de terre et le pot de fer. Illustrations de Maya Filip. Paperbound. Joinville-Le-Pont: Collection "Fabliaux": Editions Lito-Paris. $5.20 from Marie Gervais, St.-Urbain-Premier, Quebec, Canada, through eBay, Sept., '06.

This first find from the series contains "The Laborer and His Sons" and 2P. La Fontaine's texts are presented straight, a few lines per page, with accompanying footnotes for antiquated vocabulary. The artwork is colorful and even caricatured. Unusually, I think, for this fable, one of the three "Enfants" is a young woman. She busily scatters seed. That illustration appears reversed on the back cover. The spread showing that they have learned that "work is the treasure" shows the three children enjoying a beer together! In 2P, Filip does some of her best work with the right hand of the clay pot, on the cover and in the story's first image. The pots' shoes are also a nice artistic touch. The poor clay pot is just a heap of pieces in the last image of the story!

1981 La Fontaine: Le loup et la cigogne, la tortue et les deux canards.  Jean de La Fontaine.  Illustrations de Ileana Ceausu Pandele.  Paperbound.  Joinville-Le-Pont: Collection "Fabliaux":  Editions Lito-Paris.  $5.25 from Marie Gervais, St.-Urbain-Premier, Quebec, Canada, through eBay, Sept., '16.

The best image in the pamphlet may be the last: the tortoise takes an earthward fall.  On the opposite page a large group of frogs, squirrels, and birds look on.  The crane and the tortoise in their respective fables wear human clothing.  The art has a psychedelic touch.  I think that the art is at its best when facing pages complement each other: the wolf dismisses the crane; the tortoise "flies" over a whole village; and that group of animals witnesses the last fall. 

1981 La Fontaine: Le corbeau et le renard; le petit poisson et le pêcheur.  Illustrations de Maya Filip.  Paperbound.  Joinville-Le-Pont: Collection "Fabliaux":  Editions Lito-Paris.  $5.25 from Marie Gervais, St.-Urbain-Premier, Quebec, Canada, through eBay, Oct., '16.

La Fontaine's texts are presented straight, a few lines per page, with accompanying footnotes for antiquated vocabulary.  The artwork is colorful.  I find each of the two-page spreads in FC strong.  FC breaks down into before, during, and after.  The fisherman of the second story cuts a rather strange physical figure, perhaps more professor than fisherman.  The front and back covers feature the main characters of either of the two fables.

1981 La Fontaine: Le loup, la chèvre et le chevreaui; Le renard et l'écureuil.  Jean de La Fontaine.  Illustrations de Violayne Hulne.  Paperbound.  Joinville-Le-Pont: Collection "Fabliaux":  Editions Lito-Paris.  $5.25 from Marie Gervais, St.-Urbain-Premier, Quebec, Canada, through eBay, Oct., '16.

La Fontaine's texts are presented straight, a few lines per page, with accompanying footnotes for antiquated vocabulary.  Hulne does an exquisite job of rendering the wolf's eye in the small opening allowed in the goats' door.  In the case of La Fontaine's first fable here, the wolf has the password but not the proper paw.  Better two proofs than one!  The second fable comes from outside La Fontaine's traditional twelve books.  Fox mocks squirrel, but squirrel learns not to mock the fox, chastened by his own experience of mockery.  The art in this second fable is studiedly primitive.  The best illustration contrasts the fox in his lair with the squirrel experiencing the worst of the storm up in the high branches.

1981 La Fontaine: La belette entrée dans un grenier; Le singe et le chat.  Jean de La Fontaine.  Illustrations de Violayne Hulne.  Paperbound.  Joinville-Le-Pont: Collection "Fabliaux":  Editions Lito-Paris.  $5.25 from Marie Gervais, St.-Urbain-Premier, Quebec, Canada, through eBay, Oct., '16.

La Fontaine's texts are presented straight, a few lines per page, with accompanying footnotes for antiquated vocabulary.  Hulne does an exquisite job of rendering both the narrow slit through which the weasel enters the cellar and the tummy that prevents her from getting out again.  Similarly Hulne underscores La Fontaine's particular point in his presentation of the second fable.  Bertrand the Monkey is throwing chestnuts happily in the air as a maid with a broom chases Raton the Cat away.  Princes only hurt themselves in doing the bidding of flattering kings.

1981 La Fontaine: L'Âne et le petit chien; Le chat et le renard.  Jean de La Fontaine.  Illustrations de Ceausu Pandele.  Paperbound.  Joinville-Le-Pont: Collection "Fabliaux":  Editions Lito-Paris.  $5.25 from Marie Gervais, St.-Urbain-Premier, Quebec, Canada, through eBay, Oct., '16.

La Fontaine's texts are presented straight, a few lines per page, with accompanying footnotes for antiquated vocabulary.  Perhaps Pandele's best illustration in the first fable contrasts the dog being picked up and smiling at the lady of the house with the ass who looks on from afar.  Also good is the ass's facial expression in the fable's last scene.  This is after all one of La Fontaine's strong studies in psychology.  The characters in "The Cat and the Fox" wear human clothes.  La Fontaine makes both characters in this fable hypocrites who use their "pilgrimage" to steal food along the way.  A good image here has the two facing each other angrily as they argue over the merits of their escape plans.  In the subsequent picture, the cat above hugs a branch of a tree while the fox tries in vain to escape the oncoming dogs.

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