Aesop's Fables > Books of Fables > Series Books > P.M. Productions Aesop's Fables

P.M. Productions Aesop's Fables

 

1930? The Jackdaw and the Peacocks.  Paperbound.  London and Letchworth: Aesop's Fables #4:  P.M. Publications.  £3.73 from Agrippa Goredema, London, through eBay, Feb., '14.

This is one of four four-page cardboard books found -- luckily! -- on eBay.  After a full cover picture, each booklet puts a rectangle of text inside a frame of a subsequent image on each of the next three pages.  Here the cover shows a peacock looking down in disdain on a jackdaw with peacock feathers in his tail.  The comment from the rejecting jackdaws when he returns to them is better articulated than it is in most versions of this story: "Had you been contented with what nature made you, you would not have been punished by your superiors and your equals would not despise you now."  This jackdaw had tied some feathers to his tail.

1930? The Fox and the Grapes.  Paperbound.  London and Letchworth: Aesop's Fables #3:  P.M. Publications.  £3.73 from Agrippa Goredema, London, through eBay, Feb., '14.  

This is one of four four-page cardboard books found -- luckily! -- on eBay.  After a full cover picture, each booklet puts a rectangle of text inside a frame of subsequent images on each of the next three pages.  Here the cover shows a proud fox strutting with a cane, but we learn that he is very poor and very hungry.  The second page shows him frustrated at being unable to get into a locked henhouse.  The grapes he finds are at the top of a vineyard wall.  He makes many jumps and one last desperate effort.  "Well, I never did care for sour grapes, which I am sure they are."

1930? The King of the Frogs.  Paperbound.  London and Letchworth: Aesop's Fables #2:  P.M. Publications.  £3.73 from Agrippa Goredema, London, through eBay, Feb., '14.

This is one of four four-page cardboard books found -- luckily! -- on eBay.  After a full cover picture, each booklet puts a rectangle of text inside a frame of subsequent images on each of the next three pages.  Here Jupiter gets angry and wants to give the frogs a lesson.  He will not listen when the frogs plead through Mercury to save them from the stork sent as their king.  Moral: "Leave well enough alone."  Every illustration here repays attention.  Human dress enriches all three first illustrations.  Human weeping and pleading and Jupiter's angry glance at the frogs enrich the fourth picture.

1930? The Hare and the Tortoise.  Paperbound.  London and Letchworth: Aesop's Fables #1:  P.M. Publications.  £3.73 from Agrippa Goredema, London, through eBay, Feb., '14.

This is one of four four-page cardboard books found -- luckily! -- on eBay.  After a full cover picture, each booklet puts a rectangle of text inside a frame of subsequent images on each of the next three pages.  Here the prize of the wager is a dinner and the hare sleeps until it is dark.  The best of the illustrations is the last, which features various dressed animals laughing at the embarrassed hare.