Chocolat-Menier II · Carlson Fable Collection

Title

Chocolat-Menier II

Description

1950? Les Fables de La Fontaine: Collection des Vignettes du Chocolat-Menier, Vignettes Nos 91 a 222. Hardbound. Paris/Noisiel, France: Chocolat-Menier. €17.50 from Librairie de l'Avénue, St. Ouen, Paris, August, '14.

The good luck of finding a complete two-volume set of these albums has led me to include this set among the books of the collection, while another complete set remains among the objects. Here 132 numbered cards are pasted in around La Fontaine's text. The cartoons remain delightfully Disneyesque. I enjoy the fat weasel who cannot get back out through the hole through which she entered (#108-12). In this book, the number of cards per fable and their sizes vary from presentation to presentation. The images of the beetle hammering eggs and throwing eggs out of the nest (#180) are wonderful! The pages here have subtle images of the appropriate fable done in light brown ink behind the black ink of the text. The front cover of the work features a bear watching TT and a coach and fly. A fox, rabbit, and tree are fellow spectators. The back cover has many animals either carrying Menier chcolate products or admiring a young woman painting a bilboard for Menier chocolates. On the last page, one reads how to get cards from the Menier Company. One gets a desired card by sending in three others! With this system, Menier could have gone on forever sending people the cards they needed! A laid-in paper announces "Conditions d'Échanges" and mentions a special Paris office for Chocolat-Menier vignettes. This album is in fair condition. One can also find this album listed as a book under "1950?", as well as individual Menier slips identical with individual slips in this album.