The Fables of La Fontaine

Title

en_US The Fables of La Fontaine

Description

en_US Original language: fre

en_US Elizur Wright

Creator

en_US Gibbs, J.W.M.

Date

2016-01-25T19:54:09Z

en_US 2008-02

en_US 2004

Date Available

2016-01-25T19:54:09Z

Date Issued

en_US 2004

Abstract

en_US This volume is symptomatic of where book publishing is going these days. This 7½ x 9¼ paperback book of 432 pages reproduces the texts of Wright's edition of 1881 in good, accessible form. It does so without a single illustration and in a style that looks as though it has come straight off the computer. I was lucky to find this copy for a very reasonable price on the web, since it normally sells for almost six times that price. Before I mention some of the characteristics of the 1881 edition that is reproduced here, let me mention a few characteristics of this 2004 edition. (I could not find a date in this book, so I went to Amazon.com and found the 2004 publishing date.) One curiosity of this editon is that it has two T of C's at the beginning. Why? The first looks more like the final printer's table. The second looks like a web-produced table that the printer worked from. Contrast the formatting in the two. Both have the strange anomaly that footnote numbers are placed not only in the text but also in brackets just after the title of the fable. The preface in this 1881 edition traces the history of Wright's translation. After six quick editions in Boston (1841-3) and one small-type edition in London at the same time, there had been nothing till this edition in 1881. In fact, there had been only one other translator of the complete LaFontaine's fables into English during that time (Thornbury), and the preface finds that translation inferior to Wright's. This edition embodies the corrections but not the expurgations of the sixth edition (see my 1843 copy); in fact the preface presents the five fables that Wright, under some duress, substituted for the expurgated LaFontaine fables in that sixth edition. The preface continues with a nice account of Wright's life. For some reason, Page 9 gives a date of 1882. It mentions both notes and J.W.M. Gibbs, but does not make clear if they are his notes.

Identifier

en_US 9781419161735

en_US 6359 (Access ID)

uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10504/81686

Language

en_US eng

Publisher

en_US Kessinger Publishing

en_US Whitefish, MT

Subject

en_US PQ1811.E3 W6 2004

en_US Jean de La Fontaine

en_US Title Page Scanned

Type

en_US Book, Whole