Illustrated Fables

Title

en_US Illustrated Fables

Description

en_US This is a hardbound book (hard cover)

en_US By Albert Welles

Creator

en_US Welles, Albert

Date

2016-01-25T16:30:20Z

en_US 1999-08

en_US 1880

Date Available

2016-01-25T16:30:20Z

Date Issued

en_US 1880

Abstract

en_US A lovely gold-embossed green cover features several creatures around a lion encircled by Illustrated Fables. The spine of this book has been reconstructed with duct tape, and the pages are threatening to come loose. Perhaps blank pages have already been lost at the beginning and end. The first page greeting the eye is a pre-title-page saying Welles' Illustrated Fables. The 249 pages contain forty-one illustrations, of which there is a list on v. A wide ranging proem claims that Knowledge obtained from Fables is to the mind what agreeable exercise is to the body and, referring to Jesus, that the parables are all fables. These verse fables are frequently from Aesop, but there are also plenty that are new, at least to me, starting with the first, in which the hungry fox disguises himself as a fortune-teller and offers stupid geese a chance to go off and see the world with his help. Illustrations seem to come from either J.E. Ridinger (who is perhaps just an engraver?) and Ernest Griset. The former tends to illustrate the new fables, e.g. The Unhappy Marriage (20), The Animals on a Spree (25), and The Elephant and the Foxes (84). Not all here is fable; note, e.g., the invocation to God on 24 and the dirge on 64. Reading the first hundred pages of these fables has me thinking that they quickly become tedious and preachy and, when they seem new, actually revert to standard fable themes. Thus the marten kills the boasting peacock (32), the other birds reject the falcon's finery when they learn that he belongs to a master (46), the wolf pursuing a hare is caught by a trap and pleads that the hare has been unfair to him (51), the wolf who has taken the hare back to his lair intending to kill him dies first while lying outside his lair among snakes (75), and the stingy squirrel saves up a vast treasure of nuts to entrust to her son but he just squanders them prodigally (98).

Identifier

en_US 3239 (Access ID)

uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10504/78626

Language

en_US eng

Publisher

en_US James Miller Publisher,

en_US New York

Subject

en_US PN982.W45 1880

en_US Title Page Scanned

Type

en_US Book, Whole